Ten Things I Wish I Had Known Before Becoming a Professional Photographer

I entered the field and profession of photography in 1978, having worked as a photographer’s assistant for two years. While working as a photographic assistant in a very busy portrait commercial studio, there was an opportunity to learn some of the ins and outs of running and managing a professional studio—things like scheduling sessions, making sure work was delivered in a timely manner, ensuring payment was received on time, managing staff, marketing, etc. There was so much more I needed to know about running a photographic business than simply creating usable, saleable, even stunningly beautiful images.

My background in photography was very direct, and I have always been very goal directed. I would go to art school, get my degree, make great photographs, and get rich—very rich. To back up my golden ambition, I had read the book by Richard Sharabura, "Shooting Your Way to a Million." Youth and naïveté are marvelous and dangerous things. At that time, we didn’t even have the worldwide web to mislead us with nonsense. So if it was published in an actual book with a slick cover, 300+ pages filled with ink and promises, and a slick marketing plan, the thought was, "It must be true! They wouldn’t publish it if it wasn’t true." Sadly, it was a lot of nonsense.

So why is it that you’ll find literally hundreds of books with advice on how to create great photographs—all about the toys you’ll need, or supposed special techniques? There are others about how to use elements of composition, and still others with thousands of pages about the technical aspects of getting the most out of the film we were using (the same can now be said of digital imaging, except now they come in the form of tutorials on YouTube, which are wrong more often than they’re right).

What I hardly ever saw, and still don’t see much of, is how to run your photography business so that it’s profitable enough to earn a respectable income from it.

Get Smart!

So, what would I do differently? Bear in mind that this is not just a different world than it was in 1978 when I opened my first storefront studio—it’s a different universe—but some things remain constant.

1. I wish I had a stronger background in business and finance. We kid ourselves, and I did, when we think we can get along, and be successful, just by creating beautiful imagery. The truth, stronger today than when I entered the field, is that truly beautiful photographs that are remarkable works of self-expression have a relatively small group of people who will appreciate them at the same level you do.

2. If you’re going to invest in education, make that investment in marketing and managing your studio business.

3. Location is very important. I created portrait work with a style that was uniquely my own at that time. The photographs I created won many professional awards nationally and internationally—not only for my portrait stylings but also for my wedding photography and advertising work. And I sold a lot of it, more than twice the revenue of most other studios in cities my size, but it seemed like there was always too much lab bill at the end of the month. That situation is much better for photographers now with digital. At that time, we had only film and paper, so we had to use a commercial lab for everything, and lab bills were typically 20–25% of gross studio revenue. Now, lab bills, when I have them, are about 5–7% of my gross studio sales, so the profit picture per photograph is much better. However, now it seems like there is a photographic business literally on every corner.

My mistake was to open my studio in a smaller, and thus more limited, marketplace. Were I to do it over today, I would make sure that there was a large enough population base to support it.

4. Never rent or lease studio space. Real estate is king! Never pay into a studio or business location where you are paying someone else’s mortgage. I did that for many years, paying for those buildings and now with nothing to show for the money spent.

5. Be wise in the purchase of new equipment. It seems like the major camera manufacturers come out with new camera bodies and lenses multiple times a year, and the new ones are expensive. But we must ask ourselves a question: will it allow me to make better images, or help me become more efficient at serving my clientele? How many megapixels does a camera need to make a 24x30 print that is sharp and noise free? And, by the way, there are many times when an image is just too sharp. My observation is that "upgrading" to the latest and greatest Canon, Nikon, or Sony camera body won’t have any visible effect on your finished image, and I have never had a client ask me what camera I was using.

6. Sell any equipment that hasn’t been used in six months. Be unmerciful here. If it hasn’t been used in six months, and it’s sitting in a closet somewhere, you probably won’t use it and it would be more valuable to sell it than to keep collecting it.

Operate Your Business Lean, but Never Be Mean

7. Don’t fall victim to slick advertising campaigns about how much better the new camera body and lenses are than what you’re using. Case in point: I have used Canon cameras since my very first, which was a Canon TLb, later the TX. So, when I made the move to digital, it was natural for me to stay with what I knew and understood: Canon. I now use a Canon 5D Mark III and a Canon 6D as a backup. With the recent jump by Canon and everyone else from DSLR systems to mirrorless, older model Canon 5 Series DSLRs and EF series lenses can be purchased at reasonable prices. So I have to ask myself: will a new mirrorless camera body and lenses allow me to serve my clientele better? Will the new system enable me to be more profitable, and how long will it take for me to recover the expense? My camera has 24 MP of resolution, and I can make 30x40-inch images that are crystal clear with very little noise. How much will spending several thousand dollars more on a camera body actually improve my image quality?

8. Set aside at least 10% of your profit to invest. The time will come, or at least it should, when you are no longer physically able to do what you once did. The caveat being: you should live long enough to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

9. There are jobs you’ll be asked to do that are not fun and not creative. However, those jobs are basic work, they often pay well, and they pay quickly. Examples would be high school proms and little league teams. A manufacturer once called me needing photographs of their natural gas engines for instruction manuals. I photographed them in the morning and had a high school prom that night. It was a very profitable day for me. Almost no "creativity" involved, but jobs like that are like a license to print money!

10. Never allow your work to become stale to you. Even when the work is less than creative, there is still the opportunity to do creative work for yourself, just because you want to. I remember clearly, from when I was active in PPA, a man who had been doing photography for many years saying that he was going to retire and hoped to never pick up a camera again. I am as excited today, photographing anything I can get in front of my camera, as I was when I began my trek on the photon trail in 1978. Never lose the joy and the excitement.