Survival tips for new digital photography pros – Part I
If you’re new to the world of professional photography, you probably have a lot of questions. If you’ve been in the game for some time now, you’ve probably noticed that things are changing.
So what follows is the first of 2 parts on my advice on how to survive in these times of 65 megapixel cameras, VDSLRs and social media.
1. Know how to use your camera
When we get a new camera, we’re excited. We run outside or to the studio with it and shoot great pictures. The thing is, there’s a lot your camera can do that will not only make your pictures better, but there’s a lot your camera can do besides taking pictures. Open the manual. Read it from cover to cover. Know what to do when you get that “ERROR34″ code. You will feel much more confident in your ability to shoot, problem solve, and you will generally handle yourself in a more professional manner.
2. Shoot constantly
With your manual all worn out and dog-eared, you can now begin to shoot. Shoot everything, take your camera everywhere. If your camera’s too big or too heavy, invest in a point shoot with a manual mode so you can keep your eye and skills sharp. Camera phones work fine for this as well, as long as you shoot constantly.
3. Shoot RAW
RAW is the most powerful file format for digital cameras. The editing possibilities are endless. There are plenty of free RAW converters out there, and Adobe’s Camera RAW is second to none. Learn it, use it, feel the power.
Adobe Camera RAW
4. Know what you’re good at
In the beginning, you shoot everything. Portraits, still life, landscape. You need to specialize and develop a look for that specialty, or you won’t get hired. You can’t be good at everything, so you should focus on one area and master it.
5. Multiple Revenue streams
So you shoot portraits, what else can you do to make more money? You could try and teach a class on it, you could look into stock photography or you could have a gallery show. Find other ways to make money on your talent and ability. Teaching and seminars or lectures can be very rewarding, and a lot of schools and organizations need speakers on digital media because it’s changing so much and becoming so big. Stock photography, if you can get into it, can make you money on your photos while you focus on other things. It’s not guaranteed to pay your mortgage but it’s a good way to get your images in the public eye. Another thing is galleries, look into exhibition space in your area and what you have to do to get involved. There are many other ways to make money on your photography, sit back and brainstorm.
Exibition, Northern Waters Gallery
6. Never sell yourself short.
Set your rates and stay firm about them. You should never be ashamed of what you charge, you should come out and say them right away. You offer a great service at a great rate. NEVER give a “ballpark estimate.” You will miss something and end up under-cutting yourself. In these times you may need to be a bit flexible for yourself. Set a minimum and work for no less. If you’re not sure what to charge do some research on your competition. Don’t be a jerk and undercut everyone else. Be fair to yourself. As soon as you start shooting portraits for 50.00 you not only hurt yourself, but you hurt the market.
On friday I will post Part II. Stay tuned!
Sci-Fi Predicitions on the future of Digital Photography
Some History
The First digitally recorded Image. Click for source.
Digital Photography has come a long ways since it’s creation. There are a lot of things both the professionals and consumers looked at carefully before deciding to buy that shiny new toy that plugged into their computers, each had it’s own purpose. First it was megapixels. The first digital cameras were around 1 megapixel, some were even less than that. Competition picked up and soon 3 or 4 megapixel cameras were popping up. At this point, digital’s image quality was vastly inferior to film – so the pro’s stuck with their 35mm and 120mm cameras to get much cleaner images. When 6 megapixels rolled around, the pros became interested. With megapixels climbing and resolution improving, it wouldn’t be long before they could go to a camera store and buy one of these fancy things and not get laughed at. At 8-10 megapixels some pros started to convert – Digital was far less expensive and far more practical than film was for commercial applications. Some photographers stayed behind but now there was no doubt that a digital age was upon us. Resolution and megapixels grew almost weekly – 10, 12, 14, 24! It happened so fast, and us pros started to feel comfortable with digital’s image quality, finally.
Video was introduced next, with both 720p and 1080p HD video recording capabilities that is allowing photographers to put “Video” on their list of services to their clients, and currently there are several films being shot with Digital SLR cameras. The RED Camera shocked the world with it’s still photo and video capabilities wrapped into one.
