Recent Business Articles

The Top 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Be a Wedding Photographer

You read that right: shouldn't. Wedding photography is a field that many photographers work within at least once or twice in their budding careers. Is it for you, though? Do you have what it takes? Even some of the most seasoned professional wedding photographers have thrown in the towel and moved on to other forms of work. Why is this, you inquire? I asked several of my colleagues – wedding photographers and other professional shutterbugs alike – their thoughts on why they think shooting weddings for a living sucks. These are the top five responses I received.

5 Ways to Market Your Photography for Under $50

Like many of you, I have a very small marketing budget. I personally cannot justify spending a ton of money to run long campaigns on Facebook or Google Ad Sense in order to promote my work. Facebook also regularly changes their algorithm for organic posts, so it’s just not always wise to throw money at them and hope for qualified leads. In this video, I’m going to share five ways that I’m marketing my photography business for under $50.

The Feud Continues: Taylor Swift Gets Called Out by Another Photographer

Here we go again! Another photographer named Joel Goodman has called out Taylor Swift over stipulations in the contract that is handed out to photographers shooting her most recent tour: 1989 World Tour. This time, however, the contract states that the entertainment group known as Firefly Entertainment reserves the right to "destroy the technology" that houses the photographs. This is one step beyond what the previous contract stated.

Are You Ready To Upgrade Your Camera Body?

There comes a time in every growing photographer's career when he or she decides that it is time to upgrade their equipment. If you are like me, then you put it off for as long as possible. In recent posts, I’ve mentioned that I firmly believe that you can create some great images using a very basic DSLR. While this is true under most circumstances, there are often times as a working photographer that you will need the options of a professional grade DSLR.
6 Things Beauty Photographers Can Do To Avoid The 'Creep' Label

As beauty/fashion/glamour photographers the quality of our work is often largely driven by how well we can tell the story of an intimate moment within the frame. A big part of being able to do this is by building trust with the model to ensure that she feels safe throughout the entire shoot.

Motion & Still Photographer Ivan Agerton’s Beautiful Portraits - And What We Can All Learn From Them

What inspires you to pick up your camera? For Ivan Agerton, it’s people – and for all the talk about convergence between the worlds of stills and motion, Ivan is doing it. His ‘stills from motion’ portraits are both a visually gorgeous treat with their sublime use of slow motion, and thought provoking in the connection with the subject Ivan has captured. Not just creating eye candy, Agerton is a fascinating character and provides a great example of the life we can all construct for ourselves – if you decide to take the plunge and go for it.

New Service Offers Rankings For Photo Sharing Site Terms Of Service Agreements

TOSDR, or Terms Of Service Didn't Read, is a new online service that offers a report card style ranking of various website Terms Of Service agreements. The cleverly named website, which understands the usual approach user have to these agreements, has created a very easy to read summary of what we are getting ourselves into when we check that "I have read and agree to the terms" button.

8 Common Client Objections and How to Overcome Them

As you build up your clientele, you will undoubtedly encounter a host of requests that can blindside you. Many photographers will learn quickly how being a good salesmen is just as vital to their business as the quality of their photographs. Below I have compiled a list of the most common customer concerns, and how to best overcome them while building value in yourself and in your brand.

Help Your Photography Business Succeed by Collaborating With Other Professionals

If you’re just an average photographer like me, you’re going to have to do a lot more to succeed in the photography world than taking more workshops and attending more conferences. The true artists and creative geniuses of the photography world already have one up on you – raw talent. So what can the average Joes like you and I do to even begin to compete? Collaborate.
How to Shoot Big Productions on a Low Budget

Dreaming big is never a bad thing for a photographer. The more imaginative your ideas, the easier it is to stand out amongst your peers. Yet there is often a very real, and very high price tag associated with grand productions. Producing personal projects that you’re passionate about is vital for many photographers in the fashion industry. However, it can be frustrating to lack the funds necessary to bring your vision to life for more ambitious projects. Fortunately, there are many options available to photographers to help them bring that production to life, without breaking the bank in the process.

Three Tips to Get More Referrals from Wedding Vendors

Every wedding photographer has their very own tricks to get their calendar fully booked each year. Websites and social networks have of course become a staple for every solid business nowadays. But sometimes we forget that brides and grooms are not connected 24 hours a day and that they might meet other vendors before coming to us. This might be the oldest trick existing to get booked, but referrals from other vendors are a strong way of getting more business.

