by guest contributor Steven McConnell

Open a photography magazine or a blog and you’re bound to read that today it’s hard – nearly impossible – to make a living as a full-time professional photographer.

Here are some of the reasons you’ll hear as evidence for why becoming a photographer is not a good idea:

“There are too many photographers giving away their work for free”, “too much competition”, “not enough photographers with solid moral values”, “everyone is doing shoot-n-burn”, “too many cheap DSLRs out there”, “everyone is a photographer these days”, “no-one buys prints any more – how can I possibly make money?”, “everyone is on Instagram, Facebook”, etc, etc.

I suspect that these opinions may be nothing more than legitimate-sounding rationalizations for established photographers’ individual business struggles rather than useful critical analyses of what’s really happening in the photography industry.

I decided to write this article because I fear that these opinions may be interpreted by talented, ambitious, passionate amateur photographers as rock-solid reality for what it’s like to be a professional photographer in 2013 – and extinguish their hopes and dreams of ever making their art into a full-time job.

Why Your Passion Can Be Your Job
I’m not about to sugarcoat it for you and say that it’s easy to make a living as a photographer, of course it’s not.

It requires clear thinking, discipline, focus, sacrifice, being a strategist, tactician and a worker-bee all at the same time, being OK with failure, constantly living on the edge, being OK with working 60-70 hour weeks and, most importantly, being committed to personal growth, learning about business and – of course – being the best photographer you can be.

And being able to enjoy every moment of all that.

I think it would be a tragedy if young photographers of today abandoned the idea that their passion and their job can be the same thing and choose to settle for dull, grey corporate jobs which they don’t care about – all because some blogger told them it’s the only plausible option they have if they don’t want to be broke all the time.

In this article, I want to take a closer look at the changes in the photography industry and ask – perhaps the changes we see are not threats to emerging and established photographers, but opportunities in disguise – and how can we take advantage of them to experience success?

Are You In Front Of Your Customers?
Internet. Google. Apple. Social media. Apps. Cloud.

For the purposes of brevity, let me refer to them as The Big 6 for the rest of the article. They’re cliches of the modern day – used so often in conversation and media that they have almost become filler words. But to treat them as such is a mistake.

Right now, your customers’ lives are wrapped around those 6 things in a way they weren’t 3 years ago. And in 3 years from now, their lives will be exponentially more integrated and enmeshed with aspects of the Big 6.

The question is – how much of your photography business is wrapped around them, too – so that you can be in front of, and relevant to, your potential customers?

Examine Your Current Business Model
Let’s have a look at some of the traps:

• Do you own a shopfront studio and pay massive rent, hoping that your return on investment will be foot traffic and brand exposure?
• Do you put up ads in local newspapers and industry magazines?
• Do you give away coupons and offer discounts to stimulate sales?
• Do you offer incentives for referrals?
• Are your prices high because you have a tonne of bills and wages to pay?
• Are you treating prints as your main/only revenue source?
• Are you refusing to offer digital products?
• Is your website simply a fancy brochure?

I’m not saying that those are bad choices. They can work. I’m saying, however, that today they’re lacking power in putting you in front of people who might want your photography. And they might cast you as not relevant to people who would otherwise want your photography.

They’re traditional methods of running a photography business – and unfortunately many photographers are still relying on them as their bread and butter.

These methods however, have nothing to do with the Big 6 – and for you to be competitive they need to be relegated to a position where they supplement your digital online strategies.

READ Part 2 of “Why There’s Never Been A Better Time To Become A Pro Photographer”

About the Author:  Steven McConnell is a family portrait photographer based in Sydney. You can catch up with him on Google+.

Hey! I’m a big believer that a successful photography business begins with an empowering mindset. True, it’s important to be a savvy businessperson and a great photographer, but if your head space is not in a place which empowers you, no clever business ideas and amazing photos are going to carry the day. I find this a fascinating idea to explore because it helps illuminate the reasons behind our successes and failures and offers direct access to a fulfilling, profitable and meaningful job as a professional photographer.