Next up, came ISO. It used to be that if you went anywhere beyond 400 ISO you would get crazy noise and artifacts in your images. Then that was pushed to 800. 1600. Now with the Nikon D3S and the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV ISO ranges are going into the hundred-thousands with virtually no noise or artifacts. It’s changing the way we photograph everything, and it’s revolutionizing Photojournalism.
The last frontier for digital photography was dynamic range. It was said that the human eye is capable of seeing detail in both high-lights and shadows, where a typical DSLR could only see detail in either one or the other. HDR photography has changed that significantly, but would require to use 2 or more images to gather enough information and then combine the images in photoshop. Astronomical ISO ranges and HD video was not going to solve this.
Old Technology, new application
Bear with me for a moment. I have a very active imagination, having grown up on Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
I am imagining a camera, tool or device that uses very old technology for something very new. Not necessarily just for taking photographs – it could potentially be used for making 3D models and it already has a military use – but the possibilities are endless.
Your new Histogram
Imagine a device that uses digital imaging with sonar technology. Of course, it would have to be more advanced than the blips you see on the sonars in The Hunt for Red October, I imagine that it could use some sort of low-frequency laser that could scan and recreate a scene rather than the sound waves produced by a typical Sonar. Think about it. It would solve the Dynamic range issues that have been the bane of some photographers existence, and it would make 3D modeling a breeze, at least for gathering information on textures and shapes. Photoshop would no longer be a 2D application, but would be an entire rendering program used for both photographic and 3D purposes. Digital media would truly come together in the same way that video and still photography came together, and it would be a good thing.
Of course, it would also bring bad things – I imagine that still photography would no longer be used in a court of law as evidence (Frankly, I’m surprised it’s still being used today) due to the amount of tampering that could be done with such a vast amount of data. It would be an age of 64 TeraByte compact flash cards, and Fire Wire would be up to version 25.2.
What I’m trying to say here is that the chances of this actually happening is very slim to none. But wouldn’t it be cool? And to be honest, I don’t think the idea is too far fetched with all of the 3D movie technology that is popping up or how we all gasped when it was first revealed that we could shoot images at ISO 2500. So maybe this won’t happen real soon, but the reason we are creative professionals in the first place is because we have active imaginations, and I’d like to keep it that way. Leave your thoughts and comments on the future of our profession!
The new Polaroid
I have spoken of camera phones in the past, stating that they would be the death of the Photojournalism field. While this may not happen anytime real soon, I think that the availability and accessibility to the general public has greatly impacted
“Real news” brought to you by the people. However, it now seems to be affecting the fine art field as well. Photographers like Chase Jarvis and Lisa Wiseman use iPhones for fine art projects and others have even used camera phones to do professional work. This at first did not make much sense to me. Why would professional photographers advocate the use of low-resolution, slow shutter-speed cameras that any 15-year old girl would just toss in her purse? The answer is simple: Camera Phones are the next Polaroids and Holgas.
Photos by Lisa Wiseman
The low-tech-no-extras approach to photography is very refreshing. Most camera phones are in the range of 2-5 megapixels, and they don’t exactly have a large color palette or much dynamic range – but the DO produce unique, one of a kind images. And now it’s easier than ever to put those photos where people can see them on sites like Tumblr and Flickr with new technologies and smart phones.
Photo by Robert Schultze
Be sure to check out the Some-Photog-Tumblog for more camera phone photos.
Essentials
As a photographer, there is a lot of expensive equipment that you do not need to own – Strobe kits cost anywhere from 1,000.00 to 5,000.00, and since you probably won’t need strobes all the time you can easily rent them for about 100.00 for a day. Isn’t it expensive enough just to own a quality digital camera, a few lenses and other picture-taking essentials? As a professional, you cannot skip out on quality equipment that you will be using every day – I recently learned this the hard way. I own 2 Nikons, 4 quality lenses, a light meter, an off-camera flash and a backdrop kit – things I use every day.
Something else I didn’t think of, for whatever reason, was what I look at my photos on. I own a 13″ MacBook and have been doing work on it for about a year and a half now – I thought that everyone had to squint at the screen while working on RAW conversions. Boy was I wrong. Due to some recent financial circumstances I was able to purchase the new 21.5″ iMac.
I almost fell off my chair when I opened Adobe Camera Raw. I was actually able to see my layers – not have them minimized! With the wide-screen format, I was able to edit 2 photos side-by-side – a near impossible feat on my MacBook.
