How to get started in photography is one of the questions I receive most often on my social networks or in my mailbox.
Especially how to start being a photographer to have a profitable photography business.
It is no longer enough to take photos and proclaim yourself a photographer. It is logical. We also want to be able to live from our passion, photography.
And for this it is not enough just to know how to take beautiful photos. In addition, you have to know how to do more things.
In this article I am going to give you 7 tips that will help you whether you are going to start photography or if you have been a photographer for some time but still have questions about how to organize your photography business.
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To Start In Photography Any Camera Is Enough For You
The first thing you have to know is that to start photography you don’t need to spend a lot of money on a great camera because you are just starting out. You still do not know very well what type of photography you are going to do and any investment will surely be a mistake.
So start with the camera you have. If you don’t have a camera, go to the second-hand market and buy any that meet the minimum requirements. For example these that I put below. They could be others, but these are worth it:
- Make it an SLR camera
- Have interchangeable optics
It doesn’t matter that it is 456 years old because you are going to use it to learn and to break your hand. Always think that learning is not going to be done with the camera with which you will work definitively when you can finally make a living from photography.
Do not look for brands, do not look for great benefits. Just look for a camera that helps you learn. If they can, they can lend it to you better.
Study Photography And Learn To Take Good Photos
To start in photography it is very important that you study photography… even if it is only a little. That you study the bases, the technique and the different photographic styles.
It’s great to be self-taught, but that won’t always work for you. In the end you will reach a market with a lot of competition and, perhaps, that knowledge will help you stand out.
This doesn’t have to be expensive. Nowadays you have very cheap alternatives.
I recommend that you go through the Digital Reel platform where you will find:
- free podcasts
- a blog with lots of information
- a library of very interesting resources
- a community of users who like you are learning and sharing their experiences
- you can access a lot of courses only for a very cheap monthly fee
The important thing about studying photography is not going to the best photography school in the world and spending a fortune.
You can learn photography from below in a simple and cheap way. Think that you still do not know if you are really going to dedicate yourself to photography. Therefore do not invest too much money. Start little by little.
Choose Your Photography Niche Well
When you start in photography, as you study and get into this world, you will learn about different photography specialties:
- Macro
- Nocturnal
- Portrait
- Sports
- landscapes and nature
- social reporting, etc.
Little by little you will discover that specialty that attracts you the most and is most interesting to you.
But be very careful.
There are many photography niches that are very beautiful but it is very, very difficult to make a living from them. This article is about how to have a profitable photography business and make a living from it.
My recommendation, if you want to start living from photography, is that you start with social photography.
Social photography is the one with which you will be able to develop a business and a portfolio of clients more easily.
Maybe you like underwater photography better, it is possible, but selling underwater photography is very difficult. It’s very small and you have to be very good and it is very complicated. The same if we talk about night or landscape photography. You are quite limited in the market for the sale. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. What happens is that the possibilities are much smaller and it is a very difficult market to enter.
However, making a baptism, wedding, book or portrait report is much more at hand.
That is why he thinks that the photograph that you would like to take is not the same as the photograph that can feed you.
That is a decision that you have to make, no one can make it for you.
This decision influences whether your photography business is profitable or not.
4 – LEARN MARKETING AND SALES
You can start in photography with nothing more than your camera and your desire. But sooner or later you will need to make use of marketing
You will need a business plan because you want to live from photography and you want to have a profitable business
If you are a smart photographer you will realize that taking good photos is not enough. You have to sell them and you have to sell them with your head.
You have to know how to sell and if you want to know how to sell you have to learn sales and marketing techniques.
It is useless to take magnificent photos to live from photography if later in one you are able to sell them.
It is even more important to know how to sell than to know how to take good photos. A well-sold mediocre photo can be sold expensive. A very good poorly sold photo cannot possibly be sold for anything.
Therefore it is more important to learn to sell than to learn to take good photos oddly enough. It’s the honest truth
5 – NEVER SPEND A FORTUNE ON YOUR EQUIPMENT
Photographers are like magpies, we see something brilliant and we jump for it.