Visit Steven at his WEBSITE | GOOGLE+

 

by guest contributor Steven McConnell

If you were in the business of selling diamonds, pricing would be pretty clear: there are formulas you’d follow which would help you calculate the right sale price based on weight, size, clarity, etc. And you would never think about giving some diamonds away for free “because you’re just starting out”, right?

For photographers, it’s a bit different. Giving away work for free while learning the ropes is quite common (and people differ in their opinion on whether it’s a good idea or not) and the final product – the photograph – could be worth anywhere between nothing and a small fortune.

This raises some interesting questions: when should you start charging for your photos and how much should you charge?

Today I’d like to focus mainly on the first question. I don’t claim to have a definitive answer, but I can share some of the lessons I’ve learned when I was first starting out. There were some traps I successfully avoided and some I avoided by pure luck. I fell into a few traps as well, but I’m hoping to help you not find those.

Hopefully sharing those experiences with you will help you keep your customers happy and help you make money from your art.

Is Working For Free Ever A Good Idea?
Overall, I’m in favour of doing free shoots for friends and family before starting to charge for your work. The main concern which is usually raised against that idea is this:

“But once people know I work for free, they’ll not be willing to pay me money.”

Perhaps, but this concern can be guarded against by being responsible for how you communicate your desire to give away freebies. You must make it clear that you’re giving away (for example) 10 shoots to build your portfolio – and that’s that.

Furthermore, if people somehow did label you as a “free photographer” in their minds, that argument ignores the fact that you’re also building a successful business model.  If you are working on this as well, you will bring in potential customers through organic search, advertising, partnerships, etc who don’t yet know anything about your current campaign of giving away work for free. It’s also a good thing to remember that if you’re expecting to get more customers from within your circle than outside it, you’re not building a strong enough business strategy.

So that argument falls on its face in both instances.

More Reasons To Give Away Some Free Shoots.
Realistically speaking, before people start booking you, they’ll need to see a portfolio of your work which shows off your abilities within your chosen photographic niche.

You also need a website which is rich in photographs. If your site is primarily pages of text with one portfolio page full of photos, it will look odd – and a lot of potential customers will pass you by. In addition to developing your technical skills, you need to have quite a few shoots under your belt just so that you can showcase what you photograph.

Let’s assume at this point that you’re on board with the whole “free shooting” idea, which means your next question is:

“When should I start charging money?”

Like I said at the start, I don’t have an absolute answer for you. But I can share my own journey so that you can decide for yourself how you want to play this game.

My First 10 Shoots: Learning Technical Elements.
Here’s how it unfolded for me. I gave away 3 photography sessions before booking my first paid client. To give you some context, I have been taking photos since a young age – I was developing film and photos in little tubs of chemical at 10 years old.

I hadn’t consistently kept up the hobby since then, so it’s not like I have “20 years of photography under my belt”. Far from it. But I did know how to use a camera outside auto mode, I understood some things about lighting and composition and I was aware of what depth of field was and how it related to aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I also had access to decent gear: a 5DMKII with a 27-70mm f/2.8 lens and I rented additional bits and pieces: an 85mm f/1.2 lens and a Sunbounce reflector.

3 free shoots after refreshing my photography, I decided I was ready for the big, bad world of real clients. When a real client actually did call (wasn’t that an exciting day!), I booked them. In reality I probably wasn’t ready for it, but I got lucky in a sense that during this shoot (and the one after it) all conditions were perfect.

I scouted the areas beforehand so I knew where I’d put people and how light would fall, the weather was perfect (which meant that light fell exactly as I anticipated) and the kids were the most behaved I’ve ever photographed. Looking back, if nature had thrown me a curveball, I probably would have screwed up those shoots tremendously. I just didn’t have the experience to deal with unexpected situations.

Then nature did throw me a curveball on my 6th session. I allowed a client to convince me to do the session closer to midday which made lighting unusual and more difficult, plus the client was in a rush. Even though I had scouted the location as always, I didn’t notice all kinds of weird branches, fences and buildings cluttering up the backgrounds. Add to it an extraordinarily windy day which made using the reflector impossible and a kid who was just not having a good day.

At the time I thought that the photos turned out OK despite all the problems, but looking back at them now, I feel it’s the one shoot where I didn’t deliver the goods.