The images looked so crisp and clear, and I was able to sit back comfortably on my chair and work on photos.
Now I want you to know that while I use a Mac, this is NOT an advertisement for Apple – I guess I just had to learn that you need a monitor setup of a decent size to be able to edit photos to your best ability and a 13″ laptop just does not cut it.
Since you already own your own camera and lenses, a computer is just as important in this digital age. Save your pennies and buy something with at least a 17″ screen – you won’t regret it.
Organizing for a living
This week I called over a dozen designer clothing stores in preparation for a project I’m working on. I’ve had to arrange for equipment, assistants and a studio, and I’m in the process of getting it catered. I’ve been working on this for almost 3 weeks now, all for a project that will only take about a half a day to shoot.
Over time, I have come to learn that your workload as a photographer comes out to about 75% organization/problem-solving and 25% actual photography/image-making. It takes a lot of work to pull off a successful shoot, and all of this work will show in your images. It will pay off too, clients like it when they don’t have to worry about anything, and when they see that you pulled off a photo-shoot on location with 5 models 2 assistants and wardrobe stylist, they will be impressed, needless to say. You are a professional problem solver who also just so happens to be great at taking pictures. Don’t even get me started on making a bid on a project. That’s an organizational nightmare to say the least, and is a topic for another day.
So for starters, you should organize yourself. Find out how much a makeup artist in your area will cost, or what you have to do to get permission to shoot at that great location. It’s better to know now in advance then having to scramble around while your client waits for an answer.It will give you peace of mind, and it will give your clients confidence that they hired the right person for the job.
Microsites: A word on Diversity
When I’m working, I get paid to shoot portraiture, editorial and still-life/ads. My clients want to see my best portraits, my best campaigns, and my best still life images. The problem with this is that still life and portraiture is not solely what I do. I dabble in fine art and fashion a lot, but if a client sees a portfolio filled with fine-art work and they need portraiture, they are bound to look elsewhere to someone with a portfolio more catered to what they need.
So what do you do with all of these extra images? Someone somewhere wants to see those photos. This is where “Microsites” come in. A microsite is usually a single page devoted solely to a project that does not fit in with the rest of your portfolio. Of course, your name is attached and a link to your full portfolio should be prominent on the page. One of my favorite microsites is “We are sleeping giants” by Brooks Reynolds.
Think of a microsite as your own personal art gallery – design it exactly how you want it, not how you think a client would want it. This is all about you. They are great marketing tools, they show potential clients that you are diverse without middling up your portfolio. As such the target audience for your microsite is… well, anybody and everybody!
I’m currently working on a microsite for my project “Lost and Familiar”, some of the images you have seen on this site before:
The point here is to get the word out on this series of 12 images. You should have a personal goal with a microsite, not simply to show people what else you can do. My goal here is to shop the series around to art galleries, and maybe catch the eye of some art directors.
Check out some other great microsites HERE.
Pressed for time
So this week, I’ve had 3 studio shoots, 1 event shoot, post-production on all 4 shoots, 2 articles to write, (one for Saddle Stitch, one for the ol’ blog) all while trying to have some semblance of a life.
Working for yourself, as most photographers do, can take up a lot more time than some people think. They imagine that you spend a few hours on a set with glamorous models during the day and spend the evening with cocktails, but they are leaving out the book keeping, post-processing and client contact that goes along with that morning shoot.
Many times I will work on a shoot or several for 7 days a week – no time off. I eat, sleep and breathe photography. And I love it.
If this is you, you're in the right field.
Sure, you have to make time for your friends or family or significant other. But there are times when you are on a roll, weather it’s your flow of steady work or a firestorm of creativity – those are the times when you have to – need to – work as a photographer. You will push out your best work, because you’re feelin’ it and it feels good.
Photography is all about love, you have to love it for when you have those busy weeks. And like most jobs, the more you love it the better you will be at it. If you love it enough, you may never have to work a day in your career.
How to start a Photoblog
So you have a few photoblogs that you regularly visit (Hopefully Some Photographer is one of them) for a variety of reasons. Maybe one has a great “Photo of the week” post or maybe another one is a great news source. You say to yourself “I take pictures! I write! I can do this too!” Running a photoblog can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a lot of work. If you start to gather a following, there’s more pressure to write and you’d be surprised how easy it is to get writer’s block. So before you jump in and starting snapping pics and writing tutorials here are a few things to consider.
