Running the Photography Marathon to Success

“Human beings are made up of flesh and blood, and a miracle fiber called courage” – George Patton

A marathon is 26.2 miles. To some people that may sound horrifying, plodding along for that distance – why would anyone want to do that? To others, it is a challenge they deem worthy; an epic battle of mind, body and discipline. It is a challenge that from day one requires that steady and unbreakable miracle fiber – courage. What can running a marathon teach you about reaching your goals as a photographer?

26.2 miles of courage.

Success does not happen overnight. Whether you are in the midst of realizing your vision of becoming a successful photographer or reaching the finish line in a marathon, you must put in the behind-the-scenes work to get there.

Maybe you have a dream of putting your nine-to-five (and your boss) in the rearview mirror and making photography your full time job. Some of you might want to open your own gallery someday with your prints gleaming proudly upon the walls. Whatever your goal is, it is achievable. Believe that you can do anything, believe that whatever happens along the way that you will persevere. With that mentality, you will surely reach the finish line with your hands in the air and your head held high in victory.

In distance running, it is essential to break down big mileage numbers into more manageable pieces. It is easier to stomach ‘the next 2 miles’ versus trying to focus on the distant end goal (the finish line). Your road to success as a photographer must also be broken down into manageable goals and tasks. If you are trying to go full time, do not fixate solely on having to profit X amount before you can quit your current job; instead tell yourself that you are going to get your website tuned up, network as if you are full time and start increasing the amount of jobs that you are quoting and actually booking. That will build your base and prepare you for the rigors of the harder parts of the ‘race.’ Think of this period as your training. If you do not put in the training, when race day comes, your chances of success will be greatly diminished.

After some time, you have finished your training and you are ready to toe the line. It might be a scary moment, but most good things involve some fear. When the gun goes off, stick to your plan and don’t let what others are doing influence you at this point in the run. If the person next to you tears off at a screaming sprint, just relax and know that at some point they will fizzle (the running term is ‘bonk’). Run the pace you know you can sustain until the goal is met.

What does that mean? Don’t feel pressure to achieve all of your smaller goals right away; do not be pressured into spending significant amounts of cash on advertising and promotion. Now is the time to get into a rhythm and start ticking away the miles towards the big goal at the end of the road.

The message of the tortoise versus the hare does have a downside – if you move too slowly, your path to becoming a successful photographer will never have a chance to grow to a healthy point. If you stop at every aid station and sit down, you will be losing that time to your competitors and some goals will have to be restructured due to the time you may have wasted. Being a professional photographer is like distance running – it is not something you can dabble in, you do it or you do not.

Your competitors and colleagues are going the same place as you are; work with them. Now I am not suggesting that you give away trade secrets or spend large amounts of time helping them along the course (unless it is a mutually beneficial relationship). What you can do is accomplish what tired runners turn to in the latter stages of a marathon – feed off of other’s positive energy, ask directions from people that have been where you want to go, offer encouragement to an ailing competitor so when you need that same push it will be returned. Just make sure you choose the right group to run with. Your finishing time (and your entire race for that matter) could be in jeopardy if you are associating with negative people. When you are down and out, you are only as good as the people around you.

Whatever you do, don’t stop. Just. Keep. Going. I have had low points in both my professional photography career and my time running big distances. Know that at some point you will hit a bad patch. It is what you do at that moment, and how you handle that bad patch that will make you what you are. Also know that every bad patch you can push through will make the next one seem easier to manage; you have been here before and persevered. Maybe your phone stopped ringing, maybe you see your competition booking jobs and you start to doubt your current setup and start asking ‘are my prices too high?’

Fear and doubt are elements of risk and they are coming at you like a freight train. Meet them head on, with your feet firmly planted, steady and calm, knowing you have the courage to handle it. Whatever you do, just keep going. One foot in front of the other, take a deep breath and have a drink of Gatorade. One foot in front of the other, one small goal realized on your way to the big goal – success as a photographer.

Deidra Wilson is a Las Vegas wedding photographer , renowned entrepreneur and triathlete. You can follow her on twitter at @deidraphoto.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

Running the Photography Marathon to Success

What Every Photographer Needs to Know about Email Marketing

Photographers are increasingly turning to new social media technologies to get word out about their businesses (Facebook pages, Twitter, Google+ and more are topics we’ve featured in the last year).

There’s certainly some wonderful potential to engage people with social media – but my suspicion is that many photographers are ignoring a method of online communication that is much much more powerful and effective at reaching out to potential clients and building loyalty with previous ones – Email.

Email is Not Dead

Back when Digital Photography School was just starting out (April 2006) there was a lot of talk going on around the web about how Email was Dying as a technology. At the time it was the Syndication technology of ‘RSS’ that was going to kill email but since that time there have been numerous other ‘Email Killers’ touted including Facebook and Twitter.

