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From hobby to professional?
pahl
Registered Users Posts: 107 Major grins
How many of you have taken you photography hobby and turned it into a full time profession?
I would love to hear your story on how you did it.
How did you start out in photography?
What were you doing before you turn your hobby into a full time job?
Thanks..
I would love to hear your story on how you did it.
How did you start out in photography?
What were you doing before you turn your hobby into a full time job?
Thanks..
http://pahl.smugmug.com
Pentax istDL
50mm-f/1.4
10-17mm fish-eye
18-55mm kit lens
Sigma EF-500 DG Super Flash[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][/FONT]
Pentax istDL
50mm-f/1.4
10-17mm fish-eye
18-55mm kit lens
Sigma EF-500 DG Super Flash[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][/FONT]
0
Comments
Well I'm in transition currently. Been a hobby of mine for over 15 years. As a software developer I'm just sick and tired of the same old programming code for the past 13 years and I want to do what I love best.
I was out of photography for a long time while in the USAF but about 2 years ago I decided on a DSLR. Of course I went with the 20d and now the 30d but basically it was a decision I had to make. I had to know that I was going to spend a LOT of money over the first couple of years to really get it going. Getting the word out is not cheap by any means. I'm now in month 13 and I must say that all is going okay. I'm not close to matching my IT salary but in time I think I will get there.
It is a very tough thing to transition. Basically sometimes I'm working 2 full time jobs. As a single parent (with girlfriend) I'm pretty busy as well. It's a balancing act that I couldn't have imagined. But being online with the great community of DGrin and SmugMug I must say that my photography has gotten better over the past year by 10 fold.
As I continue on I take it step by step. My main goal is to NOT go into any credit card debt. There is lots of equipment I want, but if I cannot afford it then I can't buy it. Little by little I'm getting there. Go Cheap for a while. I have some crappy ole Britek studio lights but I get the job done. I might have to work a little harder than my Alien Bee counterparts but I can produce.
I would not recommend jumping in to $10,000 debt to have cool equipment and then deciding to look for customers. Take the frontwards approach. Buy as you can. Take your extra (if any) money and invest it into advertising. Be very careful of who you choose to advertise with. Remember - BABY STEPS.
I just completed year 1. I'm in the green (by pennies) but I'm not in the Red happy to say. Year 2 my goal is double what I did in year one. I've come up with a 5 year plan. If all goes well and we stay on track then I will plan do do this full time in 5 years.
Hope that helps!
For now, back to the code!!!
Kudos to you for this. Debt-free is a great way to live.
On my 8th birthday I got a Kodak Instamatic X-15 and never went anywhere without it. By 5th grade I was doing darkroom work pretty regularly. By 7th grade I was a stringer for a weekly paper. I did the usual high school and college paper thing, and by a weird twist of fate switched to broadcast photojournalism in 1986.
I took a break from that to teach documentary video for a bit in 2000.
I went into freelance production video and hated it. Boy was that an expensive learning process. Went back into news and doc work so that ended up working out, but got hurt and landed in a wheelchair so I went into radio news to pay the bills. Now I'm back to shooting stills again for fun...for the first time that I can remember in 20 years...with an eye on this turning into news work once again.
I'm not sure if it was ever a hobby. More like it was a part of me early on, and from my 8th birthday I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
I'm not much for fine arts stuff--I'm sort of a meat-and-potatoes shooter-- but I love photojournalism.
If I could give anyone any advice based on my launch into freelance work, and input from my buddies who have done the same, it would be to get onto a tight budget 2 years prior to making the jump and pay off everything you can. Find a part-time job you can do while working towards building your business. In that last year before making the jump, you'll essentially be working full-time on building your business while using the p/t job to cover essential bills so the hours will be tough. Then make the jump, weaning yourself from the other income as you go. You'll need to have your family on board with the plan if a spouse/mate is a factor in your life--get their input and keep communicating with them. Network your butt off and capitalize on every bit of momentum.
Make sure you have good health/disability insurance.
hi Pahl,
There are actually 2 questions in here: (1) how to go pro and (2) how/when to quit your day job and go full-time.
Question #2 is pretty simple: this is a decision that you don't make - it gets made for you. Your first couple years in business will likely not be that busy. It takes a while to get established and have your phone ringing. Even if you wanted to go "full-time" you won't have enough to do to keep yourself busy 40 hrs a week. You go full time when you're forced to - when you are so busy with your photography clients that something's gotta give - when your day job is keeping you from making a good living from your photo job!
As far as the steps you need to take, everyone's different so I'll just tell you the steps I took to get started:
(1) pick your niche - what do you want to shoot? sports? portraits? weddings? product? real estate? specialize in one or two fields of photography (I do weddings and portraits)
(2) shoot, shoot, shoot! Shoot family. Shoot friends. Shoot events. Put ads in Craigslist offering to shoot for free. Use these shoots to refine your skills and build your portfolio
(3) evaluate your portfolio - be honest. is it professional quality? if the answer is yes, it is time to get started
(4) write your business plan. who are you going to sell to? how are you going to sell? what equipment do you NEED (it's need, not want)? How will your pricing work? how/where/when will you advertise?
(5) launch your professional website. unless you are a really good programmer or have a lot of money to hire a programmer to do a custom site, go with a professional photographer's template site company such as www.bludomain.com www.bigfolio.com or www.livebooks.com
(6) start selling!
Finally, remember this: you may shoot more and have more fun with photography as an amature or semi-pro than you would as a full-time pro. Most of the full-time professional photogs I know spend less than 10% of their time shooting, and most of their time doing other stuff. (bookkeeping, meeting clients, marketing, working on advertising, etc.)
good luck,
Larry
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www.laurencekim.com
My grandfather was into photography his whole life. He passed away when I was four. But I remember the last time we actually spent a week with him, mostly from the pictures we took. The pictures remind me of the smells in the air, the taste of that ice cream cone we ate while watching the planes take off by the airport. As soon as I was old enough to work a disposable camera I started taking pictures all the time. I never left the house without a camera on me. In high school I was an editor for our school yearbook. After high school, I decided I wanted to go to school for a big money degree. It didn't fascinate me though. There was no passion for it, and I noticed I was slacking in the work. I decided to take a photography class for fun, just to better my skills. At that moment I knew I needed to follow my passion. So now I'm a photographer with Olan Mills, and going to school for photography and hoping to start my own business. I actually have started picking a wedding here and there and all my customers want me to do this or that for them. I just don't know how to get up and running. If any one has advice for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Feel free to actually e-mail me on yahoo, jennicob21@yahoo.com. Thanks!
Larry forgot one very important and FANTASTIC SITE to use to host your site.....SMUGMUG....I had my own site that I basically had to have built from scratch and it was costing me about the same as Smugmug and it was only 100Mb......
I have not found any one to give the service that SM gives from the start....even if one was to use SM just as a way of backing up their work it can't be beat.......
If your decide you want to get an SM accout PM me and I'll send you my discount code or just go to my site and copy and paste the code from there....take a trial run to see if you like it, that doesn't cost you a thing but some time uploading the pics and build soem simple galleries.
The time it takes fpor one to turn pro is up to you...how hard you work at Marketing your self......is the significant other behind you 150%.......is the SO ther to help by gently pushing when needed......but market market market yourself....not just your website but flyers on every public bulletin board you can find (Borders, barnes and noble...those kind of bulletin boards), some on here have been doing Google Ads or yahoo ads...there are threads on here about those and their success using them.....
Good Luck