Why I Think Photography School Is Worth It

Over the past few years there has been a lot of negativity thrown at attending school for photography. While there is some sound wisdom and reasoning behind these arguments, I would have to say that I am extremely proud to have gone to Columbia in Chicago, and I think most of my friends that have done so would agree (those at other art schools as well). Now, I must admit that I didn’t even graduate, or spend four years there, but my photo school experience has been invaluable to my career. I don't believe a degree will make any difference in the photo world, and it all comes down to who you know, your character, and your portfolio.

VSCO Releases Film 07 – The Eclectic Films Collection

Today the crew at Visual Supply Co. revealed the seventh film pack iteration, VSCO Film 07 - The Eclectic Films Collection. This pack has a refined, cleaner, less gritty feel with focus on the nuances of color.

Why I Will Never Put Photographs on My Business Cards Again

Never say never, but there are several quick reasons that make business cards with images a bad decision — even for a photographer. Every rule has its exceptions, but for most, a photographic business card is certainly not something you should automatically assume to need or even want.

Is There Finally a Growth Hacking Tool for Photographers?

Last month, the creators of MotoCMS, an award winning DIY website building program, ran a Kickstarter campaign for Defrozo, a free display and marketing melding of Smugmug, ShootQ and Zenfolio. What could be more fun than putting up some photos and have the offers pour in, right? I was excited to get started. Look out, Big Boys, Defrozo is here, and it’s awesome!

Stop Looking at Other Photographers' Work

We all get lost in the Internet from time to time, and some of us way too much. We see a great photo online, or perhaps read an interview with a successful photographer, and then Google them and spend time pouring through their portfolio and blog. “How did they do it?" "I wonder what type of lighting that is?" "Where did they take that?" Half an hour and a cup of coffee later we close our laptop relatively depressed and completely diverted from our own path as unique and creative individuals. We start to scroll through our Lightroom catalogs in search of an amazing image we may have forgotten about that competes with what we just saw, or look at our measly social media following and wonder what we did (or are doing) wrong.

5 Reasons You Should Never Meet Your Clients at Starbucks

Figuring out where to host consultations can be a challenge for most wedding and portrait photographers who operate out of a home office. It’s easy to find yourself relying on the convenience of America’s every-other-corner caffeine distribution center, Starbucks, or a similar chain coffeehouse. And while saying you should "never" meet there might be a little drastic, client courtship in cafes isn't the best idea and is actually pretty avoidable. Here are five reasons to ditch your Starbucks meet-up for something a little more creative.

Shame and Art: How to Stay Sane in Your Second Job While Trying to Make It as a Photographer

I am a bartender. After 15 years of slinging drinks it’s still hard to come out and admit that shooting isn't what I do full time. The path I've taken has been a twisted, gnarled, winding thing fraught with frustration and surprise. I've been shooting for 11 years and I never expected to still be behind a bar. But, such is life! I’m here to talk about dealing with that gut-wrenching feeling that comes along with any artist who hasn’t quite made it: shame.

Supercharge Your Business With A Powerful 'About Me' Page

Your “About Me” page; let’s talk about it. This is perhaps one of the single most important pages on your website, and surprisingly it is also probably the most neglected and poorly presented page on most websites. How does yours stack up?

When You Should Be Posting Your Photography to Social Media

Social currency is an exceedingly important metric when it comes to promoting your brand. Your likes, followers, pins, and posts all say a lot about your success, and the more engagement on your social platforms, the more likely you are to pull in clients. But how do you maximize engagement and get the most people to see your content? While there is no perfect answer, there are a few things you can do to optimize your social media strategy.

creative-wedding-shoot

When I saw this wedding shoot I was stunned into silence for a few moments. I really didn't know what to think of it! In my mind, when I think of wedding photography, I think of a world of immaculate white dresses, expensive shoes, thoughtful furnishings and of course, smiling wedding couples and their guests.

6 Ways to Rock Your Next Client Meeting

When building a successful photography business, there is no aspect more crucial than a client meeting. This is your chance to represent the very best of your brand, while putting a face to the person behind the camera. For many photographers, the decisive face-to-face meeting can be an intimidating challenge. For others, it is their opportunity to shine and demonstrate how personable they are. Whether your are a wedding photographer or a commercial photographer, there are many techniques that can make your meeting a success.

Three Critical Things Your Photography Website Better Get Right

We photographers are notorious for having terrible websites. Hiring a professional web designer isn’t always in the budget so sometimes you have to figure out how to do it by yourself. Here are a few tips that most people completely overlook when building their own website.