While there has certainly been an upswing in the number of people using social media – email is still alive and well. In fact it is central in my own business as a blogger. Since 2006 we’ve had over half a million people sign up to receive our weekly newsletter while in the same time around 140,000 have signed up to connect with us on social media. Thank goodness we didn’t put all our eggs in the social media basket!

We’re certainly not ignoring social media marketing – but email is where our #1 focus is.

Our use of email highlights that people do use it – usually on a daily basis, that they respond to emails (both to visit sites and make purchases) and that it is also a way to virally grow your business (emails get forwarded on from one person to another).

To ignore email as part of your marketing mix could be costing your photography business revenue.

Email Marketing for Photographers

Email marketing is not just something for bloggers – it is also something that those in all kinds of businesses should be considering. It is useful to build relationships with current and potential clients, to help you build your brand and profile and to drive sales.

It can be used in any number of ways but a number of photographers that I’ve been interacting with online lately tell me how effective that they’ve found it to be in a number of key areas:

1. showcasing work – Many photographers have blogs which they use to showcase their work and build credibility with potential clients. Two photographers that I’ve chatted with this week tell me that they send out weekly emails with a couple of their best images and the stories behind them (and then links to the blog to show more). In doing so they’re reminding people on a weekly basis of the quality and style of their work.
2. running promotions – Another photographer tells me that any time he’s got space in his schedule he simply emails his email list with a promotion offering XX% off his services for the first 5 people to respond. This isn’t the only kind of email he sends (he too sends out emails showcasing this work) but he reported that every time he sent his email he found his schedule would quickly fill.
3. word of mouth promotions – another photographer this week told me that he follows up all clients that he’s worked with with an email giving them incentive to pass on word of his services to friends. He gives them a free print for every new client they bring in.

The key with email marketing is to get the balance right between ‘promotional’ emails and emails that people genuinely find useful and interesting in some way. I’d recommend that emails showcasing work, telling stories and even giving clients tips/advice should probably make up the bulk of the emails that you send – with promotional ones being less regular.

The way you use email will of course vary from photographer to photographer depending upon your business model. For some it will be more about keeping in touch with previous clients while for others it will be more about reaching out to potential ones.

Update: One other strategy that I know of one photographer using is to email new clients after a shoot with a quick and simple survey to see how they found his service. He not only gets valuable feedback from clients with this but makes an impression on them with his interest in improving what he does.

Invest in an Email Service Provider

Sending clients and potential clients emails is a great idea – but you should seriously consider HOW you send those emails. I would recommend using a service designed for this purpose rather than just sending these kinds of emails via our own email provider.

The reasons for this are numerous:

• Email Service Providers will increase your deliverability rate – send too many emails like these from your own email service and you’ll find the deliverability of these emails will decrease over time. ESP’s specialise in email and their deliverability rates will be significantly higher – as will your emails open rates.
• Statistics – ESPs provide you with stats on how successful your emails are. They’ll tell you how many people received your emails and how many bounced, how many people open them, how many people click on the links in them etc. All of this helps you work out how to improve future emails.
• Split Testing – most ESPs allow you to test different versions of the same email to work out which is most effective. For example you might send emails to 2 halves of your email list with different subject lines to test what people response to best – again this improves your results.
• Spam Testing – some ESPs give you tools to test whether your emails will get caught in spam filters before you send them. This increases deliverability.
• Auto-Responders – one great feature that many ESPs have is the ability to automate your email marketing. You can set up a sequence of emails that all new subscribers to your list get at predetermined intervals. You might start off with a welcome email, follow up a few days later with a showcase email of your best work, send an email a week later with a discount etc. Over time you can test which sequence works best to both deepen client relationships and drive sales.
• Double Opt in Subscriptions – it is important to note that what I’m NOT talking about in this article is spamming potential clients. In many parts of the world it is illegal to email unsolicited emails to people and you need to use what is known as a ‘double opt in’ system where someone needs to give you permission to email them by confirming their subscription after they’ve subscribed by clicking a link in an email you send them. ESPs have this tool in place to make it easier to get important opt ins.

dPS Uses and Recommends Aweber Communications

There are many good email providers but the one that we use and recommend here at dPS is Aweber.

Aweber have all of the above features plus a lot more. They offer a wide range of templates to make your emails attractive, give you a range of widgets to get signups to your email list (including one to put on your Facebook Page), integrate with Facebook/Twitter, offer the ability to segment lists into different types of subscribers, let you send emails based upon the RSS feed on your blog and a heap more.

This is a paid service but you’re paying for a heap of features that will increase your effectiveness and you’ll only pay based upon how many subscribers you have.

Aweber also give you the ability to test drive their service for free – to do so just sign up below and you’ll be emailed the details:

Alternatively check out what Aweber has to offer here.