Who
What kind of audience do you want to appeal to? Beginners? Enthusiasts? Pros? It’s important to carve out your niche but to do so carefully – you don’t want to get in over your head. Most of the people that write blogs are pros, enthusiasts or beginners themselves and you can tell by what they write. This can also be reflected in the title of your blog. Take A Photo Editor for example – the titles says it all. Lou Lesko is allowed to use his own name as a title, because he’s well known enough in the industry. One day maybe you can name your blog after yourself too!
What
What sort of photoblog will you be doing? Whats the theme? The idea? Are you going to do daily posts like a 365 photos project? Are you going to post other people’s work as a way of showing the world great artists? Are you going to focus on industry news? Write tutorials? Or will it be all about you? Find out what would suite you best and stick with it. A combination of these themes can make your blog versatile and appeal to a wider audience, but it’s more difficult to keep up.
Where
There are a myriad of blog hosting services and websites you can use to set up your blog. You can buy your own domain name and have it that much more professional – or you can start out with a free service and see where it all goes. Most blog services have a free program that allows you to do all of the basics post-dating your posts, themes and looks for your blog, etc. Then they usually offer a premium service as well that allows more customization or storage space.
There’s a lot of things to consider when joing a blog service. Besides everything I mentioned above, you want a good community of bloggers, and bloggers who stick with it. WordPress is definitely the most popular blogging service, and you will find thousands of bloggers blogging about everything you can imagine. It might make your site a bit difficult to find, but if you tag and categorize properly you shouldn’t have a problem.
While I don’t believe that Blogger’s community is as dedicated as WordPress’, It is quite user-friendly and there are lots of ways to customize, even without a premium service. It’s affiliated with google, so you go straight to a search directory without any steps or registrations.
Make sure that whatever service you use has a lot of storage space for photos. Most places have at least 1 gig of storage, but you’d be surprised at how fast you can fill that up. You can always host your images through a different service like Flickr or Photobucket.
Flickr is easily the largest photo-sharing community and is aimed at photographers.
Photobucket is designed for mass photo-storage and sharing
When
So you have the theme, the host and the pictures – how often should you update? The answer is as much as you want – within reason. If your new at this and not sure what you want out of it yet, Once a week is a good place to start. Unless you’re doing a photo-a-day type blog, you won’t need to post every day – this gets tiresome for some readers. I would say even 3 times a week is a bit excessive. Twice a week is nice and comfortable, if you have a lot to write about. Spread out your posts don’t update two days in a row, get a schedule going so your readers know when to come back. And be consistent, don’t post 3 times in one week and then one time again a month later. No one will take you seriously.
Why
You’re probably doing this for one of the following reasons: (1) You have an opinion to share. (2) You have a lot of photos to share. (3) You have the inside scoop of the industry. (4) You like photo gear.
All of these reasons are fine – if you’re passionate about it, you will write well about it. A lot of up and coming professionals (like myself) get a blog to show potential clients that they can do more besides photography, and that they are diverse. Understand why you are writing and have a goal. When you reach that goal, make another one.
Etc.
Proper spelling and grammar is important. Readers will not take u srsly if u pst lik ths. Have a minimum/maximum wordcount. No one like s a rambler, but you should not have 50 word posts. I have a minimum of 250 words and a max of 1000. Use social networking like Facebook and Twitter or LinkedIn and Friendfeed to tie into your blog or advertise it. Don’t be excessive – nobody likes spam. Services like BlogExplosion work ok to get traffic initially – but if you want quality traffic you should stick with forums and websites for photographers to promote it on. Engage your readers – have polls and ask questions to encourage participation – it will stick in their minds and they will come back. Have links, lots of links. Links to other blogs, websites, etc.
So there you have it, the foundations to starting a photoblog. Have fun and experiment. Take risks – I am dangerously close to my word limit – and be consistent. Good luck and happy photoblogging!
Image Manipulation – The future of commercial photography
With digital photography becoming more accessible every day, it’s more important than ever to keep up on the latest technologies and techniques – it’s more competitive than ever.
