How did you get started?

joshhuntnm · March 28, 2008

I found this topic on another forum and found it interesting.

How did you get started making money in Photography? What advertizing works? How do you attract customers?

Moogle Pepper · March 28, 2008

I was just wondering about this too.
Is looking for local studios to become a photog assistant a good way to start?

joshhuntnm · March 28, 2008

you might read some of the answers at

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55392

Scott_Quier · March 28, 2008

I shot my first wedding for free.
Did the second one for cheap - still hadn't decided that I really wanted to do this.
Decided that I wanted to do weddings - got a real charge out of it.
Read lots, then read some more. DGrin forum (and others) was a huge source of information. But I found I had to be careful and test EVERYTHING to make sure it works and to make it mine.
Research the gear. What does one need to get the job done. Do I scrimp on the equipment, getting just enough to get by or do I go into debt to get the right tools. I went the debt route. Others have done it "pay as you go" and are just as successful and hopefully much more successful.
Advertising
- Word of mouth - I mention to a client that if they refer a friend to me for a wedding and that friend signs with me, the first client gets a gift certificate for services (not for product) and that this gift cert is transferable.
- Tried on-line listing in Talking Phone Book - waste of time and money
- Free listing with things like WeDJ, etc. These actually work. Need to do some research to find them, but every free listing is a possibility and I've gotten a number of contracts this way.
Where the client allows me to, I don't password their wedding galleries. This provides a huge sampling of the actual work and gets away from the fear prospective clients may have about "cherry-picking".
My wedding photographic style is photo-journalistic - if it happens, I try to capture it. I don't stage things, except the "required" family portraits. And, even then, I try to stay away from the "Line 'em up and shoot 'em" style of old.
Start out relatively low priced to get some clients. Not too low, other-wise you will have a hard time increasing your prices.
Put the time in - no matter how tired you are. For the first year, I worked two jobs, the 9-5 to keep food on the table, then another 8 hours on the photography. The photography was either reading, studying, working with lights, something. And, always with a purpose. Learn your tools. You need to know your editing tools. Build pre-sets, actions, anything to streamline your workflow. Develop your workflow - how do you want to process your photos and what style to you want to build there.

joshhuntnm · March 28, 2008

Good thoughts; thanks for sharing.

I just did my first wedding. What do you think would be a good cheap, but not too cheap price for the second?

Scott_Quier · March 28, 2008

joshhuntnm wrote:

Good thoughts; thanks for sharing.

I just did my first wedding. What do you think would be a good cheap, but not too cheap price for the second?

This is a question that is asked in so many different ways and there's only one answer - you have to answer the question.

But, here are some things to consider when you do your pricing:

What are other photogs in your area asking/getting? This is not a basis from which you should price, but you need to know.
How good are you? Are you good enough to get top dollar or ...
What is your time worth? Consider that your first 4 or 5 are going to be serious learning opportunities - at least they were for me (and I still run into interesting things I had never before considered).
What do you have to get to break even? Consider things like equipment depreciation, mileage, cost of fuel, that sort of thing.

Bottom line is basically what will your market bear and how well can you market yourself. There's at least on wedding photog I could name (but won't) that gets a minimum of $5K and as much as $20 per event and his work is, IMNSHO, nothing to write home about. But, he knows how to market himself.

sanford tullis · March 28, 2008

I was a bull rider and had a bull step on my back, while I was "healing" I started playing with a point and shoot film camera. I got in the areana, and got right in front of the gate and shot as the bulls were coming out. The pictures I got had some promise, so I kept playing with the p/s. I borrowed a 35mm for a couple of weeks with a 50mm lens and used the same approach- in front of the gate, shoot as they went by. I than bought a cannon rebel, the salesman told me I could learn with it. But in the conditions of rodeo it wouldn't last too long. (I still have it! 15 years later!)
I would shoot my friends at rodeos, and sell them the pictures for $4.00 for 4x6, and $10.00 for an 8x10. I was able to make some good money at rodeos, and I moved into shooting most sports.