Do you Use Email to Build Your Photography Business?

I’d love to hear how photographers are using email as part of their marketing strategy – please share your own stories in comments below!

Note: Links in this article are affiliate links and dPS earns a small commission if you sign up and become a paying user of Aweber – however dPS is also an avid user of Aweber and recommends the service whether you sign up with our links or some other way.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

What Every Photographer Needs to Know about Email Marketing

5 Ways to Dip your Toe into the Business of Photography

I had an email yesterday from a reader named Stephanie who said that she’s caught in a vicious cycle of portfolio building. She doesn’t want to charge while she’s portfolio building because then, she’ll be in business and have all the worries that come with it but she doesn’t want to launch a for-profit business until she’s finished building her portfolio.

I’ve written before about the dangers of spending too long in the portfolio building stage of your business. It’s not meant to last 10 years. And it doesn’t have to be an absolute work-for-free scenario. I’ve counseled newbies to establish their pricing structures early on and work up to full-time money while charging discounted fees for portfolio building sessions (more on all that here). But that’s not really what this post is about. I wanted to hit on the theme behind Stephanie’s comment.

What I read between the lines in Stephanie’s email is that she knows that in business, it’s all or nothing. She knows that as soon as she starts charging even a little, it raises the bar and the expectations to a level where only the best will cut it and she’s absolutely right. Do a session for free and you’re free to learn from your mistakes. Charge even $20 for the same session and suddenly, you have a photographer/client relationship and all the expectations that come with it. In order to make the business worth while, you have to do it right or not do it at all.

If you Google to find the things you need before jumping into business, you’ll find that it’s not as simple as printing up a couple flyers and making a little pocket money. Not only is it illegal to operate a business on the side, it’s not going to make enough money to sustain itself and you’ll flop before you even really get going. Photography isn’t a business you can just dip your toe into to see how it feels if you want to do it right. By ‘do it right’, I mean protect yourself with legal documents and liability insurance, protect your equipment with insurance, establish yourself with a professional printing company, have the computer and software to process your files in a quick-like-fashion that doesn’t have you up all night staring at spinning wheel icon…all that. Once you tally up the monthly overhead, you soon realize that it’s not as easy to make a quick buck as you once thought.

But fear not! Here are a few tips I have for testing the waters in the photography business:

1. If you’re not ready to formally establish yourself as a business, then schedule portfolio building sessions with friend and family. Shoot everyone and everything and don’t charge a penny. Because, like I said, as soon as money changes hands you’ve entered into a client relationship and are liable for all sorts of yuckiness you’re not ready to handle.
2. In these portfolio building sessions, set some of them up where you create the concepts, choose the wardrobe and location and get to flex your creative muscles. But also have some sessions where you ask what the client wants and see what it’s like for us paid-for photographers who have to cater to our clients’ every desire. This will help you learn to work with people on a professional level. You can even try it out like a full-on professional session with client questionnaires, a contract, an order form for prints – try out different versions of paperwork to see how you want to operate when you’re in business for real.
3. Try all sorts of different types of sessions like children, couples, maternity, newborns. This will help you find your niche for when you’re ready to go into business.
4. Even though you might not feel ready for heavy duty legal forms, at least have a model release that everyone (yup, even your own mom!) needs to sign so you’re free to do what you wish with your work.
5. Instead of charging money for sessions, use your talents to raise funds for charity (don’t take the money in your own name – have checks written directly to the charity) or as bartering power with your babysitter, plumber, anyone! Trade sessions and prints for other products and services – everyone loves a good trade!

So you see you can dip your toe into professional photography without taking the dive into the business deep end!

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

5 Ways to Dip your Toe into the Business of Photography

7 Deadly Mistakes You Might Be Making On Your Photography Website

Do you know that your photography website can actually be damaging your business?

Image by: Greg Mason

Google tells us that there are almost one million photography websites on the web right now. This is bad news for you.

The good news is that most of these websites suck.

Photographers keep making the same mistakes over and over again, never getting the best out of their websites.

This post will show you what are these deadly mistakes and how you can fix them in order to get ahead of your competition.

1. Your Photos Have Low Quality Or Low Resolution

This one is a killer and also surprisingly common. Some photographers are afraid to upload high quality images to their portfolio because they think it increases the chances of unauthorized usage. Forget about this!

Use only a few of your best quality images and make sure that they’re shown on your website with an height or width of at least 800px. If you’re worried about copyright use a watermark.

Image by: Chris Blakeley

2. You’re Not Saying Where You’re Located

The first thing an interested prospect wants to know when he arrives to your website is almost always: “where’s this guy located?”. The second being how much do you charge.

