When you make the big leap of faith and decide to turn your passion for photography into a business, one of the most difficult tasks is working out how much to charge for your services. Whatever it is, you should never make this mistake.
Client experience is one of the most important pieces of running a successful business. Kara Marie is known throughout the industry as a successful boudoir photographer, not only for her stellar imagery, but also for the experience she gives to each of her clients. Michael Sasser had the chance to interview Marie to find out just what it takes to provide this service to her clients.
As 2019 arrives, I look back at my camera-purchasing decisions over the last 12 months and learn a lesson or two about the meaning of the word “value.”
It's almost 2019, meaning that it's the best time to update all of our information and branding. New logos, new website designs, new profile pictures, and to go along with all of that, brand new business cards!
Check out this quick and highly entertaining video on the history of B&H Photo Video, the largest non-chain photo and video retailer in the United States.
As the old business adage goes: "not planning is planning to fail." It's time to get serious about your photography or videography in 2019, with an effective and actionable goal planner. Here's what mine looks like.
Photographers often have a hard enough time getting the proper credit and payment they deserve for the images they create. And now, Instagram is enabling brands to make money off your images without you ever even knowing it.
In the first article in this series, I discussed themes that would affect freelance photographers most: mixed-message branding, teaming up for video, and the opportunity cost. This second piece focuses on some of the issues that hit us photographers where it hurts most: profitability of video services, client satisfaction, and the sheer embarrassment of moving to the dark side!
December can be a trying time for photographers running a business. As business slows down, discouragement can creep in. Luckily, however, January is around the corner, which means a new beginning and new goals for a new year.
Photography isn’t an all-or-nothing venture; you can be a part-time photographer and do quite well for yourself while maintaining a full-time job. Here’s how to do it.
Stock photography can be a futile pursuit, but Adobe Stock instituted a program that finally made participating worthwhile.
The Instagram hustle is real, and it’s here to stay. Everyday photographers are using Instagram to get more coverage and be seen by their potential client pool. But with all the noise on social media, do you actually need a huge following on Instagram? I don’t think so, and here’s why.
Being a great photographer doesn't guarantee success in the photography industry. On one hand, some of the best photographers struggle to keep up a sustainable business, and on the other, some average (and even below average) photographers do well for themselves.
You do the shoot, you get to the end of the edits, you send the client the exports, and they ask for revisions. Then they ask for more. And more. What do you do when your client keeps asking you to change things over and over?
If you want to have Flickr host more than 1,000 of your photos, you'll need to upgrade to a pro account. It's quite a change from the free TB they've been giving users and photographers since 2013.
In what some might consider a rather surprising result considering the mixed reviews it's had, the Canon EOS R has topped the November sales charts in one of the world's biggest camera retailers.
Wedding photography has changed vastly over the years. And as much as there is a growing potential for newcomers, there is also an amassing amount of challenges that one has to encounter. It is wise to have a clear understanding of the industry before taking the plunge.
In our first two segments of building a business plan, we’ve talked about defining your product and forming a long term vision. In this final section we will talk about some of the practical steps you need to take to take those hypothetical concepts and put them into action.
It's that time of the year to reflect on the progress you have made so far and to start jotting down your goals and dreams for the next year and beyond. What little changes can you make to improve your business and your overall satisfaction and productivity?
We know there isn't a formula for getting clients for filmmaking projects, but someone else's successful way of doing it may work for us. Why don't we try it?
Does the thought of SEO produce in you a mixture of fear and confusion? It's time to stop putting it on the back burner and get your photography website noticed on the front page of Google with these SEO tips.
Boudoir photographers are constantly on social media's radar. Images are flagged daily even if they are subtle. With numerous lingerie ads being approved daily, boudoir photographers have been working to get an answer on why this type of photography is still considered against Facebook policy.
If you’ve run a photography business for any amount of time, I can almost guarantee that you’ve come across clients who make requests you don’t want to fill.
In Part One of this series, we began writing our business plan by focusing on the nuts and bolts of our business. In this section, we will start to expand on those roots and add to the "what" by knowing our "why".
A photographer has outed Samsung after she caught them using her photo to demonstrate the alleged capabilities of their new Galaxy A8 Star. What’s more, in the post she wrote about it on DIYPhotography, she revealed the photo in question was taken with a DSLR.
