Starting a photography business

John

Hello everyone,

I lost my job recently, they are closing my office. I was good at it (project manager for software dev), but I never like going there, too many hours and too much work doing something that really isn't very interesting to me.

So... I would like to start earning some money doing something that I love. I know it will be a lot of work, but I have been working 12 hour+ days for quite a while, so I am not afraid of putting in some hours.

Here is my thought on how to get started.

I would like to do portrait shoots at Martial Arts schools to get the ball rolling. I have been studying Martial Arts for over twenty years, I'm sure I could do a good job right off the bat. I would shoot all of the students in one or two sessions, then post all the photos in a password protected account on smugmug and offer coupons to spur sales. I would also offer a free portrait session to the school owner of head instructor. This would be very little overhead for the school, and nobody would be obligated to buy anything.

Any feedback would be much appreciated. Here are my primary questions.

• Do you think this is a viable idea to get started.?
• Do you have any thoughts on how to market this to schools? (in person, drop off information, mail, email...)
• If you made it this far... what do you think a good price structure would be? ($5 for a 4x6, $8 for a 5x7...)

Here is my current web site:
jnolanphotography.com

Here is the equipment I have
Canon 5D
85mm 1.2
50mm 1.4
24-105mm 4.0
70-200 2.8
3x 580ex II + stands and backdrop

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
John