Don’t just say where you’re located, advertise it! It’s one of the things that makes you different from your competition so show it on every single page of your website. Of course this tip is only useful to businesses that rely on location-based services, like wedding photography.

3. You’re Using Flash

Flash is a technology that allows web developers to create some impressive looking websites but it has a big disadvantage, search engines can’t read text inside a Flash website.

For a search engine, a Flash website is just like a gigantic blank page without any text at all. Text is king in the search engine world and therefore this makes it much harder to rank high on search engines, which is not good for your business.

4. You Don’t Have A Contact Page

Image by: Storebukkebruse

This is one deadly mistake that is more common than you think! You must have a dedicated contact page with at least an e-mail address and a phone number but the more information the better.

Also, try to set up an e-mail contact form because it increases the amount of people contacting you. Make sure you show it on every page!

5. You Don’t Have A Blog

A portfolio-only website is just not enough nowadays. The web is now more dynamic than ever and the photography website with 3 or 4 pages and little text doesn’t stand a chance!

The solution is to create a blog. Blogs are dynamic by nature and give a breath of fresh air to any stale photography website. They’re also great for SEO and people love them.

Image by: Timothy K. Hamilton

Now, don’t use your blog as a portfolio by posting image after image. Use it in a unique and personal way by telling stories, helping other photographers or sharing new ideas. Also make sure your blog and portfolio is under the same domain because it’s better for SEO.

6. Your Website Is Slow

I personally hate this one! A slow loading time is one of the main reasons why people leave a website. Search engines also dislike slow websites, it’s been proved that Google gives lower rankings to slow websites.

The solution is to get a fast and optimized web server for photography websites, avoiding Flash and other fluffy effects. Also, don’t upload super high resolution 10MP images if your website only displays them at 800×600! And remember, use .JPG for photos.

7. Your Portfolio Is Hard To Navigate

Image by: Charlton Clemens

Sometimes it almost feels like I have to re-learn the web with each photography website I visit. I know that all photographers like to have a visually impressive and unique website but please make it usable!

Again, avoid using Flash. Flash usually means a complex site. People like simple! Don’t try to be unique with the navigation or design of your website, be unique with your content.

Now be honest, are you making any of these mistakes? Let me know in the comments.

Peter Almeida is a web designer, treehugger and photography lover that specializes in SEO Photography Websites. You can read more about this in his free e-book, SEO for Photographers.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

7 Deadly Mistakes You Might Be Making On Your Photography Website

When to Ditch the Day-Job and Follow Your Dreams

We have been planning for this moment for over a year and a half.

On June 17th of this year, I said goodbye to my colleagues and
well-paying job to follow our dreams to do wedding and portrait
photography full-time. We finally replaced our entire household
income with income from our photography business.

Most people who start photography businesses do so part-time and only dream of this day.

Eventually your business grows to the point where it consumes all your
free time and you’re faced with a hard but exciting question:
Do you go for it and leave the day-job behind, or do you scale
back and start reclaiming a bit of your life?

Here are 5 things to ask yourself before you ditch the day-job and
follow your dreams:

How much money do you need to make?

The first thing you’ll need to know is how much money you need to make
in order to replace any necessary income. If you don’t know exactly
how much you’re making from your business after taxes, expenses, cost
of goods, and all the other costs of running a business, you’re
setting yourself up for failure.

As one of those rare people who loves mathematics, I created a free pricing guide for photographers that helped us determine what we needed to charge for both weddings and portraits in order to make the amount of profit that we needed to follow our dream of doing this full-time.

I knew exactly how many weddings and portrait sessions I’d need to
book and how much I’d need to charge in order to leave my job. I had
hoped to leave last summer, but I was under the projections I knew I
needed, so we made the decision to wait one more year to make the
leap.

If I hadn’t known the numbers, the consequences may have been
devastating to our business and family and I’d probably be back in an
office job by now.

How much money do you have in savings?

Having money in a savings account is a great way to ensure that you’ll be able to pay your bills and not have to pick up a job again in the off-season.

Waiting an extra year to leave the day-job allowed us to finish buying
the gear we wanted and to put more in savings than we would have been
able to otherwise. We hope not to have to touch that money, but it is
there if we need it.

What is your plan?

If you find that you are not currently making enough to leave your job immediately, the next step is to make a plan to get you from where you are now to where you need to be.

If you haven’t sat down and created a good business strategy, you’ll want to do that first. Having a strategic business plan will help you get to your goal more quickly and will help keep you from making
costly mistakes.

Identify the places that work well for marketing your business. We
found that Facebook
marketing was one of the best ways for us to find new clients
because of its word-of-mouth nature, so that’s where we’ve been
focusing. You’ll want to market in the places where your ideal clients
spend time and money.

How hard are you willing to work to get there?

