10 Things To Get In Place Before Starting A Photography Business

August 20th 2010

As well as being home to my portfolio, I also began this website to also track the journey I’m making into becoming a full-time photographer.  I’ve found whilst many website’s are dedicated to helping people make the jump, few give actual anecdotal evidence and real life experiences to help the aspiring pro.  I know The Photography Parlour is doing fantastic work in this department with their First-Time Section, but I thought I’d start sharing some of my experiences along the way.  Hopefully it’ll help someone out there.

This post details the things I felt I needed to get in place before I began to market myself and put me in a better position to start off.  By covering these first bases it’s a great step towards my end goal.  Over the next few weeks I’m going to start detailing the shoots that I have done recently along with a list of questions that I’ll answer as honestly as possible in the hope that people can learn from my experiences.

1. Get a website – This is rapidly becoming “the” staple place to check out a photographer.  Of course you have to have a portfolio to back it up, but having a good professional looking website is a great way to put a prospective client on the right foot.  There are numerous websites out there that don’t have contact information, are out of date, don’t look professional.  Make it as good as you can afford to.  In all honesty I’ve probably spent more time finalising my design/website than I have taking photographs.  Photography is about the whole package and people won’t stop at your site if it’s basic and uninspiring even if you do have incredible images.  Clients will feel that you’re not taking your business seriously, so why should they.

There are numerous resources to get a decent website up and running.  I’m currently using the fantastic Photoshelter to aid client delivery along with a Graph Paper Press WordPress theme to fully integrate all my site into one.  I orginally started out with WordPress but couldn’t find a decent theme to show photos with, I then came across Photoshelter and decided to use Joomla as my content management system.  That become far too unweildy and whilst Superblogger does make it bearable, WordPress is soooo much more straightforward.  Once the Graph Paper Press themes were unveiled it was a simple decision.  But as long as you can get your portfolio up there, any site is worthwhile.  Photoshelter does cost me money every month but this is offset by the sales it has brought in, don’t feel you have to go throwing money at the problem straightaway.  Find what works for you first.

2. Get a business card – This was the point where I finally turned a corner and felt like I was making headway.  Be sure of what you want your business card to say and how it’ll make people perceive you.  It’s very important depending on what market you’re hoping to get into.  Over at GoingPro there’s a podcast about marketing that discusses how to market yourself effectively and how your marketing purveys an image of you before someone has even met you.  Think about this and look at other examples of marketing from all mediums.  Here’s a great long list of brilliant stationary and letterheads that completely and utterly display what that business is about.  You could probably make a pretty detailed list about how each of those examples makes you feel, and what the business would be like.

3. Work out prices – A tough one this and something I’ve gone back and forward on.  I can change from one day to the next and only now am I at the point where I feel secure in my pricing.  You really need to sit down and hash this one out.  I’d recommend first looking at successful competitors pricing and work out what the market value of your work is.  Then sit down and work out how much you want to work an hour (be realistic) and how many hours work a shoot might take from beginning to end.  1 hour meeting to discuss requirements/2 hours shooting/1 hours travel/2 hours editing and uploading.  6 hours per shoot.  So you’re looking at almost a days work per shoot, and go from there.  Or do it backwards and work out how much your outgoings are (rent/mortgage/bills) and how much you would feasibly need to make to cover this and make you some profit.  To fully realise how much you should be charging download “The Single Greatest Guide to Wedding Photography Pricing That Ever Was and Ever Will Be” and have a good read through it.  Whilst it’s based on wedding photography it can be applied to any other type of photography.  Then punch all your numbers into the wedding pricing spreadsheet over here to really see how much you’re worth and should be charging.  It’ll be quite eye-opening I can assure you!

I have found it very difficult to price myself when starting out, as you tend to overlook how much you have already put into your profession before you started.  Learning your craft/learning photoshop/buying your equipment.  It’s easy to see what you do as one click of a layer adjustment to make your images pop off the screen, but how much of your time has been invested to make it only take one click of the mouse?

Don’t underprice yourself.