During a recent night out, I was asked the question: "What do you do for a living?" It was the perfect opportunity to practice being excited about my work, so I launched into my story. This was followed up with a question that often comes up in these conversations: “Why would someone hire you to fly around the world when they could save time and money hiring a local photographer?”
A lot of writers and experts in the photography world have been joining the chorus of “photographers should add video to their skill basket.” But, as far as business models are concerned, photography and video can be as different as sushi and gelato. So, before you jump head-on into video, consider my words of caution.
All books on economy may tell you that you desperately need to raise your prices, but the specialists and formulas may be wrong.
Styled photo sessions can be a powerful tool for any wedding photographer’s portfolio. However, if utilized incorrectly, styled photos can arguably hurt the wedding photography industry. Here’s how to properly use styled photo sessions for your portfolio.
The mall, removed. The cheesy decor, gone. The long lines, nope. Santa Sessions have become all-the-rage and photographers are making these shoots more of a high end experience. I witnessed a shoot first hand and to be honest, $10k seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s what I learned.
Today begins a three part series on building a successful business plan as a photographer. The topic deserves its own full book, but hopefully these essays will give those of you just starting out a primer on things you need to consider when turning your hobby into a profession.
Have you ever wondered what would happen to your business if you were unable to work? I talked to one such photographer about his experience with a near catastrophic injury, and the fallout surrounding it in regards to his business.
How does a photographer have names such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, Powder Magazine and The New York Times on his client list? And how might you be able to do the same?
Are you taking full advantage of every single tax break you can get in your photography business? This upcoming tax season, follow these tips to make sure you keep as much of those hard-earned dollars as you can.
In a typical wedding, dozens of vendors come together to make the bride's day special. All these vendors have one thing in common: the photographer doesn't owe them a single picture.
With many of my fellow Americans preparing to sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, let’s take a moment away from turkey and dodging awkward conversations about politics to give thanks to those who provide us the motivation to persevere.
If you are thinking of taking a full-time photography position, you should read this first.
Selling your images online can be seriously complicated. You can try to submit images to some of the larger stock image marketplaces, but getting approved is tough. Even if you do get some of your images through, the marketplaces will take up to 85% of your royalties away from you.
When you're shooting for a client with specific needs, it's important that you're able to deliver what they require. This great video explores how a photographer planned, then adapted to get the shot.
Everywhere I look, professional photographers are calling for people to put their portfolios on an extreme diet. Well, I'm here to defend my curvier portfolio and why this decision is entirely intentional.
It’s ironic, really. Instagram is the world’s largest social photo platform, yet photographers are constantly subjected to their photos being posted and re-grammed without a credit or tag in sight. Here’s why.
We live in a time when photography becomes more and more commonplace but appreciation of the commercial value of photography is uncommon. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that copyright lawsuits from photographers are increasing.
You find priceless photography or filmmaking knowledge in online material. You start digesting it, but together with the precious free information, the author mentions a product or a service, which they obviously try to sell you. Do you feel you have been tricked?
I’ve always subscribed to the practice of “paying it forward” however you can, and this article is my way of doing so for the intrepid photographers out there fixin’ to fashion a career in this space.
Photography is a challenging career. So, what pulls us through when it all gets so overwhelming?
There's been a bit of uproar lately around a company that claims it can produce advertising photos that would normally cost thousands of dollars for as low as $19. This great video rails against the temptation for up and coming photographers to take those gigs.
According to BCN, Sony´s Mirrorless supremacy has been somehow attacked by Canon and Nikon in Japan. The sales figures show us that the EOS R system has 22.1 percent of the market, two months after its worldwide release. Nikon got 10.4 percent with the Z series.
When you own a photography company, there are multiple ways to make money. Unfortunately, most things that make money require quite a bit of work. Thankfully, this is one of the ways you can make money without doing too much work.
Yes, photographers can and do have bad days. Following your favorite photographers on Instagram, it might seem that all the photographers in the world are cruising along while you alone battle horrible days. And guess what, bad days are more common than you might think. So, it is important that we as a community learn and help each other survive bad days. I’ve created an action plan for myself that has helped me overcome difficult days and I hope this will help you as well.
When you're getting into genres of photography that require working with models, navigating the landscape of who to hire, when to pay, and more can be a bit confusing. This great video will tell you exactly when you should pay for a model, when you should offer a trade, and where to find them.