And once again, it seems that the field that has the biggest niche for work and the smallest for actual talent is the world of computers – or image retouching and manipulation.
Images are the property of Michal Horevaj
Images like these are made up of over 100 photographs, all painstakingly tweaked to fit together with the overall idea. These people do not take photographs – they create them. They are professionals, working hundreds of hours on a single image. The images are used for magazines, calenders, greeting cards and just about every thing you can think of. And these retouchers are paid very well because a lot of photographers are great photographers – but they rarely have the time or skill to do complete image overhauls like the ones you see above.
I attended a talk by Kate Chase, a image retoucher-agent and she spoke of how digital imaging is changing. She and many others in her industry believe that it is more important now than ever to have a degree in your field and have complete understanding of post production. It will give you leg up on your competitors – people who still shoot with film, I’m looking at you.
So if you think that you suck at photoshop, you better brush up or it’s going to be a long cold winter for you.
Working Pro-Bono
So in the last few weeks that I have been in New Zealand I have been working with a musician named Darija Andzakovic for free – usually receiving nothing but gratitude or an occasional box of chocolate. Darija is a classically trained double-bassist who gigs around Auckland and gives lectures. She’s good friends with my girlfriend and she asked me to help her out with a poster which she already had the photos for.
The photographer she worked with initially had taken/gathered a number of photos and all I had to do was assemble them in photoshop and add text. She was very pleased with the results, and asked if I would photograph the event as well. With the time I spent working on the poster and the photos I took of the event, I could have been sitting on a nicely-paid job for some extra cash while I was on vacation.
Although monetary compensation was discussed, I decided to go for the chocolates. Why you ask? Darija has connections here that would take me quite some time to get myself. She has many friends in the creative industry as well as the music industry, and it’s always nice that when her peers check out her photos she will say “Rob Schultze took those photos.” Plus, I really like chocolate.
And then there’s the fact that I’m only here with a visitors visa, and they are quite strict about things like that.
Lou Lesko wrote an article that inspired this one, and I wanted to give my two-cents on the subject. I really like New Zealand, and so does my girlfriend. It’s always nice to have connections and word-of-mouth going around in a place that you may consider doing more work, if everything works out.
Home-Studios: are they worth it?
When you start getting regular work, many of questions will come to mind particularly if you do a lot of studio work.
You may have been renting a studio or using a friends for some time now, but now that the work keeps on coming, you begin to wonder if it’s worth it have your very own. Here’s a few pointers.
Personally, I have an 8×10 backdrop stand with a black seamless, a white seamless and a gray seamless. That, along with a set of 3 hot-lights gives me all of flexibility for what I need to do.
About 75.00
The backdrop stands are about 50-75.00, my seamless is just the paper kind so about 20.00 per roll, and the hot-lights are around 10-20.00 each.
I can shoot still-life/product on this, as well as do portrait sittings for an overall cost of about 200.00 for the entire setup, which will pay for itself in about 1-2 jobs.
If I need to freeze movement and do something more dramatic, I can rent strobes. A strobe kit costs around 1000.00 for a 2 light setup with a power-pack, but you can rent one for about 125.00 a day. When you take into account how often you will use it, you can figure out if it’s worth it to buy your own.
If I’m shooting something a little more high-end, like something for an ad or a magazine, I’ll rent a studio. It’s just more professional to have an art director or client wait around in a studio than sit on your living room couch, and models will be much more comfortable in that setting as well.
Overall, I say have the bare essentials at your house (Backdrops, seamless, hot-lights) to do the basics with. You can always rent to do the jobs with a higher profile, and a higher budget.
Marketing 101
How to keep the work coming is a bit of an enigma to newcomers of the industry.
When the majority of your work comes from freelance leads, it’s very important to have a handle on what will get you work and what won’t. And sometimes – Most times – It’s simply a waiting a game.
Business Cards
Depending on what sort of work you do, especially if your into the wedding or event photography arena, business cards can be a great source of work, as you can simply hand them out while your working. Some other fields such as advertising or fashion won’t care much if you leave a card with them – especially if it’s how you make your primary income. There are a lot of places to get business cards made, you can go through your local print shop or you can order them online. I use Mpix.com, they make great cards at low cost, and you can use their nifty-design program to speed up the creation and order process.
