A few months ago, I started photography and my goal was to begin a side hustle and make an extra money out of something I knew I would enjoy learning in the future. As I started visiting photography websites such as Fstoppers, I became enamored with the beautiful pictures that renowned photographers post on the internet. After contemplating their marvelous work, I knew for sure that those were the pictures I wanted to be taking. However, as a beginner photographer, I had to face my reality: my clients were not as good-looking as the people I was seeing on the internet. This disappointed me a lot because I was sure that I could not put in my photography portfolio the pictures I was taking. So what was the point of taking pictures? It was like, I liked photography, but I wanted to take pictures only of good-looking girls, with nice skin, so that I can feel progress in my work. However, I have invested almost $ 8,000 of my savings in a camera, lens, and laptop, and I need to justify those expenses.
Right now, I want to stop taking pictures of regular people, and only concentrate on beautiful girls (for free) so that I can continue practicing my skills, and eventually show off some pretty pictures. Will that elevate my standard and be more productive in the long run since my portfolio will be more sophisticated, or am I better off taking pictures of regular people and getting some money now?
(Regular people are only willing to pay USD $120 for a session).
I think a different direction is what you need to follow.
Wanting to photograph "beautiful girls" for free or for money is not very unique. I would photograph "regular" people and see what happens. Look at the work of Irving Penn or Richard Avedon. Its not beauty that makes a good image at all.
In fashion there will be stylists and make up artists who will do the beauty side of things.
Its not a good time to be getting into photography with what you want. These days everyone in the world is a photographer. Find a niche that is new and unique and try to earn money that way.
As for that shot you posted, try opening the aperture right up. Not sure what lens you are using, but have it to its fastest- 1.8, 1.4 or 1.2 and see how it looks. The lighting is not bad, her pose seems a tad staged. Try choreographing a set of moves for the model and shoot her that way as opposed to getting her to stand still. Only well trained models can really pull off statue poses. Movement always wins in my book.
This is just my opinion, in photography there are no right or wrongs. Rules are only for breaking anyway
Matt, thanks for your reply. I agree with most of your points. I always wonder how photographers like https://fstoppers.com/profile/dantar90 make money out of their talents, or if perhaps they are in photography because of their passion for art. Though, some (Patrick Hall & Lee Morris) argue that sometimes correlation between outstanding work and business success is weak.
I'm trying to figure out what exactly you're asking... perhaps it would be better to figure out what TYPE of photography you want to do to begin with, and whether there is a realistic expectation of getting paid to do so?
I almost hate to say it but if you think that "regular people" aren't good enough to be in your portfolio, then it sounds like you don't actually want to build a serious business with photography because "regular people" are usually going to be your source of income. I shoot a lot of fashion and model portraits but that doesn't pay much if anything, and client portraits which actually brings in some money. But I absolutely LOVE making "regular people" look and feel amazing during their shoots and after they see their photos.
It's all fine and good to have the extraordinarily common and yet extraordinarily unlikely desire to take pictures only of pretty girls, without needing to pay for it, and also somehow GET paid for it, in order to recoup the cost of your camera equipment (LOL). Managing your expectations would probably be a good idea. You may need to start out by booking - and paying! - professional models in order to get your portfolio up to a point where you can theoretically get paid to shoot models or "good looking girls", but I would take a good, solid look around at the market before putting your eggs in that basket. Generally speaking, pretty people (and professional models) have a plethora of people willing to shoot them for free, regardless of quality.
Dear Sennia, something that I´ve seen is that "regular people" (sorry for my harsh English. It is not my native language) like pictures with extremely shallow depth of field. That seems to be one their main criteria to consider a picture nice. This would imply that to please these clients, I would need to invest in a long lens. So far, I only have a fast 50 mm prime lens, and when I take pictures of people, with this lens, they seem not as professional as they expect. One of the things I would not like to do right now is to spend on new gear. I would prefer to control other variables of photography such as look, clothes, location, composition, etc. Thus, I have thought of changing my strategy and look for pretty girls (not models, that`s out of my reach). I would really like to take pictures of beautiful girls because I would like to go towards the retouching side of business, and for that, I need pictures with good texture (which happen to be not suitable for people without the appropriate looks).
The 50mm 1.4 lens is plenty to get shallow depth of field images, just shoot at 1.4 with a reasonably close subject and voila. However, it seems like you are possibly searching for some sort of "legitimate" reason for wanting to only shoot young pretty girls (instead of the standard one of, let's face it, straight men wanting to have proximity to pretty girls)... but really, you don't need one. It's ok to want to do that. It's just unrealistic to expect to get paid to do it until your work is excellent.
But if you're wanting to get into retouching, in addition to your own work (which you would need to be shooting and retouching beauty images in order to REALLY get into it) you should just reach out to other photographers who are shooting the type of images you want to retouch, and offer to do some work for them on a trial basis. Assuming that your retouching is at a level where someone would be willing to do that. Otherwise, just start where we all start - at the bottom, with our own images that we're never, ever satisfied with (the nature of being an artist) :)
Good luck
It's a long way up. I'm just starting. However, I think I have started a little late. That might be the reason I want to make fast progress. I am happy because I am learning. I always feel inspired by people like you and other fellow photographers. Thanks for your advice.
Being a complete amateur photographer myself, I do it out of pure joy and not to gain any money, yet at least. I started it as a way to help me sell cars (I work for Audi). I have a Nikon d3300, kit lens, and a 50mm f1.8 (which I use to shoot pretty much everything) I dont shoot portraiture, I shoot cars, but if i've learned anything so far it's that.... If you can perfect your skill and style with "regular" people you will know exactly how to shoot "models" the only difference being the enhanced subject. Models tend to have exaggerated features which makes them nice to look at, find the quirks in your "regular" people and emphasize those to develop a style. Use your wife and her friends to develop your style.
I guarantee the people you are envious of spent a long time getting where they are, and developing the skills that you want to have. You're not too late to the game, there will be plenty of work to come, differentiate yourself.
Travis, thank you very much for your words. I can see that your work is very professional. I wrote this post when I was feeling a little dissapointed after a shoot that did not come out as I expected. Thanks, my friend.
Take it by steps.
get some good photos of the ''regular'' people you are talking about. Make them look beautiful. Do your first portfolio with that.
If its good enough look for new or aspiring models, your ''regular' friends will know some. If your portfolio is decent they will want to photograph with you in exchange of the pictures. Get a second friend that can do hair and makeup... and set the photoshoot. If you do this 4 times you will have enough pictures to get your portfolio close to what you want. Then.. you market yourself. another story...
Everyone here independent of the area they work started at the beggining. its not easy and not fast. Dont try to jump stages so fast, Learn with the ''regular'' people. If you can make them look awesome, imagine when you have a pro model to photograph.
Thank you for your advice. I´ve been working hard in the last week. I noticed that I have some students who are willing to collaborate with me.