Find something you enjoy and shoot it, for me it is sports, but I shoot everything someone will hire me for. Just be stubborn and don't QUIT!!!!

JDub · March 30, 2008

I got started in 1996, I was 17. I opened the doors to my studio on January 1st. I say studio but it was a basement of my mothers house, hey we all gotta start somewhere. (needless to say the studio is still in a basement, we have just upgraded a bit). I got started photographing (I dont say shoot too much), black and white Hollywood portraiture. Babies, children, families, etc. Shortly after that I jumped right into doing weddings, after being self taught. I did my first wedding in August of that year on my 18th birthday and have been a wedding and portrait photographer ever since. I have literally lost count of the number of weddings and portrait sessions I have done over the years. I now employ over 20 second shooters for weddings, 5 studio assistants, and great sales team, and looking to add more. Its neat to watch something you have built from the ground up, grow and become a nice source of income for your family. I hope my daughter ends up liking photography, if so she gets the business when I "retire" which I hear never happens for photographers, haha!

So anyway, long story short, I got started in Hollywood style portraiture. Which we still do on large format and tungsten lights, its great!

~Jan~ · March 30, 2008

I did photos for friends and family, and they liked them so much that I did THEIR friends and family, and so on. I was super duper cheap in the beginning. This was last July.

SaltFork · March 31, 2008

In 1985 I was working a summer job offshore in the Gulf of Mexico on an oil platform and I decided to spend some of the good money (for a student) I was making on a fancy new Canon AE1 Program 35mm film camera. I returned to school the next fall and completed my Mechanical Engineering degree and then continued on to grad school and an engineering career that brought me a great deal of success. My photography got better over the next 18 years but never went beyond the hobby stage.

In 2003 I went digital and started shooting youth sports because of my children. I also started playing with PHotoshop Elements and began giving away a lot of prints to friends and teammate's parents. The more I gave away the more people told me I should charge for it all. So, exactly two years ago I signed up for a PRO Smugmug site and now I'm up to about $6.5K of profit through the site and another $2K in sitting fees and blurb book sales.

My marketing to this point has been almost 100% word of mouth with a few thousand business cards thrown in for good measure. I donate high school sports action shots to the local paper in return for a good photo credit that includes my website. I also shoot a gallery full of photos every Sunday at my church services and then make those shots available to anyone that cares to download them. The church downloads are FREE and the prints I sell to church members are only slightly above cost.

Now comes the good part! In my engineering career I became a successful inventor and I now make a good living off of royalties which should last for at least the next 5 years but probably for another 10 years. That gives me the opportunity to "go pro" with the photography and not have to worry about making it pay all the bills immediately. I haven't completely committed to the idea of going pro yet but it is one of my possibilities.....

So that's the story of how I got started. And the story of where it goes from here is not yet written. Stay tuned....

And check out my website and blog!

vaio2006 · March 31, 2008

Well... I'm not a professional photographer by any means...so I don't know if I get to post here.. but:

I am currently a sophomore in college, but I started taking photos for my high school's yearbook my freshmen year.
Obviously, I did everything for free during high school. But as I kept working over the summers in my high school's neighborhood (in Tokyo) I started to get more and more jobs.

bham · April 1, 2008

In college bought an 35mm SLR started learning. Went to work for the student newspaper. They didn't have anybody interested in sports (photo editor and 2 other photographers were female and like the creative stuff) so I started doing it. Also started to relearn the darkroom stuff (was on yearbook staff in 7th grade and worked in darkroom). Became photo editor, continued to shoot and learn. After college worked for a few other companies as a side job. Did other stuff here and there. Continued to shoot sports for the college. Worked for a wedding photog for a year, as an assistant. Learned that and did most of the wedding album ordering and assembly. Spent a good year (3 or 4 hours a day) on the computer learning photoshop.

I guess I was lucky that I got a paying gig not long after I got my first SLR (Minolta 400si).

How did you get started?

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