If I had to summarise my first 10 shoots, I’d say this: my brain was mainly occupied with technical elements of photography. I was learning to use the camera to a point of relatively unconscious competence and I was constantly thinking about lighting, compositions, white balance and posing people.

This meant that I always delivered a bunch of photos to my clients which were good technically (and clients always said “great photos, thank you!”), but when I look at them critically now, the weakness I see is that many of them lacked creative expression and a connection with my subjects.

Consistency was also a weak point – if I delivered 50 photos then maybe 15 of them were what I’d call “gems” while the rest just nice little snapshots.

Between 10-20 Shoots: Learning To Interact With Subjects.
After the first 10 shoots, a big shift happened.

I felt more free to have my head up away from the camera – and my headspace opened up to the point where 90% of my brain power wasn’t taken up by keeping track of f-stops, shutter speed, direction of light, DOF and worrying about how I’m doing. This is where the idea of forming connections with my subjects stared to sink in. I began to experience myself not as a photographer, but as a guy responsible for creating a good time with people and also capturing those moments of happiness.

I stopped being afraid of my subjects. I became more relaxed which, in turn, made them more relaxed. I became more interested in the lives of my subjects and I’d ask questions not just to make small talk, but because I genuinely was curious about it and wanted to bring it out and capture it during the photoshoot.

I started to have a lot more fun during the sessions – and, funnily enough – so did the clients.

We have so much fun these days that it’s one of the ways I distinguish ourselves from our competition. We literally aim to give our clients a quality day out with their family – and some amazing photos to go along with it.

I also began to learn how to deal with people better. If a kid was not having a good day I’d know when to back off and give him some space and when to be firm. In the past, I’d just plough ahead and push people way past their comfort zone – just so I’d “get more shots in”.

In Conclusion
If I was to start all over again, I’d make myself wait until I felt that transition at around the 10 shoots mark. I got away with one dissatisfied customer purely through a combination of luck and huge amounts of preparation.

I think at the very least you need to have enough experience under your belt so that you can be more present with your subjects (rather than with the blinking numbers on your camera) and so that when something goes wrong, you know how to deal with it.

I think when you feel that transition, you become more of an artist than a camera operator, which means the quality of photographs you produce will take a giant leap forward as well. This in turn means that you’ll have more raving fans, rather than merely satisfied ones.

Considering how stiff the competition is, you can’t afford to have any other customers other than the raving type!

About the Author:  Steven McConnell is a family portrait photographer based in Sydney. You can catch up with him on Google+

 

by guest contributor Jennifer Tonetti-Spellman

So you took the leap and made the decision to turn your hobby into a business? Congratulations and a high five to you! With the statistics of success versus failure, um, not exactly in a fledgling businesses favor, I wanted to share with you some very common mistakes and traps people fall into when first starting out in the photography business.

Disclaimer: For those who aren’t familiar with me, I’m a very direct person (I’ll point to my NY upbringing for that trait :)). I want to see people succeed and time is money for us all, so I don’t mince words.  I’ve mentored a good amount of photographers and time and again I am confronted with some very common business mistakes that can be completely avoided and save you frustration, money, time and tears.

#1. Comparing
How many photographers do you ‘like’ on Facebook? How many of those photographers that you follow make you feel like you are never going to be as good as them, or as creative, or as skilled in editing? The number one trap I find with today’s social media world- and this goes beyond the JSO’s as well- is the constant comparing of work other people do to your own.   I’m here to tell you to stop it. Right now. The only way to truly succeed (and by succeed I measure by a healthy repeat client list, industry recognition, and photography awards) is to stop comparing and start DOING. Start carving out YOU.  You are your own unique self. No one can ever be you and bring what you can to the table. No one has your ‘eye.’ Why waste time comparing yourself to others when you can be using that energy to learn and inspire yourself?  I recently suggested a purge to one of my mentorees of the amount of photographer’s she ‘liked.’ It was driving her literally to tears. I said pick your top 5 and call it a day. Stop wasting time following everyone and start leading your own business and craft.

Find your own voice and shout it out loud!