We spent about a year in “transition” where I was taking on as many of our ideal clients as I could handle while still working my day-job, and it was exhausting. I was gone about 50 hours a week for my full-time job and put in another 20-30 hours building our photography business, all while trying not to neglect my kids and husband.

We had to turn away some business simply because there weren’t enough
hours in the day.

It was hard, I’m not going to lie.

Getting a business to where it needs to be to leave your job is a lot
of work, but it was worth it for us. We let some things go (our house
is a mess!) but it was worth it in order to make this transition.

What other hesitations do you have?

If you’ve got your finances figured out and are hitting your projections, you need to address any hesitations you may have.

It can be really scary to let go of the “security” of a regular
paycheck and move into the realm of “uncertainty”.

That being said, I think that being a small business owner is actually
more secure than working for someone else.

You can’t be fired or laid-off at the drop of a hat, and if you aren’t
meeting your projections you can do something about it and have some
time to prepare.

If you do wedding photography, you may even be able to determine this
several months in advance, giving you plenty of time to make a plan as
to how you’re going to supplement your current income.

Leaving my job has been one of the most scary and exhilarating
experiences in my life, and I’m incredibly excited to see where we’ll
go in the next few years.

So, are you ready to follow your dreams and do what you love
full-time? Is there something holding you back? Leave a comment below
and let’s encourage each other in pursuing what we love.

Jamie M Swanson is a Madison Wedding Photographer who loves helping people make money with photography. With her super-dorky math skills, she created a free guide on how to price photography. The best way to connect with her is on Facebook, so come on over and say hello.< ?p>

Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

When to Ditch the Day-Job and Follow Your Dreams

10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Becoming a Professional Photographer

>A Guest Post by Kimberly Gauthier, Through the Lens of Kimberly Gauthier

When I had the opportunity to check out the Going Pro Kit, I appreciated first hand the value. It brought me back to my humble beginnings. One day in 2009, I woke up and shouted “Hello World – I’m going to be a Kick Ass Pet Photographer!!!”

Well, not really, but one day, back in 2009, I was excited about starting a pet photography business after seeing a gorgeous image of a bunny. I didn’t let the lack of knowledge about dogs, pet photography, running a business, or my camera get in my way. I was going to take over the world with my gorgeous images of puppies and kittens.

My Qualifications:

10 plus years experience shooting with a point & shoot camera, an appreciation of and love for photography and animals, I grew up with dogs, and I lived with cats for years.

My business crashed and burned slowly. I wasn’t aware of the catastrophe that was slowing growing around me and that failure was looming down the road. Now I look back and I can see the mistakes I made and the things that I wish I knew about becoming a professional photographer.

If you are considering going pro, then here are 10 lessons I learned that may help you on your path.

1. Learn to use your camera. You may be light years ahead of me, making this “lesson” pointless for you. Sadly, I took my new Sony Alpha DSLR out of the box and used it like a point & shoot for a year. The pictures I took, which I thought were great at the time, make me cringe today, but this “lesson” inspired my photography blog so all wasn’t lost. I encourage everyone to join a photography forum, seek feedback, ask questions, take workshops – learn how to use your camera.
2. Come up with a plan. It’s so important to have a business plan; this will shape the direction you take your business, how you market yourself, your branding, and your budget, among other things. I know first hand how daunting it is to create a business plan. To give you a quick reality check, I suggest checking out Creating Your One Page Business Plan and Path To Profit by The Suitcase Entrepreneur. Following these steps was a huge wake up call and helped me to reshape and redirect the plans I have for my current business. I also read Business Plan in a Day, a book by Rhonda Abrams, to help me organize my plans for my current business. This book is well organized and gives you sections to fill out and when you finish, you’ll have a 1^st draft of your business plan.
3. Create a budget. I started out using my own money and credit cards to fund my business. Not a good idea if you don’t have the plan mentioned above. I can’t tell you how much money I tossed away without knowing if it was a good idea or not (at the time, it everything seemed brilliant). And I won’t tell you how much I racked up on credit cards to fund my dream. Developing a budget will help you control spending. And then you should…
4. Keep your money separate. Back then, I was comingling funds and at the end of the year it was difficult to separate business from personal. I was STUNNED by how much I had spent. I now have separate business accounts; I opened them at a separate bank. That part is probably overkill, but there’s a true divide between personal and business now.
5. Research the specialty that has caught your eye. I know some people out there are tackling a little of everything while others like to focus on one or two specialties. Regardless of which camp you’re in, do the research. I should have taken the time to study the business, the industry, and dog breeds (like how to best deal with aggressive or shy dogs).
6. Connect with a local professional photographer. This can be a little intimidating, so I connect with people online (Facebook, Twitter, and photography forums) and build a relationship from there. Invite them to coffee when they have time. Some photographers charge for mentorships, because their time and knowledge has value. Others may be willing to meet you for a coffee or lunch to answer your questions and give you feedback.
7. Find out the pros and cons of your business set up: sole proprietorship or limited liability company (LLC). Find out what you can and cannot write off. And understand that write offs are just an offset to the taxes you owe to the government, not a reimbursement request. I’m an accountant and didn’t know this one; duhhhhh.
8. Get insured. I have a home photography studio, handy when I want to take portraits without leaving the comfort of home. What I didn’t know was that home owner’s insurance won’t cover the medical costs when your client twists their ankle after becoming tangled in the backdrop. If a client is on your property for business purposes, then your home owners insurance doesn’t apply. Currently, I have a policy with CNA that covers things like accidents, my camera gear and photography equipment (which my homeowner’s policy won’t cover since it’s for business), contract disputes, and lost images (due to memory card malfunctions).
9. Get a membership to a professional organization. And don’t just join the one you hear about the most; take the time to find out which one is right for you. I joined Professional Photographers of America (PPA), because I liked what I read about them and they offer a two year newbie membership rate while you’re growing your business and you can pay the membership monthly. By the way, Professional Photographers of America offers discounted insurance coverage to members.
10. Don’t Offer Free Photography. I know that there are different opinions about free photography. I’m not talking about donating your services to a charity; I mean offering free photography to gain experience and build a portfolio. I offered free photography and filled my calendar with sessions. I gave away up to 15 full resolution images on a CD (this is where connecting with a local photographer would have helped). Some people didn’t show up, the ones that did wanted 10x more than I was offering, and since I was valuing myself at $0, everyone else did too. For me, this wasn’t the path to a portfolio or referrals; but I did learn that people respect a fee.

