Beginning your Photography Business Journey
Something interesting I feel I’ve seen happen over the past 10 years or so, is that with the more accessible price of intro DSLR’s, people are realizing their creative and entreprenurial potential with a camera, and are changing the portrait photography industry as we’ve known it! A major portion of those people are moms! Moms who are already carrying the weight of being the family documentarian, and who already have a natural entrepreneurial and/or artistic spirit… and we are changing the entire portrait photography and marketing worlds as we speak.
If you’re looking for next steps to move forward with a photography business, the following are must-haves.
Understand how Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO all work independently and how they work all together. Intimately. Theres no easy way through… you got trudge through the learning process. As you continue down your journey into business ownership/freelance work, you’ll want to MAKE SURE you do your due diligence in learning how to operate your camera on manual.
Buy a 50mm or 35mm lens.
Shoot in RAW
Get a 1T external hard drive for your computer and access to Lightroom
And lastly…
Read this article about beginner pricing here
“If any other employer paid you that little for working full time, they would be breaking the law. Oh and be prepared to work over time. Because you also need to account for things like accounting, (see what I did there?) renewing licenses, purchasing new gear (can you imagine how quickly this many sessions is going to wear out your shutter?) and professional development (you know reading blogs like this, watching editing tutorials, taking workshops, and following all those photography groups on Facebook). Is there going to be any time left over for your kids? For your spouse? When the heck are you going shower? I know a lot of people start their photography businesses to be home with their kids more… but at if you are out shooting 5 evenings a week and glued to your computer 50 hours a week just to make less than someone who works part time at McDonald’s, what’s the point?”
Sign up here to be added to my one on one Syracuse photography mentorship emailing list! I’ll be covering a lot more and offering affordable classes in February.