#2 Copying
There is a big difference between being ‘inspired by’ and being a copycat. Yes, trends will come along and people will be filling up Facebook feeds with their experiments. Certain styles of editing will be hot (matte anyone?) and styles of photography will seem to dominate (lifestyle). That said, you can find some inspiration in other’s work, but to outright copy what they do down to the posing, outfits selected, exact location etc. isn’t complimentary to you OR them.  Photography has been around for decades and most everything you think is new is probably old anyway, but I’ve seen cases of outright copying. It makes you look bad. Period. Just don’t do it.

The ever popular matte look that has hit the scene.

#3 Inconsistency in your brand
Look at your Facebook page right now. Do you have 3 versions of your logo on it? 5 different watermarks? Frames around some of your images, but not all? All of these inconsistencies lead the consumer to think one thing:  Not professional. And for those who know a bit about branding? Weak brand. You do not, and I repeat, do not have to break the bank and hire an expensive team out of the gate for your branding. In fact, I suggest waiting to hone your voice so you don’t waste money on a logo only to change your mind a few months later. I’m currently in the middle of a very huge re-branding effort. But I’m also approaching my 5th year in business. I did the branding myself for a while (simple, clean is always the best route for that!) but I now know exactly where I want to be, and how I want my own unique voice in the market to be heard. You can start to keep a running board on pinterest with what inspires you, colors you like, looks of sites you like etc. so you are armed when ready to brand. I’ll give you a peek into the process with the mood board my designers at Hey, Sweet Pea put together for me:

For JSO’s I always advise the following: get a clean logo and get a clean template. Let your photography do the talking. Ever get hired based on your swirly colors in your logo? Let the images do the talking and stay consistent when using a watermark and logo throughout not only your site, but on Facebook, Twitter etc. You can’t start building brand recognition when you keep changing things every five seconds. It just looks sloppy. And far from professional.

#4. Blaming the industry
‘I can’t get anyone to hire me because people down the street are giving it away.’  Trust me people, I get it. I’m not cheap. Plenty around me are but I never once wanted to be the cheap photographer people hired based on price, I wanted people to fall in love with my vision and what I delivered and hire me no matter what the cost. I wanted people who VALUE photography as my clients, not ones looking to spend the least that could care less if their child is bright orange. Not my audience. Not my demographic. If you want to be a shoot & burn by all means go out and rock it I say! But if you want to be a custom photographer, you have to weather the storm and realize someone will always be cheaper, and you will never win at that game. It may take more time and more patience, but stick with the ‘ideal’ clientele in mind that you want to attract and put yourself in positions to attract them.

Another common remark I hear a lot? ‘There are too many photographers in my area.’ I live in NY folks. I spit and hit a photographer. Do not consume yourself with what everyone else is doing or not doing. Carve out your own niche. Keep your head down and do your work.  Improve on your craft. Challenge yourself so you have so many photography tools in your back pocket you split your pants. Sell your OWN strengths.  There may be a lot in your area, but there’s only one you my friend.

#5. The green eyed monster
We have all seen it. The comments that make you think “didn’t your mama teach you if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say it at all?” The hate. The jealousy. The “why does SHE get all these comments when my work is just as good?” people. Because she does. Because her audience responds to her, she is relatable, or maybe her fans just spend more time on FB. Who knows? And you know what? Who cares? Jealousy and being spiteful is a huge epidemic in general in this world, but in this profession it’s showing it’s face more and more as the landscape widens.  It’s not good business practice.

Negative energy gets you nowhere. It’s exhausting. And absolutely unfulfilling. Channel the negative to positive and see where life leads you.

About the Author: Jennifer Tonetti-Spellman, owner of JellyBean Pictures is a die hard, natural light photographer based in NY. Her goal at every shoot is to capture awesome in a documentary style with little posing and props  work has appeared in Professional Photographer Magazine, New York Family Magazine, and on strollertraffic.com.  Her manual {don’t} say cheese was written to address the importance of capturing real smiles along with other tips + tricks she picked up along her journey thus far.

Visit Jennifer at her WEBSITE | BLOG |FACEBOOK pages today!