Theres no money in photography

And hasn't been for over a decade now or more. And yet we live in an image rich world and the media are always looking for the right shot. So if you're in the right place at the right time for news journalism, that is one avenue.

Back in the day, I worked in a commercial studio. The bread & butter work was product shots for advertising features and brochures. Repetitive studio work but paid bills.

There's a living to be made from photography but it's not easy and you're going to be taking photos of things that aren't nice or are hard to photograph. You have to be a confident, a good communicator, clear, articulate and good at making people comfortable in you and your cameras presence. You get the odd nice gig that comes up, one that really suits your style and those shots shine.

Graphic design qualifications & a decent grasp of video & editing will help.

One of the main challenges is the volume of competition & getting your work found.

If you have a website, you're a needle in a haystack. And if you have photos on a commercial site (Getty, Fineartamerica etc.) you're a larger needle still in a haystack.

Then you have to ask, do your photo appeal to the masses. Abstract is my favourite style but it's not for the masses (unless you're already famous). I have some photos on Fine Art America and get the odd sale, some of the hurling ones here and (like someone above) this was licenses through Getty for BT for a few years.

I've had a few exhibitions in cafes and these would normally get a few sales. It's as much joy in seeing your photos in public & the pride in knowing that someone likes your photo enough to buy it as the money from the sale, which isn't anything big. You could always charge an exorbitant price for photos in an exhibition, this actually makes them more appealing to some.

I'll do the odd birthday, communion, wedding but these are just for friends or friends of friends.

All of above is for non-full time photographers. If you want to go fulltime, it's a different discussion and a long slog to get your name known.

But, to summarize, I agree with the OP & others. You could spend an evening (or two) uploading to some commercial sites, paying special attention to the key words) and approach some cafes but don't expect a big return.

I know one reasonably successful photographer. They spend as much time socializing and networking as they do working. Because it's those long standing social contacts they get work through. They do some work outside of Ireland as well. They've been at it long time. Perhaps it's harder now.

You don't need a professional photographer to record you fingering yourself. Any decent smartphone will do the job.

Funeral photography is a thing, maybe not so much in Ireland, though (which is surprising, given how much of a social occasion they are here).

There's plenty of niches for professional photography, finding one and whether they pay well is another matter. There's a charity in the UK that provides remembrance photography services to parents who have suffered the death of a baby before, during or just after birth, where they take family pictures of the parents and the deceased child. It may sound macabre on first hearing it, but this is the only chance that family have to have a photographic memento of the child they lost, so it's a big deal for some. At the other end of the scale, I remember coming across one photographer who specialised in boudoir with a large white python. So women came to her for tasteful shots in their best underwear, and she had the snake that would be used as a prop, and this appealed to a particular clientele (mainly goths, I'd say).

I'm purely a hobbyist myself (thankfully). I know two people that got into professional studio/event photography. One gave up his office job and ploughed a considerable chunk of savings into a studio in his garage in one of our smaller cities. He lasted about a year before he went back to an office job. I'd say this is the story with most people who give it a go.

The other set himself up in my town with a rented studio. I thought he was mad, as it's not a big place and there were already at least 3 other established and prominent studios in the town (along, I'm sure with plenary of others I didn't know about - Golden Pages lists 24 photographers in the town at the moment). However, his business has thrived, and he managed to keep paying the rent and make a living even during Covid. So fair play to him, he might well be in the minority, but he's doing something right.