Photography is an expensive hobby – it can require expensive equipment, a fair amount of time and training, and often takes you to far-out and un-traveled paths. But more importantly, if you have taken the time and effort to invest in your photography hobby, you might be halfway into making it a full-time business venture.
Find a Niche
This is the most important step in ANY business venture. Finding a niche allows you to not only tell potential customers what you are most skilled at but also allows you to differentiate yourself from the pack. There are dozens of specializations that photographers can get into – Wedding, Landscape, Newborn, Portrait, and more. Consider your niche carefully, as it should be something that you are passionate about and can do consistently.
Build a Portfolio
This is a simple task, but remember that it is the most important one. A key tip is to tailor your portfolio to your niche and understand what customers are looking for within it. For instance, if you are seeking to start as a wedding photographer, including many portraits is a good idea – but don’t stop there. For a wedding, you’ll want to show that you can capture the full breadth of the experience – including candid shots of makeup, dancing, and the like. If you know a baker, try and show off your skill at capturing a cake.
A portfolio should show more than just your skills – it should show off how well you put those skills together for the events you will be photographing.
Set Prices
Don’t just accept whatever scraps you are given in exchange for your labor – make reasonable expectations for re-compensation and you’ll be off to a great start. It can help to look into other photographers in your area to get a good idea of what your starting rates should look like.
Build a Brand
Branding yourself is a bit scary at first, but every business should make sure to take the time to do so. Branding is critical for building up a reputation and trust among your customers. This is something that you might want to bring in help on, but you should have enough of your brand identity established that you can create business cards and a website.
This is not an expansive list of steps and not the most in-depth look at each one, but this is a basic plan for building a photography business. Each step will feature it’s own difficulties and processes and is just as important as the next. Not every hobby is as suited to this transition, but photography requires an investment of time, money, and resources to develop as a skill – don’t doubt that if you’ve made these investments, you’re suited to making it a career.