how to start a photography business with no experience
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Nowadays, everyone can be a photographer. Smartphones and entry-level cameras have made photography more accessible to everyone. But that is not because you own a camera that you are a professional photographer or will start earning money from it.
After working as a photographer and being surrounded by photographers, I broke down photography into 3 pillars if you decide to start your photography business.
Creativity
A photographer is an artist. You have an idea in your mind of a specific photo and you want to make it come true in reality.
Every photographer is different and has their own style that can be recognised by loyal fans. As I like to say, when you hold a camera, you are the creative director, you are the one setting the scene, incorporating elements and characters into your shot to create a story.
Your main goal is to bring your viewer into your world. If you manage to do it, then your role as a photographer is complete.
That is your signature. That is how people will start recognising your work from many others.
Bear in mind that it is a never-ending learning process and that your photography will evolve over time.
You do NOT need to be the best. You just need to start sharing your vision with others.
At the start, I would not recommend focusing on only one style of photography. Test everything you want. Over time you will find the styles you feel the most comfortable with and stick with them.
Technical
In order to become a great photographer, you need to know your gear ins and out.
You must practice, practice, practice until you know how to shoot blindfolded! Ok maybe not blindfolded, but you get my point.
This is not the gear that will make you a great photographer, but your know-how and how you manage to replicate with your camera what you visualised in your mind.
I wrote this complete handbook to help you master the manual mode of your camera and step up your photography game. I break down the exact steps I took to be where I am at today running a photography business online.
I believe this is what will differentiate you from an ok photographer to a great photographer, that ability to translate into reality an image you had in your mind by using photography techniques and camera gears necessary to make it happens.
Business Side Of Photography
The business is the most dreaded aspect of any photographer I know.
Photographers are creative, they just want to create and be recognised for their work. However, taking photos as a professional photographer is only the tip of the iceberg as a business.
The rest is about branding, marketing and managing the business and client relationship.
This is not easy and if neglected it will affect your business big time as you won’t get the financial results you wish.
This is the reason why so many wannabe photographers fail.
Luckily for you, there are now many photography marketplaces that can do the marketing for you like Airbnb Experience, Flytographers, PicTrip etc… however, those will be work assignments, and you will share your revenue with the platform promoting your profile, you might not end up being as creative as you wish and end up doing the job just to pay for the bills at the end of the month.
I’d recommend using it to complement your monthly revenue goal but not as a full-time gig.
What I recommend to any business owners nowadays is to focus their efforts on social media.
Building an audience will get you further than your competition.
Why?
Because you will be able to get repeat customers if your marketing is done correctly.
Building an audience online is no rocket science. Focus on the following pillars you feel the most comfortable with:
Share inspirational content
Share entertaining content
Share educational content
Then, you just need to be consistent and publish at a regular frequency. I’d recommend it at least 3 times a week.
These 3 aspects of photography I believe are the most important to be aware of before starting your photography business. The bad news is that the competition nowadays is really high. There are very talented photographers out there.
The good news though is that it is not because photographers are talented that they are successful.
Many photographers can be good at only one thing in photography but excellent in business and get clients on a regular basis. While others might be very talented but have no clue of how to market themselves and work with clients willing to book them.
And the best way to promote your business nowadays is with social media.
If you would like to better understand how to promote your business using social media and get clients to book you, click here to watch a free one-hour web class from my mentor that will teach you everything you need to know about running a successful online business nowadays.
If you are starting your side hustle journey, I’d also recommend you read a book that really helped me to transition from an employee to becoming a freelance photographer.
It is called the 10% entrepreneur. It recommends investing 10% of your time and money at the beginning into your side hustle until the percentage grows big enough for you to transition into your freelance career.
If you are not into reading, I created a video BootCamp where I share my personal experience and tips that have helped me make the transition. Click on the link below.
I hope that this article will help you in your decision process to start your photography business. Those are just advice I believe are important to be aware of, but not something to follow step by step.
Everyone is different. So if you really want to start your business today, just do it, you do not need to have everything figured out from the beginning, you can adjust things all along your career.
If you enjoyed reading this article, make sure to like it, it actually makes a difference and if you know anyone that is thinking of starting a photography business and believe could benefit from reading this article, do not hesitate to share this post with them.
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