Photographer Jason Lanier Is Out to End Discrimination Against Small Business Photographers

Photographer Jason Lanier is on a mission to end discrimination against the small business photographer. As seen in the video above, he and his group were confronted multiple times while attempting to do a shoot. In the first location they are asked to leave the premise altogether. In the second they were asked to "make it look less commercial" by getting rid of a strobe. In both instances they weren't interfering with any event around them nor were they disturbing the public and only had a single portable strobe setup. Lanier notes a growing trend to neglect and discriminate against the small business photographer.

Understanding Copyright on Both Sides of the Lens

Many photographers use the word “make” to describe their process of photography. “I made these images,” you might hear a professional say describing his work. The layman phrase, “take pictures” or “capture photographs” evokes a feeling that the photographer did not put any work into the image, that they simply pointed the camera and the photo just came to be. Any creative medium takes skill and I’m not here to argue the artistic validity of a photograph over a painting or sculpture. But a somewhat fatal flaw of the digital age is the ease of which photography can be transferred, saved, downloaded, and reproduced in comparison to that of physical artistry.

Finding Your Way To Professional Photography: 5 Things I Learned From Sitting Down with John Schell

I was originally going to call this article "five things I learned from coffee with John Schell" but in typical Schell fashion, our meet up involved Pho which doesn't mix too well with coffee. The former Fstoppers writer and current Los Angeles-based photographer has had one of the quickest rises to popularity that I've seen in photography in quite some time. His identifiable style and consistent stream of quality work have made him an extremely identifiable brand that has grown a 20,000 plus Instagram following in a fairly short amount of time. Here are five things I learned about Schell, his work, and his journey to photography.

Hang Out With Vincent Laforet And Other Creatives In Europe At FREE Events This Month

This month I'll be traveling to 5 European cities with Vincent Laforet to shoot and edit video for him as part of Project AIR, his new night aerial stills project. We have been working hard to offer something pretty unique – a totally free, direct first hand social event open to anyone who is interested in photography, video or the creative process, where we can share skills, technique and project support for your own projects as a result of what we’ve learnt with AIR. If you live in London, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris or Venice, we are throwing the doors open to you all.

Surviving Wedding Photography Season Might Be Impossible Without These Essential Items

May is upon us, wedding photographers. Its the beginning of the season and we need to prepare ourselves for the long haul. Sure, we could brushing up on lighting techniques, talk about new lenses, buy faster cards, or argue about presets, but what we really need to think about are the intangible must-haves. The greens socks, my friends. That's right, I said socks.

Andy Baker On How to Get Your Work Seen By Clients

Behind The Glass recently spoke with Andy Baker, SVP/Group Creative Director at the National Geographic Channels, and he dispensed some incredibly valuable information on how to make sure clients see the work you are putting out. Andy is in charge of hiring many freelancers for National Geographics creative projects so this is the best inside scoop you can get.

There's You, and There's Your Social Media You

Who are you? Ok, now who are you? You know that name you've decided to call yourself and now have x amount of people calling you that? How often have you stopped to think about how important your social media name — your brand — is? It's something that, many times, I myself have come to revamp, change the style of, market differently, and so on.

Is Your Photography Website Ready for Google's Mobilegeddon?

On April 21 Google officially launched an important new algorithm which prioritizes "mobile ready" websites over those which are only formatted for desktops. The consequence, of course, is if you have a website that's not mobile ready, you should be prepared to see a dramatic drop in your search engine optimized (SEO) traffic. For many of us, as photographers, we also manage our own websites and find that SEO traffic is very important in getting our product out to a potential customer.

Start to Finish Fashion Editorial Retouching: Part 1

Post-Production and Retouching is just as much an integral part of creating a great image or series of images as pre-production and the actual shoot, especially when you are shooting for a client and not just for yourself. Each genre of imagery, advertising, beauty, fashion, etc. has a slightly different set of rules and parameters when it comes to retouching. In this tutorial we will look at the complete start to finish of a fashion editorial image. Last week I posted the complete gear list for this exact shoot. This week we will look at the first part of retouching, including cleaning up our white seamless and correcting distractions in our image.

The Art of Photography Podcast: Ted Forbes Hates the Idea of Working for Free

Everyone's been there. A friend of a friend asks you to take their family portrait, a cousin wants you to shoot their wedding, a local business would really like some event photos — but nobody has a budget. Working for free is something every working professional gets faced with frequently. In this video Ted Forbes from The Art of Photography talks about the pros and cons of free work.

Photoflex May Have A Chance To Live Another Day

Well it has been a rollercoaster for the team over at Photoflex, makers of some of my favorite studio lighting accessories. First, they pulled what many thought was an April fools joke by announcing that they were closing their doors as of late March 31st. Then, they sent out a press release stating they had to close their business due to "health issues" as well as the increasingly competitive market (cough cough cheap knock-off photo accessories flooding the market). Well, it looks like they have some life left in them after all and I couldn't be happier for their team.

