Wednesday, July 15, 2009

How to make money with your photography.

I get this question often in my emails from other photographers. How can I make money with my photography?

There will be 5 rules or idea to keep in mind.

#1. Quality work.

There will be a minimal quality required for people to invest in your photography. That requirement is different from one client to the next. One client might love your work when you capture simple, emotive and real moments. Others might love it more when you make them look like a supermodel! You will need to be able to capture images that are clear, original, well defined and also offer them a variety of images!

You have to find this out by talking with your client. I find that all clients are happy when you actually show their real life joy, personality and soul in a picture. It's not easy to do at the beginning but you will need to be confident with your photography skills. If you are afraid of charging 5 000$ for a wedding or 500$ for a photography session, it will show on the day of the shoot. The client's feels this fear and will be uncomfortable working with you. This will make it impossible to create or capture the images desired.

#2 Wedding photography

Wedding photography is simple yet complicated. All you need is the best lenses since you will be working in harsh condition. You will also need some skills. Most wedding client's are looking for real, uncensored, emotional and representative photographs of their day. You will need to develop various skills like shooting in PJ style and also creating artistic images while keeping it simple.

The demand for wedding photography is huge. The market will always be there. You have two choices available for you to choose. Either you get your clients with your price (charge low and make lots of work) or you can get your client with the experience of your photography (charge more and do less). The second option is the most interesting for everyone but not all photographers are made for that. High end work is for the skilled and also for the one's offering an unique experience. You will need to learn proper lighting skills with a simple yet effective camera flash. You will need to learn and develop your own unique signature style. You will need to learn how a wedding goes along.

My suggestions if you want to start in wedding photography is to start as an assistant for a season and then market yourself to become a wedding photographer. PLEASE do not lie since your clients will feel it and this is a trust breaking issue. Do not call yourself the best or #1 wedding photographer...lol there is no such thing! It also sounds so cliché that your clients will not be purchasing this experience.

#3 Portrait photography

You can make a great living being a portrait photographer. You have various options available to you. Do you open a studio? Do you shoot outside only? Do you shoot at your client's home?

One of these options is the best one for you! You cannot think in matter of which one makes you the most money. You will always need to think about what style you prefer, what makes you comfortable and what will give a unique experience to your clients.

If you go option one, the financial burden is bigger since there will be a lot of overhead costs. Option 2 is tricky since in some cities you need permits to shoot outside what about a rainy day. Option 3 is delicate for a simple reason, do you have good insurance in case you hurt someone or break something during the session in their home?

Think about it and take the decision that is right for you. Then client's will come to you!

#4 Stock photography

You can earn a great living shooting stock images for various agencies.
You will need to learn the skills to shoot great selling stock images.

Lighting for various ideas.
The snap shot look
What are clients looking for?
What is your favorite subject?
How to properly retouch your images for the stock photography business?

You can look at various stock photographers that are making a great living such as
Yuri Arcurs, Lise Gagné, Chase Jarvis, Tyler Stableford and more...

#5 How to market yourself?

Marketing yourself is the easiest yet hardest part. You will need to be honest with yourself and learn what are your strength's and weaknesses. You need to decide what makes your experience different from others. You will need to market your passion and client's will need to feel it when you meet them. You will need to be excited about your work, photography and their contract.

What are you offering that others don't? Price, quality, unique looking images, a flawless service or something else.

You need to understand that client's do not buy your photography skills in the first part but your experience and WOW factor. If you can WOW them they will be loyal client's and salesman for you! Word to mouth is the strongest sales experience. If your best friend trusts someone for is car repair, will you trust him also?

There are various tools for marketing yourself but you will always need a good, simple website to showcase your work. Then when you meet clients, you will need to bring a BIG portfolio. Big meaning huge print size not a big quantity. 10-20 shots max for a portfolio.

You can print ads, post ads on free website and more...but your website is the doorway to the world. Make sure it looks good, it's simple, effective and straightforward. No one likes complicated, slow loading and to much distraction in websites. (read about it)
I would suggest you get your website properly design by business that do this for a living. WHY? You will get better SEO which means you will be higher ranked in google and get more clients. Yes it's expensive to purchase great gear and have your website done but your image is worth everything. I would suggest to you to seek a business like www.olacom.com to build your website and have a great search engine results. It's important since no one ever looks at page 4-5 on the search results.

Selling yourself is easy since you know yourself and your passion. It's hard because you need the proper tools and passion for people to give you your chance. You will need to learn a lot about life in general and various interests in life. You need to be able to share moments, passion with your clients.

OH YES, no one will come knocking on your door if you are not seen, visible or offering a unique experience.

I hope you enjoyed the reading, if you have question's feel free to write them here and I will answer them.

Sébastien D'Amour - International wedding and lifestyle photographic artist

2 comments:

SLavallée said...

Tu as oublié de parler des blogues: ils prennent une place de plus en plus importante! Crois-tu que cela soit nécessaire maintenant pour les photographes? Moi, je le fais puisque j'aime bien rejoindre les gens de cette façon, mais certains ne partagent pas cet «amour» du blogue!

Rachat de credit said...

Thanks it has been a great help, now to make money with our photography. is definitely simple with the help of your tips. Thanks