There were many more lessons that I learned, but these were the main ones that still stand out today. I’d love to hear the lessons you’ve learned and what you’d advice you’d offer to anyone looking to go pro.

Kimberly Gauthier is the writer behind the photography blog Through the Lens of Kimberly Gauthier; blog written for amateur photographers who didn’t read their manual.

Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

10 Things I Wish I’d Known About Becoming a Professional Photographer

Don’t Quit your Day Job {How to Become a Pro Photographer}

^ That's me ^

When Darren launched the new dPS ebook – Going Pro recently, he said that the majority of the emails he gets are about how to start making money as a photographer. Ditto, Darren! The eBook is amazing and gives you so much of the information you may be craving. What I’d like to talk about today is the realities of going pro and the one thing you need to do to safely quit your day job.

With the proliferation of affordable DSLRs, photography has quickly become a business-in-a-box for many. Although camera equipment is expensive, this can be a relatively low overhead business to run once you have acquired your gear and this makes it appealing for those who see it as a great way to finance a very expensive hobby or have a flexible part-time job. I find it so funny when folks think I’m rich because I charge £2k for a wedding. What they don’t realize is that I have to pay for insurance, hired equipment, my assistant, petrol, the cost of producing the end-product, etc. In total, I make a pretty decent income, but not a giant one.

It’s so super important that you not get into this business out of either desperation or lethargy. I know so many young people who see people like myself and other young(ish) business people and want to be successful too. They’re desperate for money but instead of getting a day job and building their business on the side, they wait for a big break to fall into their lap and it rarely ever does. What they don’t realize is that business people are hard workers. We have to hustle for the money and work really hard to keep it coming. I know a wedding photographer who does two weddings every weekend and still has his day job.

So, yes…it has to be talked about…the dreaded day job. This is where your photography business building success starts. When you have an income that’s not related to your photography business, you are free to build something that will last. You won’t make rash or unreasonable decisions out of desperation and you will be able to approach your new venture with a clear head. Albeit, a tired one, but it’s better to slowly build your empire than to get a domain name, a limited company and a giant loan all in one day.

While you’re working your day job, start your business slowly in the way all businesses -photography related or not- start. Decide what you actually want to be shooting (find your market), formulate a business plan, build a portfolio and begin building your business brick by brick. You will start making a small income and as you build, it will grow. Eventually, it will begin to rise towards the amount you make in your job. Then, it will begin to overlap with your normal day job income. This is when you can start to cut back on your job and carefully work your business more. And one day, the photography business will overtake the day job and you’ve done it! You have become a full-time pro without risking life and limb (and missing quite a few meals and water bills).

So be safe, make sensible decisions and enjoy your life as a professional photographer!

Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

Don’t Quit your Day Job {How to Become a Pro Photographer}

Writing for Photography Magazines – An Editor’s View

A Guest Post by Andrew S Gibson who’s new eBook – Andes – has recently been launched on Craft and Vision (for just $5).

