Becoming a Professional Photographer - Part Two
You’ve already decided that the freedom of working for yourself, the passion of photography, and the joy that comes from creating lifetime memories outweighs the hard work, long hours, work-life-questionable-balance and struggle that comes with your own photography business. I’m not going to lie - it’s not all roses… but obviously I have decided that the benefits far outweigh those drawbacks, even at the worst of times.
But what should you actually do to be a professional? Here is what most photographers do:
Get a nice camera
Take a ton of pictures, post them, and get told they should be a professional
Start a facebook page and instagram account for your photography
Offer free sessions to friends and family so you have something to post on your new facebook page
Realize how much work is involved, and decide to start charging for those sessions. But base your prices on what your family says they would pay…. we’ll say $50/session for now.
Feel bad asking the same people you gave free sessions to before to now pay you, continue doing them for free or deeply discounted, and resent every time they ask you to take their pictures… OR charge them and have them resent you because they “helped you build your business”
Join a billion photographer facebook groups and post questions about how to move from doing sessions for free for friends and family to charging them. Get a lot of answers the won’t help you.
Start getting clients that aren’t friends and family by word of mouth, posting in local facebook groups or using tags on instagram.
Get busy. Too busy, because you are still charging $50/session. Get overwhelmed because you are still working your full time job. Start thinking of raising your prices, but fear the change because you will lose clients and friends.
Realize you either need to change what you are doing, or stop doing photography.
You would be hard pressed to find a photographer that didn’t go through that process to some extent. Some may have jumped the trend at about step 6/7 and went to school for photography, but most photographers follow through until step 10 before seriously committing to changing their business practices. This is why so many photographers don’t make it. It is not because there isn’t enough work to go around. It is not because people will only pay $50/session for their memories and you won’t be able to get clients if you charge more. It is not because you will always have to work for free or not at all.
There is a better way! You need to jump off that trend above, and I would definitely encourage you to do things a little more legally (like registering for a business before starting to charge people - or even before starting your facebook/instagram accounts - I am not a lawyer, and am not going to be giving legal advice - please see engaged legal for that - she’s amazing!). But here are a few things you can do differently, that will help in the long run:
Give those friends and family gift certificates for sessions. This still keeps their sessions free, while also giving it a value.
Research your cost of doing business (CODB) - yeah, it’s numbers and work and it’s not fun, but it is so incredibly important. Make sure you know what you would want your income to be if you were doing photography full time. Figure out how much it costs to run a photography business - including the 30% taxes that small businesses get charged, and any equipment upgrades you want in the next year.
Call your starting prices “Introductory Prices” and put a time limit on it - for the first 6 months or year of your business while you are building your portfolio. Let your clients/friends/family know that your prices will be increasing from the start.
Offer model call sessions, where you can dictate the outfits, locations and style of session you want so you are truly photographing what you love and want to do more of, instead of taking anything that comes your way.
Hire a mentor. There are so many photographers out there that are willing to help others navigate this business. We have worked for years learning all this stuff, and are completely happy to help others avoid the pitfalls we have found ourselves in over the years. Make sure your mentor is someone that has been doing this for more than 3 years, is in the same sort of photography you want to go into (for instance, don’t hire me if you want to be a nature photographer - I don’t know that business), and is successful.
If you don’t have the income to hire a mentor, offer to barter mentoring services for work you can do for them! Busy photographers are usually in some sort of state of “too much to do an not enough time” - helping hands are often welcome! I will often barter office help with one mentoree a year.
Work as an assistant or second shooter for a photographer - this works for most types of photography. Newborn photographers often need assistants, and wedding photographers often need both assistants or second photographers. Please know that until you have the skill level they need for their second photographers, you may be an unpaid assistant… but you will learn so much it’s well worth it.
What do you think? Did I miss anything? Leave questions, comments and awesome ideas below!
If you are interested in mentoring with Becca Sutherland, please fill out the form at the bottom of the “Photographers” page.
