Building a respectable name for yourself as a photographer can oftentimes feel impossible, especially in a market saturated with other photographers. In an industry with so much competition, you need to differentiate yourself and your work from the rest your competitors if you really want to stand apart from everyone else. That sounds extremely overwhelming, but there is a very practical and efficient way to carve out your own niche in this market.
Many beginning photographers find it very difficult to translate their vision verbally. In order to save yourself time, effort, and frustration the day of your shoot, use a mood board. Mood boards are visual collages of inspiration designed to provide your team or client with a visual reference guide that everyone can agree on before your photo shoot.
Most amateur photographers assume that they need to buy a ton of expensive gear in order to compete or reach the level of most professional photographers. I’m quite guilty of doing the same. As a matter of fact, I spent the first couple of years studying the work of photographers that I admired and I was quickly intimidated by their level of production. I didn’t think that I could possibly afford to invest in the type of equipment they used. It wasn’t uncommon to see these photographers use 3+ studio strobes on set, along with a seemingly endless list of modifiers they had access to. Their level of production just didn’t fit my personal budget at that time.
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.
Add that all together with the fact that I live in New York City where competition is everywhere, and I have had to learn how to be a little more creative in order to market my business. In this video, I’m going to share five ways that I’m marketing my photography business for under $50.
Learning how to light your subjects with one light is easy. Learning how to light a subject in a variety of ways using one light and one modifier requires a bit of creativity. When you're using one light, each inch you move your modifier ultimately affects your scene. Lighting at that point becomes very purposeful.
As I spend more and more time around other photographers, I’ve had the opportunity to sit back and listen to everyone’s take on what makes a retouched image successful. Some photographers spend minutes retouching, while others spend literally hours on an individual image. Regardless if you spend 15 minutes or 3 hours retouching in image, it’s important to have a strong workflow so that you maintain your sanity.
One of the most powerful, but often misused tools in Photoshop is the liquify filter. The liquify filter can help you restructure a subject’s shape, hair, or attire. In this introduction to using the liquify tool, I’ll cover ways to enhance your subject’s features so that they maintain natural body proportions.
Black and White conversions programs are a dime a dozen. You have the ability to do black and white conversions in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and also in third party software like Silver Efex Pro and Perfect B&W, but if you're just learning how to edit, I always recommend sticking with Adobe Lightroom because of the easy user interface.
How do you move beyond using someone else's actions and presets to tone your images? It’s a lot simpler than you’d think. There are so many different ways to achieve similar results in post-production, and having so many options can be extremely intimidating when you’re just learning how to edit. This is the reason that many photographers will rely on actions and presets to “color grade” and tone their images when they are first starting off.
With every passing year, we see many professional photographers go out of business and twice as many aspiring professionals try to pick up their mantle. If you want to stay in business, it's as easy as investing in your clients.
Contouring has become a popular technique that women use to give shape and enhance facial structure by using makeup. Since most men aren’t willing to use makeup during portrait shoots, I’ve devised a way for photographers to achieve the same results simply by using lighting techniques.
I spent this last year doing a photographic cleanse, It’s kind of like spring cleaning. You focus on what you need most in your photography, in terms of lighting, editing and education, and you throw everything else out. It was not only extremely important for my growth both professionally and personally, but also for my sanity.
There are dozens of classes, courses and books on posing and they’re all useless. Why? There’s a definitive difference between directing a subject and posing a subject; if you’re “posing" a subject, then you’re doing it wrong. Here are three reasons why I don't like posing subjects and how I’ve managed to overcome those obstacles.
