Help: I’ve started working as a traveling photographer

I often like to joke about my self-employment status with my friends: “Being a freelance photographer is sometimes like being unemployed, but everyone thinks you’re having an incredible creative carrier.” Simply due to the fact, that you often don’t have jobs planned at all and more so, you’ll start digging into activities that can blur, if you’re actually working or just keeping busy (to be honest, this blog might be one of these blurry lines…).
That became more apparent in the last three weeks, since I’m currently working while traveling, for the first time since I’ve started my job as a freelance photographer and the working aspect is kinda important, since I’m planning to claim some of the expenses of this trip around different countries as an investment in my business.

So far, I’ve been up and about for almost three weeks, and I’ve planned at least eight more, before I’m heading back. If I can afford it, I just might keep on traveling for a longer period of time, but I can’t tell yet. Currently, I’m visiting the Canary Islands, not because I’m a sucker for hot weather and beaches (I mean, I just got stung by a Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish today. It has the metal nickname “floating terror”), rather because my family used to take me here back when I was a kid.
Since I have family here, I figured it would be a great starting point, to save money, having established contact with the locals and so on. Maybe even get a local gig, etc. but neither one nor the other turned out as expected.
Getting exhausted of social media platforms
I’ve prepared myself a bunch of new social media platforms to sink my teeth into, I figured it would be a great opportunity to dive into some new ways to promote my pictures. So, I’ve created accounts on reddit, 500px, bluesky, tumbrl and more. Eager to use my “free-time“, to build a presence on those platforms.
It took me one week to quickly realize, I’ve got absolutely no fun doing that. It doesn’t give me any pleasure uploading pictures somewhere just to get a short-lasting boost of acknowledgement from strangers, quickly feeling like a tedious work-routine I would want to avoid.

Combine that with an interesting conversation I had with a friend in San Sebastian de la Gomera, where we were talking about the first world privilege of traveling, and how posting about living a digital nomad lifestyle, or sharing all the amazing food, places and exciting activities one experiences while exploring the world, is kind of a new form of unrecognized social status bragging of overly privileged white western citizens (which I’m, duh).
Which also didn’t help me to get hyped to post about all my amazing adventures, while many of my friends or people following from countries with a lower income and less credited travel pass, follow their 40-hour week laboring away. So, to summarize, posting more on social media worked out preeeetty great. So how about contract work?
Hard time finding Photo-Gigs in new territory
This one was hardly surprising to be honest, if you want to build a reliable stream of jobs coming in, you’ve to invest time and resources to get a presence in a certain area. Something that is pretty difficult to achieve, if you’re only somewhere for a limited amount of time and literally no one knows who you are or what you do (How dare they!?).
Which is why, I advise others, who begin their freelance journey, to with getting a Google Maps entry. Which gotta be one of the easiest ways to be found by potential customers. But you would need a fixed address, a luxury that I didn’t have.

Methods I tried were writing to architecture offices directly, which didn’t really do anything, but in defense of that strategy, there are almost no architecture offices on the Canary Islands. Asking old friends from the family, if they would need pictures, or knew someone that needs new pictures and registering on a bunch of freelancing platforms.
So far, I mean it’s only been three weeks, none of the above were any effective, but I’m hardly surprised… unless it didn’t work because I expected it to fail in the first place… in that case I’m super astonished none of my brilliant tactics worked!
Keeping busy with stock-image-photography
Finally, I picked up a genre of photography I’vent touched in a long time, stock image photography. Technically, it’s not the best time to dive into this area. Stock-images can get produced by Ai super easy these days and additionally, taking stock images means that one has to compete with professionals, that have fed data banks with thousands and thousands of pictures prior and countless amateurs that give away their images for free.
That being said, it just makes so much sense to visit interesting photogenic locations and just shoot away, take pictures of the historic and beautiful sights. Which in turn brings in tourism and can be a great source of revenue for the locals… if you don’t start to question the general happiness people acclaim in capitalistic environments, but we don’t talk about those things on this blog… for now.
Anyway, stock-image-photography was a great output for me to now lose that workaholic trimmed brain of mine and actually go out explore the city not just for my own enjoyment (because we can’t have “free-time” no, no, no). But speaking of free time:
Almost loosing it in a German tourist resort
One place that almost got me on my knees, was the touristic city of Valle Gran Rey, dominated, even off season, by mostly German Tourists. Family and friends told me countless times, “you’ve to calm down and relax in your vacation“, “you are driven too much and need a breather”, etc., which led me into this modern, post-colonial, German colony.

I was supposed to find clarity and inner calmness in two weeks, that was how long I booked my reservation in the small town at the sunset side of La Gomera. I lasted five days before I hitched a car back to the first city, San Sebastián. For a very simple reason, I just got completely bored. I took my stock image photos already, I’ve been swimming the long beach up and down, I’ve been up in the mountains during the hot midday sun (not my smartest move I must admit).
There was almost nothing for me to do, at least obvious work wise. And while everyone kept telling me, “yeah, perfect, now you are forced to calm down and find inner peace“, I felt like, all the peace I’m going to find here, is at the bottom of a 1 liter dorada pilsner bottle.
I’m going to calm down, my way
Which left me with an important lesson, sometimes it’s not about you, but simply the place you are and the timing you’re visiting the location. There are places where you can find calmness and inner peace, but sometimes you have to look for them, instead of listening to others, where they think you’ll find enlightenment, next to screaming kids running down and up a pool and surrounded by Germans bargaining with souvenir vendors.
My way of inner peace as for now, is to be active and to be driven and to be stressed, I just enjoy it, sue me! Which is why my next stop is going to be Morocco, its major cities, and if I find a place to calm down, down the road, it’s a nice to have, but I’m done stressing myself out, about being stressed out.
And the next person who’s giving me a monolog about finding oneself during travels, gets a jelly fish thrown into their face.
Thank you for reading and if you want to dive deeper into the actual profession, of being a photographer and freelancer, and just what it has in common with dating apps, click here.