A GUIDE TO PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS

Photography has always been a great way to express your creativity in pictorial form. Everyone agrees about photography being one of the most fun job to do but most of the students do not continue to further study and pursue photography as a career. The reason being, its business complexity. Photography business is nothing like opening a restaurant and target your potential market, it is way more complex than that. 

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MORE THAN JUST A PHOTOGRAPHER

If you’re starting and running your own business, you will be doing a lot more than photography. You are a photographer/customer service expert/marketing director/social media advertiser/branding guy/web site maker/secretary/CEO/editor/cinematographer and pretty much any other title you can think of.

Before starting a photography business, you should understand that you have to be ALL ROUNDER in every field and not just photography to keep your business running. Great photography skills sure help you with your business it you need to have a LOT of other ones if you want a successful business.

STAY CALM

To have a successful photography business, staying patient is the key. When we started our business, we thought we’ll be successful right after getting out of the college. Fast forward 5 years, and we’re still trying to get there.

It takes less time to be good at photography than it takes to become good at business. It takes a lot of time to get good at customer service. It takes time to get good at business organization. Basically, it takes time to get good at the dozens of things you need to be good at to run a wildly successful photography business.

So don’t beat yourself up if things aren’t happening as fast as you expected. If you stick with it, and keep improving, you’ll get there.

DEVELOP OFF-SEASON INCOME

For many years we struggled with this one. We’d have a great summer, shoot tons of weddings, portraits, and the money would be flowing. Then, come fall, things would slow down, and by winter it was silent. There were months with no income coming in, and things would be super tight by the time spring rolled around.

If you live in a place where the shooting is seasonal, try to figure out a way to develop income year round. There are no simple answers here, and it will really depend on the type of photography you do, and what other skills you have. But if you can get even a small stream of cash flow in the off-season, it will make things far more comfortable.

MARKET OR DIE

Does this sound familiar? You start something up. A blog. A website. A business. You’re sure you have a brilliant idea, and that it will be wildly successful. You make a gorgeous logo. You create a stunning online presence, filled with witty writing and enticing images. You press publish, sit back, and wait for the inquiries and comments to pour in.

GET OUTSIDE INSPIRATION AND REACH YOUR GOAL

When we first got into professional photography, we were wedding shooters. We spent countless hours looking at the websites and blogs of other wedding photographers. We spent tons of time on forums with other wedding photographers. We read wedding magazines, and watched shows about weddings. We basically immersed ourselves completely in that world.

Don’t get me wrong, you can definitely learn a ton from the people who share the same profession as you. But if you don’t look for inspiration outside of that realm, you will find yourself just doing the same as everyone else. Great businesses and photographers don’t just do the same. They find ways to stand out!

As a photographer, the sources of inspiration are nearly endless, so don’t limit yourself to looking at photographers who do the same work as you. Study the work of the great photographers of history, check out the new work being made in different genres, read about painters, watch movies, flip through comic books — artistic inspiration is everywhere, so open yourself up to it!

The same goes for business inspiration. You can learn tons from internet marketers, copywriters, and pretty much anyone in business. After all, it’s all about helping your customers get value out of what you do. The end results differ, but the fundamental concepts are more similar than you might realize!

GET STARTED NOW !

Kamran Yousaf
Owner/Photographer

Efkay Studios