There are so many different and diverse ways to make money with photography that it should be possible for anyone with a passion for photography and the right skillset to carve out a profitable niche if they do it properly.

For our purposes, a niche is a specialist genre of photography that you can call your own, where your skills and knowledge enable you to create photography that people are happy to pay for because it provides them with real value.

Let’s briefly look at 30 specialist areas of photography. This is a non-exhaustive list. The point of it is to highlight the breadth of opportunities that exist for creating a photography business.

In no particular order…

Interior photography is anything to do with making the inside of buildings look good including houses, hotels, shops, bars and any other commercial or residential properties. You can work for real estate agents, interior designers, builders or architects.

Architecture photography. This means you shoot the outside of buildings, mainly for the people who designed and built them.

Art photography. Photographers make money by selling their photos as art, from a small stall on a local market to getting represented by a gallery.

Press photographers work on assignment for magazines and newspapers to create images to accompany stories they are featuring.

Portrait photography. This ranges from corporate portrait photography, LinkedIn headshot photography, actors headshots, dating, families, children and a lot more. Taking photos of people is a great way to make money with photography.

Becoming a Google Trusted Photographer means you get paid by businesses who want to provide a virtual tour of their premises in Google Maps.

Product photography: taking photos of makeup bottles, electronics, jewellery and a whole lot more.

Fashion photography. There is a whole lot of photography you can get paid for in the world of fashion, working with small companies and mega brands.

School photographers take photos of kids in schools on an either large scale or small scale.

Event photography, including corporate and social events.

Graduation photography. Every year thousands of people graduate. They all want a photo to record their special moment.

Cruise ship photography. It’s a fact, most cruise ships have a photographer on board.

Entering competitions and winning money.

Music photography. Everything from shooting live gigs to creating images for bands.

Taking photos of performers, actors and comedians for promotional posters.

Creating book covers for novels.

Wedding photography is an obvious one. And there are multiple styles and approaches to it. It is the biggest market for photography in the UK.

Horse photography for people who own these animals. The right clients spend thousands on huge prints to display in their homes.

Garden photographers. Everything from documenting plants to working for stately homes

Sports photography, including specialising in any type of sport form golf to surfing. Covering competitions and matches.

Dance photography, both for professionals and people aspiring to be dancers. This could be either images for the performer to promote themselves, or to be used to promote a dance company’s performance.

Stock photography. A common way people think of making money with photography. Essentially it’s about creating images and selling them to stock libraries and you get paid every time that image gets used.

Wildlife photography. Some lucky people get to spend days on cold, damp hillsides to get images of elusive animals which get published.

Fitness photography including shooting professional athletes, amateur sports enthusiasts and people who work in the industry as trainers.

Pet photography is definitely a thing, most likely creating images of people’s much loved dogs.

Theatre photography for promoting and documenting plays and shows.

Advertising photographers shoot images for brands who want to convey a message with photography. They work on a brief and can command huge fees. Usually these photographers are represented by agencies

News photography. Can you set up connections with press agencies and get your images of newsworthy things happening out there to them in a timely manner?

Photojournalism is about finding and creating interesting stories with images and words and being published in a magazine, newspaper or website and you receiving payment for that.

Food photography. Chefs, food writers, recipe book publishers, restaurants and cafes all need appealing images of their food. Someone gets paid to take those photos.

Photographers are making a good living for themselves in each of those genres and many more that I’ve not listed. What each of those photographers will have done is carve out their own niche within that genre.

Every genre of photography can be further subdivided, for example:

Location: where you offer your services

Style: the way your photos look

Positioning: high end or budget, older or younger audience, businesses or individual clients

Segment: most genres can be further broken down into even more specialist areas. Dance can be ballet, contemporary or ballroom. Food photography can be recipe books, restaurants or organic. Sport photography can be golf, mountaineering or hockey.

What’s missing from the list?