The Mpix Software
Promos
Promos are mailers that you send to art directors or event coordinators, and they can be as simple as a 5×7 postcard. These people receive hundreds of promos a day, so if you really want to be noticed you have to submit something that is not only an excellent image, but is also creatively presented. This can be anything from a folded up poster with one of your images and your name on it, to a small book that showcases the best of your work related to the client. Personally, I use iPhoto to create my miniature promo-books, they make excellent mailers as they are small (about 2.5 x 3.5 inches) and light, and they are a great substitute for a business card as they fit nicely in your pocket. Sending mailers can be expensive, so it’s best to send your mailers only once every 3-4 months. Make sure you send fresh work each time!
Also, you can go the e-mail blast route – browse talent and ad agency websites, get contact info and about once or twice a month send them a nice image with your name on it and a link to your portfolio. Explain what sort of work you do, briefly. It’s important that you update the image often.
My last e-mail promo
You can read more about promos from the view of a photo editor HERE.
The Internet
You absolutely must have a website or online portfolio of some kind. You would be surprised the amount of work you can get because of it, especially in this day and age of electronics. You can use the internet in other ways too, newcomers and veterans alike post ads on Craigslist all the time to get freelance work, and it’s a good place to start if your new to the industry.
Also, take advantage of social networking like Twitter and update people on the work your doing, start a blog and show potential clients that you can do more besides snapping photos.
Be Flexible
When you send out promos and mailers, it is important to cater to the interests of the client you are sending work to. However, this does not mean you should strictly only do portraiture or food photography. If you can shoot Fashion alongside journalism, you will be that much more valuable to your clients, and will get more work because of it. It’s best to plan out a shoot to show your diversity. Get friends to model for you, travel to interesting locations, etc.
Word of Mouth
This is hands down the best – and simplest – way to market yourself. Be polite. Be professional. Be knowledgeable. If you make a good impression on a client, word travels fast.
Above all, it is most important to produce good work. If you combine that all of the above, you will see steady work and success. A good photographer’s work is never done – so once you wrap up production of that new promo or business card, you need to get right to work on the next one. Be creative, be original, be you.
Nostalgia is an un-productive thing
Film is dead. There, I said it. There are some hardcore people out there who still believe it to be superior to it’s digital counter-part, but those people are not making any money. Digital is the place to be in today’s professional world of photography.
I admit, I own a Nikon F2, a Holga, and a few Polaroids. I love film in all of it’s formats, But these days, there is no real practical (or commercial) use for it. Film has a certain look or feel to it, as does using a low end camera like a Holga. But really unless you feel like using a damaged lens, you can get these same effects right in photoshop.
Before and after photoshop. Look familiar?
People may argue “It’s not the same!” and from a certain standing, they are right. But it’s cheaper, and isn’t that what every thing is about these days?
The Polaroid Software
For those of you who cried the day Polaroid discontinued it’s film, you should keep an eye on Polaroid.Net, it’s a great free piece of software that when you import your JPEG’s, it spits them out in a remarkable recreation of a polaroid photo – complete with a flash, a sound and the option to “Shake it” with the mouse to speed up the development time. The finished pictures even have thumb-prints and dirt on them. The images are fairly high-res considering that it’s a beta, but from the looks of the website there’s a lot more to come.
Sorry to be so tough on you guys, like I said, film is great – but if you want to be in the game you need to accept that you will not make it in that world if you try. But I’m sure that wherever film is, it’s looking upon us and smiling.
Cameraphones: The future of Photojournalism?
Cellphones are everywhere these days. From senior citizens to five-year-old toddlers, I would say that you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t own a cellphone. And now, cellphones can do just as much as laptops – and in the case of the iPhone’s Subway Station finder, they can do more:
So the ability to take photos and capture video is no sweat and while it’s still not the primary use of cellphones, the quality of the cameras are increasing.The iPhone has a 2 megapixel sensor, LG’s KC780 has an 8 megapixel sensor, and Samsung recently released a 12 megapixel camera phone in europe.
More megapixels does not mean better pictures – you and I both know that. But how long will it be before camera phones have the same abilities as a DSLRs? There are already a number if incidences where the local news stations have shown videos or photos captured by a camera phone. More and more, the industry seems to be turning to “Citizen journalists” as a means to get on the “inside.”