There’s one way to get your photos published in photography magazines that I didn’t mention in my previous post, and that is to write an article accompanied by your photos. There are lots of good photographers that can’t write, and lots of good writers that can’t take a photo. There are far less people that are good at both. Any photographer who can write an article as well as take good photos has an advantage when it comes to selling their work.

The main benefit to supplying an illustrated article is that you get paid for both the words and photos used by the magazine. If you do it right, you can set yourself up with a nice part-time income and perhaps a future career. You may go on to write for other magazines, or photography ebook and book publishers.

But how do you get started if you’ve never had an article published in a magazine before? The first thing is to work on both your photography and writing skills until you are good enough at your craft to be worthy of writing an article for a photography magazine. This website is an excellent place to start when it comes to your photography skills, so I will concentrate on the writing side of things.

Getting started

While you are unlikely to have the first article you write published in a photography magazine, you can publish it on your own website. There’s no excuse for not having a blog – you can start one for free at Google’s Blogger or at WordPress.com.

Remember your blog is your showpiece – it’s an advertisement for your services. It’s a good idea to treat each post as a commissioned article, it should be as professional as you can make it. You will go through a learning curve and the articles you write in six months time will be better than the ones you write now, but the more effort you put into each article the quicker you’ll get there.

How do you come up with article ideas? A good place to start is with the stuff you know. For instance, if you’re into landscape photography, write some articles about that.

Another technique is to learn some new skills and then write about that. For instance, if you’ve never attempted macro photography before, then research some macro photography techniques, buy the equipment you need to take some good macro photos, then once you’ve got some good photos write an article about it on your blog.

I write articles about stuff I start off knowing nothing about all the time for EOS magazine. I research the topic, try out new techniques for myself, and ask questions of people who know more about it than I do. By the time I start writing the article, I’ve become an expert on the topic.

It can be good to specialise. For example, Syl Arena has set himself up as an expert on the Canon Speedlite flash system. Note the professional design of his website and the quality of the articles.

I use Syl’s website when I’m researching articles for EOS magazine. Once, I had a question and I emailed Syl to ask him about it. He responded quickly and helpfully. A few months later we commissioned him to write an article for the magazine. He got noticed because we could see that he’s an expert on his chosen topic, he has some cool photos and the articles on his website prove that he can write.

You should also regularly read photography magazines, books and websites. You’ll learn new stuff and it will help you generate ideas for new articles.

Guest posts

Once your blog is up and running, you should think about writing some guest posts for other websites. One advantage is that it can bring traffic to your blog, building up the readership. But the main benefit is that it’s good practice for when you start pitching ideas to photography magazines. Here’s how it works.

Start by choosing a photography website or blog that you like. Read some of the posts until you have a feel for the style of article that it publishes. Think of an article idea and write an outline. Then you need to find out who to submit the idea to – the answer should be somewhere in the contact information on the website. Then contact the appropriate person and make your pitch. Hopefully the editor or owner of the site will like your idea and ask you to write the article. Once the idea’s been accepted, all that remains is write the article to the best of your ability and submit it.

This is exactly what you will be doing in the future when you write for photography magazines.

Another benefit of guest posting is that your articles may be found by someone who would like to buy your photos or commission you to write an article. I always search on Google when I’m writing an article for EOS magazine to see what I can find. There are certain sites that show up in the searches again and again, and having some articles on them will help you get noticed. Digital Photography School is one of them (that’s a hint!)

Websites that pay

While most guest posting is done without pay, there are websites that pay for photography articles. I started off writing articles for Smashing Magazine. After a few months of doing this, one of my articles was noticed by someone from the Tuts+ network. She invited me to write for a new website called Photo Tuts+, and I’ve been doing so ever since. This taught me that one thing leads to another. Those guest posts you’ve just written for free may lead to a paid gig in the future.

Photography magazines

Once you’ve had a few articles published on reputable photography websites, it’s time to consider approaching a photography magazine. Use the same approach that you did for guest blogging and study the magazine you intend to submit to carefully.

How many articles do they publish each issue? How many are written by staff and how many by freelancers? If an article doesn’t have a byline, that means it was written by a staff member. Try googling the names of article writers to see if they have websites. What do they do for a living? Are they professional photographers or established writers? What can you learn from their websites?

What type of articles does the magazine publish? Do they concentrate on photography techniques, the creative side of photography (ie topics like composition and lighting), portfolios, Photoshop techniques or a mixture of all of these? For example, at EOS magazine we publish a very specific type of article. Every article is written specifically for Canon EOS users. We never publish articles about Photoshop. We’re not going to make an exception for you, no matter how brilliant your Photoshop article is.

Does the magazine have a website? If so you should study that too. Some photography magazines have a section where you can upload photos. This can be another way to get noticed – some UK photography magazines regularly publish photos submitted to their websites.

