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What photography business market segments (niches) are the most profitable?

I look forward to reading all on point comments.
If you can direct me to any resources I would appreciate that as well.
Thanks


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JM

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Even though I'm still a long way from being a pro (currently studying business administration), I would guess you're looking for wedding photography or other on location work. No need to invest in a studio and the equipment that you need there, plus, if you deliver good results, you can charge a large sum of money for a day of shooting...

However, comparing the effort to the pay, I'd say shooting photos for passports and other official identification documents here in Holland is even more profitable. It's just crazy expensive!

- Bjorn -

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I tend to think commercial photography is the most profitable one. But to get projects you need to have great networking skills .

Portrait photography maybe is the easiest to do and always in high demand, but there are a lot of competition.

Wedding is okay business, but comparing the time, effort and responsibility, it is not as good as it sounds.

it is true that many talented/skilled photographers charges quite a lot for wedding package, but generally, it is below US$1000 / wedding.

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I'm far from a professional, but as somebody who has been through a wedding (married a bit over 2 years) as well as someone who has lots of friends and relatives who have been married over the past couple years as well, I can say that, at least in a larger metropolitan area such as Seattle, wedding photographers generally charge between $1500 and $5000 for a wedding package. The cheaper packages usually only include the actual taking of the pictures, and don't include books/prints, and possibly not even a digital copy of all the photos.

Our wedding package was $2500, included 1 (smallish) book, and all of the full size jpgs on DVD. That was for probably 9 total hours of shooting. They included about 1/2 hour at our rehersal (so they knew who it was important to shoot), 1/2 hour engagement session (no prints from that), and about 8 hours on the day of.

Yes, it is lots of work, but I'd say $1000 is on the very low end for somebody in a bigger city.