I think that we’re a ways off from camera phones taking over the DSLR market. But the reality is it’s out there, everyone and their mother has a cellphone, and it’s evolving fast.
Tips to go from Hobbyist to Pro
So you’ve been shooting for a long time now, you have six different cameras both 35mm and digital and you’ve just been asked to shoot a senior photo. “Wow, I can make money from this??”
Yes. Yes you can, and here’s how you can make more money in a much more timely fashion.
Get an Education
Now I don’t mean that you need to go get an MFA in photography, but taking classes can be as simple as going to your local Technical college or taking a correspondence course. The New York Institute of Photography has a very good, inexpensive certificate program, if you think you’re up to the commitment of a correspondence program.
Read, read, read. Time to ditch “Popular Photography” and “Shutterbug” magazine, it’s time to move up to the big leagues – top of the game is Digital Photo Pro and Photo District News, these will not only get you the typical gear reviews and feature-photographers, but they will make you aware of all sorts of news within the industry, as well as Juried competitions which offer some serious exposure to the winning party.
Other books such as Pricing Photography and Advertising Photography offer in-depth views on how to manage your business.
Get a website
If you want to make it in today’s world as a photographer, you will need a web presence of some kind. I mentioned this in my last post, social networking is very powerful today. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook all offer ways to stay connected not only with individual people, but with companies as well. You will be taken much more seriously as a professional though if you have your own website to show your portfolio on. Livebooks offers a great flash-based site that works great and looks really slick. And if you’re a student, you can get it for $100.00 a year.
A certain livebooks website.
Your website should be 2 things: Simple and consistent. Don’t have a lot of sidebars and complicated menus. Here’s a good test; show your website to your grandmother, and if she can figure it out you’re on the right track. Your work should be consistently good – clients know filler when they see it – so only put up your best work.
Network
I am a member of the APA as well as a Photoshop usergroup, and these are valuable resources not only for getting information, but the people you meet can mean some amazing connections and work in the future. There are so many clubs and groups out there, that it would be hard for you to not join one.
Look at other people’s work
This one should be a given. Weather it’s the latest Ansel Adams exhibit or pictures of your niece’s cat, you need to soak up as much inspiration as you can. Go to portfolio reviews and art openings – it’s a great opportunity to see who’s better than you, and how you can improve.
Put your gear on a leash
Now just because you’re calling yourself a pro and you have a few paying jobs here and there does not mean you should rush out and drop $50,000.00 on all the latest gear. I do all of my professional shoots with a 12 Megapixel Nikon D300, and I have never had any complaints. I would say that 10 Megapixels with a good resolution is plenty, because it’s not the camera that makes a good photo. Don’t buy a strobe kit – you can rent those for $100.00, and how often will you really use them?
This should get you a good start. The rest you will learn in the field, on your own. Still, don’t be afraid to ask someone who’s better than you, read old out-dated photography books and get jobs that are way over your head. This is how you learn.
Social Networking and YOU.
Networking.
In the last few weeks between school, searching for work, and setting up this blog I noticed something. I spend a lot of time on my computer. This isn’t to say that I’m not productive during my day, I do a lot of things for personal enrichment such as reading, looking at art, socializing… But today, all of these activities can be done online. I’m trying to make it all work to my advantage. I use twitter and Facebook for both pleasure and networking, and it seems like something that used to be done so formally – meet-ups and gatherings – have been made so much more casual by the internet.
Now, I’m not knocking these services at all. I have had much success from cruising the likes of Craig’s List and LinkedIn, it just seems so different now. Promo mailers seems to be quickly becoming a thing of the past, and photographers have to find new ways to get themselves noticed. A website with your portfolio doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. For those dewy-eyed newborn photographers; get into social networking. Use it all, twitter, friendfeed, facebook… it can only help you in this new age of electronic marketing. And while I had a difficult time getting myself to use twitter – I have now discovered that a lot of my favorite artists and magazines and companies are on it, giving me a new way to keep up with the industry.
I encourage you to surf message boards, start a blog, anything to get your name out there. The internet gives anyone the opportunity to become known, and as a photographer in this fast-paced, super competitive world, you should take advantage of it. Because if no one knows who you are, how will you ever get work?