Contact the editor

Your next step is to email the editor of the magazine to ask for writer’s guidelines. This is a set of instructions outlining the type of article that the magazine is looking for and telling you how to submit it. It’s also worth checking the magazine’s website to see if the guidelines are on there.

Normally the editor will respond by sending you the writer’s guidelines. If you don’t get a response, don’t worry too much. Editors are busy people and it’s easy for your email to slip through the cracks. Wait two or three weeks and follow up with a polite email. You should never be rude or impatient, or accuse the editor of ignoring you. This is unprofessional and will guarantee that you won’t be commissioned.

When you have the writer’s guidelines, make sure you follow them to the letter. Stepping outside them will probably mean your submission will be ignored. Generally speaking, the editor will ask for a brief outline of your article plus some sample photos.

Putting an outline together

Keep your outline brief and to the point. Here’s a sample outline that I sent to an Australian photography magazine (the article was accepted). Bear in mind your article idea will be accepted or rejected on the strength and suitability of your article idea, not the way in which the outline is written:

My concept is this – to write an article about converting a colour portrait to black and white. The emphasis is not just on how to do the conversion, but on the different interpretations available. Do you want to create a cold image? A warm one? Create an ‘antiquing’ effect by adding a texture overlay? There’s more to black and white than desaturating the image – it’s a chance to get really creative. Take a look at the attached photos; the names explain the process in each image.

If you like the idea let me know how many words or pages there are to play with and I can write a plan according to what fits in the available space.

The editor’s response

Hopefully, you’ll get a fairly quick response from the editor. If you don’t, again wait two or three weeks and follow up with a polite email. If the editor still doesn’t respond, then forget about it and move onto another magazine. It’s unfortunate, but not all editors will respond to every email. Get used to it, it’s a fact of life in this industry.

Writing the article

The editor loves your idea and has commissioned you to write the article. Now what? If it’s your first magazine article, don’t panic. The editor has confidence in you, and you’ve earned the right to write the article.

The first thing is to ask when the editor needs the article by. This is your deadline. Always meet your deadlines. I try and send my articles in by two or three days prior to the deadline at the latest.

By this stage you should have had plenty of practise writing articles for your own and other websites. Now, all you have to do is repeat what you did for them.

Contracts

Some magazines will ask you to sign a contract before they commission an article. Check the wording carefully. If there’s anything you don’t understand, query it with the editor.

The main thing to watch out for is copyright grabs. Some magazines will try and get you to sign a contract handing them copyright of your photos. If a magazine does that, I ask them to amend the contract so that I retain copyright. If they refused to do that (no-one has yet) I would walk away. I never give away copyright.

Team effort

When I started off as a writer, I thought that the writer’s job is to turn a perfectly written article every time. I’ve since learnt that isn’t true. Writing is often a team effort. Most photography magazines have sub-editors whose job is to knock the copy you submit into shape. They’ll make it fit the house style (that’s the way the magazine spells certain words, phrases and punctuation) and edit your copy to improve the article where necessary. So don’t feel under pressure to submit a word perfect article. You need to submit the best article that you can, but understand that you’re part of a team now. The copy editors will improve your writing and the design team will make your article look awesome.

After the submission

After you’ve submitted the article, you may not hear anything back from the editor. That’s normally a good sign – it means that your article is going through the production process.

After the magazine has been printed, some editors will send you a copy of the magazine. Not all do though, so feel free to email the editor and ask for a copy. Believe me, seeing your first article in print is a good feeling.

Long term relationships

Send the editor an email thanking him for the opportunity – and send him another idea for the next issue with it.

You should be looking to develop long term relationships with editors. You don’t want to sell just one article – you want to sell a hundred, an issue at a time.

EOS magazine

If you’d like to submit an idea to EOS magazine, your best chance is if you have a specialty in something. For example, in the most recent two issues, two articles were contributed by freelancers. One on panoramic photography, and the other on astrophotography. Your first step is to read our writer’s guidelines here.

A good example

There’s one photographer who’s done an excellent job of writing articles for many photography magazines in the UK over the last few years (he wrote one for EOS magazine too a year or so ago). He’s a great photographer and writer and he’s worked hard for his success. His name is David Clapp and I recommend that you check out his website and blog. If you want to be a writer for photography magazines there’s no better example to look up to. With hard work and a bit of luck, there’s no reason why you can’t do the same.

Andes

The spreads illustrating this post are taken from the first article that I ever had published in a photography magazine – Practical Photography. You can see more photos from the Andes in my new ebook Andes which has just been released at Craft & Vision.

Andrew S Gibson is a freelance writer based in Auckland, New Zealand. He is the Technical Editor of EOS magazine and writes photography eBooks for Craft And Vision. including The Evocative Image. Follow Andrew on Facebook here.

Post from: Digital Photography School’s Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.

Writing for Photography Magazines – An Editor’s View