Could You Make Money by Organizing People's Photos?

People are taking more photos than ever before. According to Rise Above Research, an estimated 1.6 trillion photos were taken in 2023, an increase of 7.5% over 2022. But along with the daily fun of sharing food photography or taking selfies with friends, all of these photos are becoming a problem. Many families need help with organizing their photo collections.

Cathi Nelson, founder and CEO of The Photo Managers, started a new business -- originally as a side hustle -- to help people organize their photos. Cathi's hobby has become a profitable business and an entirely new industry. She now helps people around the world start side hustles as professional photo managers and organizers.

We interviewed Cathi Nelson to learn more about the world of photo organizing, and how more people could turn their photo organizing skills into a money-making side hustle.

Photo organizing: What it is, how it works, and why it's needed

Similar to scrapbooking, or professional home organizing, sometimes people need help to declutter and digitize their old family photos. Professional photo organizing services can help people back up their online photo collections, print and share their favorite photos in creative ways, and otherwise make sense of the vast realms of digital photography that have become so important to people's memories and to everyday life.

Here are a few types of services that professional photo organizers might offer.

Saving, finding, and sharing your favorite photos

Think of how many photos are stored on your phone or laptop. Do you know which photos you'd most like to keep, get printed and framed, or organize into fun keepsakes to give as gifts? Not everyone is savvy enough about technology, or has time and emotional bandwidth, to do this themselves. Photo organizers can help you find shortcuts and talk you through the process.

Digitizing old family photos

What about your old family photos stored in photo albums and dresser drawers -- what if you had help to get the best photos saved, organized, printed, and shared with the next generation? Professional photo organizers help people create scrapbooks or photo books, or other digital keepsakes like slide decks and videos, to share their family history and happy memories.

Digitizing old photos can be especially important for older adults, or for people who have had a death in the family. If you are trying to clean out Grandma and Grandpa's old house, a photo organizer can help you find good options to save, digitize, and print your family's old photos.

Online backup for digital photos

Sometimes people don't realize how important it is to back up their files. What if your phone or laptop gets lost, damaged, or items are deleted -- are you confident that you have the right online backup for your precious photographic memories? Photo organizers can help with this.

Cathi Nelson got started as a photo organizer after working for a business that sold supplies to scrapbookers. "People in the scrapbook hobby used to buy lots of albums, pens, stickers, and paper, but when digital photography started, people stopped printing their photos and subsequently, stopped using the products I was selling," Cathi Nelson said. "I was an early adopter of the new digital photo technology and it wasn't long before people were asking me to help them make an album with digital photos or teach them how to manage all their photos."

Instead of selling physical products to scrapbookers, Cathi spotted an opportunity to offer professional services -- but with the same overall goal of helping people organize their memories and tell their stories.

"I realized that I could start to earn income by charging a fee for my time as opposed to a product," Cathi said. "So I went from a product-focused business model part-time to a service-based business where people were paying me for my time."

Starting a side hustle as a photo organizer

One of the most profitable side hustles is working as a professional home organizer, and being a photo organizer involves some of those same types of skills. You need to have strong attention to detail and "people skills" to communicate well with the customers.

Cathi Nelson started her photo organizing business as a side hustle, but she quickly started to make significant income.

"In the beginning, I made $500 a week or so and then that kept growing as I got more clients to the point where I was making $2000 to $3,000 a month," Cathi Nelson said. "At that point, I switched to a full-time gig and now it is a full-time business and has expanded considerably."

Cathi Nelson has also written two books on photo management, and founded a professional association for photo managers that has over 700 members worldwide. "We offer courses for hobbyists, a certification program for professional photo managers, and assistance to companies in creating backups and workflows for their images," Cathi said.

Bottom line

If you have a knack for details and digital photo technology, you could put extra money in your bank account by helping people organize their photos. This is an easy side hustle to start, and you can do it while working from your home office. Many people feel confused and overwhelmed by sorting, saving, printing and digitizing their photos, especially when their photos are attached to precious family memories.

With more photos being created each year than ever before, there are opportunities for diligent, detail-oriented, customer-focused people to start a side hustle. You might even be able to build a successful full-time small business as a photo organizer. Learn more about Cathi Nelson and the photo organizing industry at The Photo Managers.