4.  Get contracts sorted – I’ve been spending the last few months getting contracts sorted for the various types of photography I offer.  I’ll admit to begin with I was very much word of mouth and relying on friends/family paying promptly when required.  However as I branch out to other businesses and clients I want to be as professional as possible and this means contracts.  There are a million different contracts available across the web and you’ve really got to personalise yours to the photography you’re going to be producing.  However in order to help people out, Damien Lovegrove has uploaded his contract here that has the very basic terms and conditions that should be in any contract.  The rest is down to you and what you offer.  Take the time to get these right and formatted in the style of your business and it’ll save you alot of headaches further down the road.

5. Start networking – I’ve struggled with this one but I’m starting to make ammends as I go now.  I’m shy by nature and this probably comes across in the marketing push I’m going on in the next couple of months.  This can be the most difficult part of becoming a photographer, it certainly is for me.  You can have all the skills in the world, but if no-one knows about them it’s like shouting into an empty forest.  For me personally I’m starting with local businesses, letting them know that I’m new on the market and what I can offer them.  Hopefully this will lead to clients that I can help and I can go from there.

I’d definitely recommend contacting charities and local services that you’d be able to offer free photography to just to start getting your name circulating.  Offer to take photos at events for free with prints available from your website, help a friends business out with some photography in exchange for them recommending you to their clients.  Anything to get your name on the map and get your “newly created” business cards into the hands of people that can use your services.

I’m currently finalising my marketing strategy myself (hence the reasoning behind this post to show what I’ve done before I go on my marketing blitz) but once I have I will try to blog about it to offer some tips to help you.  It’s all about the value you can offer to your client, and how you can help them.

6. Come up with a marketing plan/ideas – This is a lead-on from the point above but it’s very useful to map out a rough idea of dates and timelines for your various marketing plans.  This can include dates for having a business card ready, to launching your Facebook Fanpage, all the way to having shot your first professional commercial shoot.  Get it all down and put rough dates in for each step.  It’ll keep you on track and it certainly made me clearer and more focused about what I wanted to achieve.

7. Tell people you’re a photographer – This is again something that I have struggled with for quite a while, as you’ll see in this blog here.  But soon your work will start to speak for itself and people will begin taking you seriously.  Treat every single piece of photography you do as an absolutely imperitive piece of work.  As Scott Bourne re-iterates here “Keep Me, Protect Me, Share Me, and I Will Live Forever”   Let people know that you can do any photography they require, hand them your business card at work.  Discuss photography with people, discuss your business.  Don’t let the gear you have put off, notice I haven’t mentioned gear at all until this point and I won’t be again until point 9.  Be confident in your ability as a photographer and let people know you’re in this for the long haul!

8. Find your USP – This is again something I have struggled with and something I discuss in depth in this post.  Some people know what they want to shoot right off the bat, others play around with ideas.  I’m firmly in the second camp and I certainly haven’t defined my style and unique selling point yet.  But that’s ok, creativity is spawned from mistakes so try things out.  No-one will be a harsher critic on your own work than yourself, so just relax and flow with it.  Shoot everything and anything, try new styles, try HDR, try black and white, try shooting with just a 50.  Find what resonates with you and make that your style.  This can happen before you’ve even had a single client get in touch, or you can refine as you shoot work.  It’ll come, don’t worry.

9. Learn your camera – This one goes without saying but it’s something that has taken me alot longer than I thought it would.  Know your camera inside out and how to get a shot within a couple of shots.  I detail a good exercise in this blog post about walking into a room that has been set up without your knowledge and being able to get a well exposed shot within 3 shots.  It makes you think about your exposure and how you best want to display something.  When I’m out and about just snapping, I always limit myself to say 30 shots.  This mimics the scarcity of film and makes me think about what I’m shooting.  By taking the time, you’ll become more in control and understand your camera much better.  It’s also useful when you are shooting for a client to know exactly how to get the shot you/they want.  You’ll feel more in control and less panicked.  As you can see here, I was still learning when I shot this event and the panic can sometimes get the better of you.

10. Be a photographer – Speaks for itself.

If you’ve got anything you think should be in place before you start promoting yourself, feel free to leave a comment.  I’d love to hear what other photographers have to say, or mistake they might have made along the way.

This was posted on August 20th 2010 in advice, business, photography and tagged with 10, business, camera, help, photographer, photography, steps. You can follow responses to this blog post here.