Flying With Gear in Tow Is a Risky Journey and Doesn't Seem to Be Getting Safer

When you’re first starting out as a professional photographer, nothing seems quite as sexy as getting your first traveling gig. Initially, it's a status symbol — an illustrious validation of your success. Eventually though, that quick hop to New York or jaunt to Cozumel becomes less revered. In fact, for many photographers these trips can be downright nerve-wracking. The reason for this is simple: Gear. Don’t be mistaken, there is still the appeal of being the confident traveling photographer reading some Tom Robbins in the terminal with your feet resting on your roller bag while waiting...

Citizen Journalism Ethics: Bystander Who Filmed Walter Scott Shooting Seeks Payout

A gut-wrenching mobile video clip depicting South Carolina police officer Michael Slager killing Walter Scott went viral earlier this month. The bystander behind the footage, Feidin Santana, has partnered with celebrity publicity agency Markson Sparks to license the footage, causing a stir among those who claim he's profiting from a death.

Scorned Wedding Photographer Strikes Back with Million Dollar Lawsuit

The saga continues. Remember that story we posted at the beginning of the year about the newlyweds who were suing their wedding photographer over a wedding album cover? How would you feel if we told you that the photographer has struck back with a suit of her own against the couple for damages associated with defamation of character and reputation for upwards of $1,000,000?

You're Lazy, And What's Worse: You Don't Even Know It

We’re all working hard. We all shoot as much as we can — a lot of it for free or little pay. We do our studies or go to work and try our best to stay in shape and take care of ourselves. There are a lot of hard-working people in the world. But most are quite lazy inhabitants of this planet; and odds are that you’re one of them.

LinkedIn Buys Online Education Company Lynda.com for Total Valuation of $1.5 Billion

LinkedIn has announced its acquisition of Lynda.com, a popular online education platform that teaches technology skills such as how to use Photoshop or how to code in Java or use CSS. The $1.5 billion move will enable the company to offer a broad range of education services as it transitions from simply identifying skills needed for a position to also offering ways to gain those skills quickly and efficiently from with a trusted and proven method.

Photoflex Releases An Official Statment On The Sudden Closing Of Business

Some of you thought that my post last week about photography accessories brand Photoflex suddenly closing its doors without warning after 30 years of business was a possible April Fools' joke. I wouldn't blame you since it seemed to be annouced late in the day prior to April 1st and they seemed to be a fully-functioning business right up until the final moments. I did email Photoflex to inquire about more information and they did just send back the following press release:

Editorial Fashion Shoot: A Complete Gear List

I will soon be releasing a start-to-finish retouching tutorial video here at Fstoppers on my most recent fashion editorial photoshoot. But before I do, I wanted to start warming our readers up with a complete gear list. In this article, I share with you everything I used on my shoot, the breakdown of costs, and where to find all the gear and extras: from the Profoto Strobe all the way down to the gaffer tape.

The Hard Truth Why No One Will Hire You As A Photographer

Let's face it; the industry is changing. Art directors and potential clients are not looking to simply hire a photographer anymore. They do not care about your lighting, your gear, or even your previous clients. So what do they care about then? Photographer John Keatley sits down with artist rep Maren Levinson at Redeye to discuss the future of photography, and there is a very good chance you are not going to like what she has to say.

Five Reasons To Consider Photography Workshops This Year

As the photography industry continues to grow, so does the amount of different mediums for education. From tutorial based websites, to tutorial DVDs, to workshops and even websites like Fstoppers here, there are multiple ways you can find new techniques and grow your craft. And maybe this year, is the year you truly take advantage of them.

Cloud Spot: Changing the Way Photographers Share Images

Cloud Spot was created by full-time photographers who were tired of the available options for photo delivery. Nothing before truly placed the photographer's brand first and cut precious time off of their workflow. The goal was to beautifully display images in a branded and modern gallery, be super fast and easy for the photographer to share, and allow clients to easily download images sent directly in an email and/or in the galleries. After using Cloud Spot for the past few months, I can say that they've succeeded.

Win Two Free Classes at Fstoppers Workshops in the Bahamas with Monte Isom and Erik Valind


Fellow Fstoppers instructor Erik Valind and I, Monte Isom, have come up with a contest that offers the whole package to aspiring and working photographers. In my class I'll be teaching how to break into the advertising business and land those large budget jobs to make photography a career instead of just a hobby. Erik will be teaching a class about controlling light with speedlights, where you'll learn to maximize natural light as well as how to light on small to medium budget productions.