The new telephoto lens has come out that is worth €2000: we do whatever it takes and we buy it to use it 3 times in a lifetime.
We are real wasters of material.
To start in photography you should not set yourself high spending goals. It is better to go little by little.
All the material that you are going to use only once, rent it or borrow it. Do not buy it. Buy only what you use every day. What you are going to use once a year you rent or borrow.
Never buy something that you are not able to amortize in a year based on the work you do.
That also refers to photo editing and retouching software.
We all know that there are three programs that are the most used and recognized by all photographers in the world.
But they are not the only ones. There is other unknown software of great quality at a much cheaper price that can give you the same result (or even better).
But since everyone uses these programs, you don’t even consider other options.
The important thing is that you are able to offer your client a product that he falls in love with and that you are able to take advantage of your team.
It doesn’t matter that you have cheap equipment. Really, the one who takes the picture is you, the one who decides the shot is you, the one who decides the framing and the one who decides the post-production.
I have seen magnificent photos taken with ordinary cameras. With good processing you can get great images.
Never think that the money you invest in the software or in your equipment is what is going to give you a better photograph to earn money.
That is not true. Really your ability to earn money is in your imagination and your ability to produce. I am going to recommend a software called Luminar 4.
It is specially prepared to facilitate and speed up your work. You will be surprised by its low price and high performance.
You can use it independently or as a plugin for the other most popular editing programs.
6 – CREATE A GOOD PORTFOLIO
One of the biggest problems you face when starting out in photography is the absence of a portfolio.
You cannot sell your work if you are not able to teach it, for that reason you need to create a portfolio as soon as possible.
The best way to create your portfolio is to use the people you have close to you: your friends, neighbors, relatives…
Ask them to let you photograph them and go to all family events with your camera.
Search in exchange groups for people who want to have photographs and let themselves be photographed for free as models in exchange for having a portfolio.
This way you will be able to practice and rehearse until you have a good number of photographs to select.
By the way, this will also serve as learning for you. Learning photography and learning how to manage people, which is also very important.
Once you have this photographic material make a good selection. Don’t fall in love with your bad photos. The normal thing is that you take a good photo for every 100 or 200 mediocre photos. Choose your good photos well and show only the excellent ones.
Think that the best photographer is not the one who takes good photos but the one who shows you only the best photos of him.
All great photographers, even the greatest, take mediocre pictures. What happens is that he teaches you only his great works.
Once you have a good portfolio, you can start getting paid. But you can’t start charging if you don’t have something to teach and that people like.
Therefore, to start creating your portfolio, look for a way to work for free on those types of photography that you want to sell and that represent your style. From there you can start teaching them and you can start charging for your work
7 – CREATE A PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE
Having a website is essential. It is the place where you will create your brand, your image and sell your services.
You can’t be a serious professional photographer without a website.
The normal thing is to start in photography without a website, only with a profile on Facebook or Instagram. This is not correct.
It’s no use having a Facebook page, it’s no use having a profile on Instagram. That’s not enough. Your house, your business, is on your website
In the same way that you invest in professional tools, in professional cameras and have a team that you use in a professional way, in the same way your website must also be professional.
Furthermore, I would tell you that you can have mediocre equipment, you can have cheap equipment, you can use cheap software but what will sell your photos is your brand image, your presence, what others see of you.
That is why it is more important to invest a lot in your image in your brand, in your presence and on your website because that will make people trust you more and be willing to pay you more.
Your image is worth more than the authentic quality of the work you do. We are in a photography business and as such a business, the image that your clients have of you is more important than what you really deliver.
Invest in a good web page that is well designed to sell, has a good sales strategy and selects a good portfolio to put on that web page.
That way you can start to think that you are close to having a profitable photography business.
Now you have very cheap options that offer you everything you need to have a very attractive website, which you can do yourself, without programming and for much less than you think.