6 Things I’ve Learned About Getting My Photography Business Started – So Far

One thing that being unemployed has provided me is with more time to pursue things I love. One of these is photography. I’ve done a fair amount, and even had shots published in magazines to go along with stories I’ve written. I’ve even published a two books of my photography for public consumption. So, when my employment suddenly came to an end, I gravitated toward the idea of starting a photography business.

Below are some of the things I’ve learned in the past few weeks – many of which I hope will shape how I do business in the future.

1. You’re Never As Good As You Think You Are

You have lots of well-meaning friends and family who will tell you how great your work is, and that you should be earning a living as a photographer. Take that all in with a grain of salt the size of Rhode Island. All it takes is a little time following photographers on Google+ (I follow over 200 at this point) to see what great photography is. This doesn’t mean you can;t take spectacular, captivating images. What it does mean is that those guys may spend an hour or more setting up one shot to get it just right, while you are shooting multiple snaps just to try to get the one shot that works. Planning vs. luck. When you look at your images, find them as compelling as the folks you follow, and know that you got exactly the image you planned for, you’re approaching being as good as you think.

2. You’re Probably Better Than You Think You Are

Yup, that sure sounds like a contradiction. The fact is, if you’ve learned the first lesson, you’ll tend to lose the opinion that you’re the next great photographer and swing the pendulum to the “Everything I shoot sucks” mentality. You’re beating yourself up because you’re seeing these great images and most of your aren’t there yet. If you learned the first lesson, and have started recognizing where you need to improve, then you’ve developed an eye for the art. You may not know exactly how to get there yet, but you recognize what you can and can’t do. That puts you light years ahead of a lot of photographers who are taking sessions and producing barely passable images because they happened to get that new Canon for their birthday. You’re likely better than you feel right now – you just realized you can be even better.

3. Learn To Be Constructively Self-Critical

No one has the ability to beat me up about my work more than yours truly. Many have tried and failed. I am my own worst critic. What I struggle with, and I;m guessing others struggle with as well, is how to be self-critical without beating myself into giving up. Luckily, I’m too stubborn to give up, but I have often deflated my entusiasm by being overly self-critical.

One was I have learned to avoid this is to see everything on a continuum, not pass/fail. Some of my efforts produce awesome results - my last two shoots I am very proud of in terms of final product. But others have been shoots with 500-700 images of which I’m happy with less than 10. It’s easy to beat yourself up about that.

So the new goal is to look at the ones I don’t like and focus on why I don’t like them, and what I could do differently. I then try to apply those lessons to the next shoot. By not beating myself up, I’m giving myself the opportunity to learn and grow.

4. No One Wants To Be The Guinea Pig

When I made the decision to start working on building a photography business, I realized I had lots of art quality landscapes and a whole lot of pet photography – but not a lot of portrait or headshot photography in my portfolio. I have been happy with what I have done, but decided I really needed to do some more before I could really show what my skills are.

So, I made an offer to my friends and acquaintances: A free 2-hour photoshoot that includes a CD/DVD of the final images. No limit to clothing changes, and no charge for any of it. In return, I got to use their images as sample on my website.

I’ve had two takers, and both were fairly close friends. Their shoots came out great. But no one else has stepped forward to take the freebie. My guess? No one wants to be the guinea pig. I’m an unknown, and people don’t readily trust the unknown. Fortunately, I’ve been able to get registered with a group that connects models to photographers, and I may be able to build the portfolio that way. Those folks are familiar with getting started, and may be the best option for shooting initial portfolio stuff.

5. The Gear Doesn’t Matter

One of the photographers I follow on Google+, Alex Koloskov, recently did a blog post about shooting with the cheapest equipment he could put together. He assembled a lighting rig for shooting product shots for less than $200 and got excellent results.

I’m in a different boat. I’m shooting with a semi-crippled camera that only works in manual mode. This makes for constant adjustments and a lot of work to get the image I want. It also means I have really been learning to work with the camera to achieve great results. It’s not the gear, it’s what you do with it. A comic floated around recently showing a photographer and a party host chatting. The host says “You take really great pictures – you must have a really good camera!”. The photographer replied “That was a really great dinner – you must have some awesome pots and pans”.

That’s really the key. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you;d be better if you just spent a little more money. Instead, get the most of what you can with what you already have. Then move up when you’ve mastered your current gear and make it do what you want it to do.

6. Some Folks Are More Than Happy To Help – If You Ask

One of the amazing things I have seen on Google+ is that there is a robust community of photographers that are incredibly supportive of each other. and give freely of their knowledge. No one has all the answers, especially not me. But these folks are more than willing to get their information out and help. Sure, some are selling books and DVDs and software, but not in a pushy manner. Instead, they share their work and their experience, and offer you other ways to benefit from that.

As I grow my business, this is one thing I hope I can carry forward – helping others. My experience is with more traditional marketing and social media, and I hope that my knowledge will help others as others have helped me.

I’m sure there will be plenty more to learn. As I launch a new site specifically for the business (more on the official launch later), and as the work progresses, I’ll share more of the lessons I’ve learned.

Have you started a business of your own? What lessons did you learn early on? Leave them in the comments