When are you ready to charge as a photographer?
This question gets asked almost daily in the different groups and forums I am in. Along with the post, the photographer attaches a few images. Most respond (based only on the 1 or 2 images posted) - your work looks great, go for it! While that’s a self-esteem boost, that response doesn’t answer the question because it doesn’t dig deep enough.
How can you know if you’re ready to take money as a photographic business? Here are a few elements you’ll want to think about to help you arrive at your answer.
You know how to achieve a properly exposed photograph.
This means you have studied and understand the exposure triangle and how each element of aperture, shutter speed and ISO affect one another. Ideally you have experimented across the scale of values and found a range you enjoy shooting with, which sets the anchor for your style and brand. Are you a wedding photographer who shoots for deep depth of field to incorporate landscapes? Or are you a portrait photographer and prefer wide-open aperture for bringing attention to your subjects and all else falls into creamy bokeh? Wherever you may fall on the spectrum of settings, you understand the interplay of settings.
You understand how to manipulate those basic camera settings if you’re not getting the results you want.
This means that you’re able to quickly adjust and manipulate settings while under the pressure of actually photographing clients. If you’re out at golden hour and are using the one ideal formula you’ve become comfortable with and then storm clouds rolls in, or the sun ducks behind a cloud, do you know what you need to change to still be properly exposed and have enough light? Or thus far your subjects have been pretty sedentary and then you’re faced with a few super-active toddlers who can’t sit still for a second? Or the client doesn’t properly describe their home and you walk into a place with tiny windows? Knowing the exposure triangle in theory is one thing, but knowing how to use it in challenging circumstances is another. Practice each of these kinds of scenarios in model calls or with family or friends. If you have your preferred formula and only know how to use that, and the thought of deviating from it makes you break out in a sweat, practice more in increasingly difficult conditions. We want to always shoot at our ideal, but we need to know how to overcome any situation and still have a successful result for a client.
You never “spray and pray”
There is a technical rationale behind this method, used by some. In a fast-paced or very specific circumstance, it’s about rapid-fire shooting to ensure you get the right moment. Think of an athlete making a basket or similar moment. A photographer could choose, already being at the correct settings, to shoot in burst mode so as not to miss the shot. I’m not talking about that application.
What many new photographers do is just shoot a lot, make adjustments on the fly (or flip to auto if they’re panicking!) because they aren’t confident in their skills or their knowledge of proper settings, posing, composition, or lighting. The stress of wanting to give the perception of being professional and in-control is real, and forgetting proper settings especially if you’re still unfamiliar with them, can result in this technique. This can be even harder if your subjects start insisting on certain backgrounds or compositions that throw you completely off because you don’t know how to tackle if that creates a challenging shooting scenario. You pretend, shoot a ton and pray that when you import your images into Lightroom, you’ve captured at least enough good frames to fill your order.
We’ve all faced this situation while learning. We won’t be perfect, even when our knowledge improves - there can always be a time where you blank on how to correct an issue and you fumble. But if this is your approach in each session, rather than the exception, this is when problems begin. Practice helps you solidify your knowledge so that you can shoot with more intention, anticipate moments and craft/ design pleasing compositions.
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You don’t rely on happy accidents
Happy accidents are fun, fortuitous and well, happy! But they are accidents. Be careful with this one. Say you’re spraying and praying during a shoot. You get home and import photos. Ok, you got a few good/ acceptable ones…..oh my! Look at this amazing photo! The light was perfect! The family, the composition, wow! You edit this one right away and it gets plastered all of your media and you could even make it your website homepage primary image, it was that good.
You get a booking and they say - wow, loved that image! Can you do the same for my family? And you’re left with sweaty palms because, well, you’re not 100% sure as to how it all came together so perfectly and even less positive that you could really recreate it.
If you find a happy accident in the mix, examine what makes it great. Deconstruct it to its main elements, to get you to a point where you understood the technicalities behind the image, so that you could approximate them once again. In school, we were shown images, and asked to deconstruct them. What was the direction of the light? How many light sources, if being shot in studio? What compositional elements were being used? This kind of exercise will help you gain confidence in your critical analysis skills. And be sure that what you’re posting in terms of imagery is something you can repeat 100 or 1000 times for a client if ever asked. This actually did happen to me, down to the location and time of a shoot. A client wanted as close an approximation to my image as was possible with a different day and subject. If I had posted this image, received this request, and had very little clue as to how I actually achieved it, it could have spelled trouble for me.
Consistency in the delivery of a product
When we’re learning, we need to shoot a lot, and a lot of things. Experimentation is critical to drilling those settings into your memory, to “see” lighting, and to hone your compositional decisions. But eventually, you will see or feel a pattern emerging, of your shooting preferences. For example, you’ve tried shooting a portrait at f8 and f2, and prefer f2 for the bokeh, and you prefer backlighting and exposing for highlights to have light wrap around your subjects. Or you prefer the f8, with harder, directional light for drama and to bring out lots of detail. Look for those preferences because these are what provide you with your style base and what makes your work fundamentally recognizable. Contrary to popular belief, an edit in post-production does not make a style, just enhances it, or brings it home. So you don’t have to worry about editing images all identically from different shoots, but your approach becomes a signature formula that provides a consistency in a portfolio. It’s not to say that your preferences won’t evolve, but these preferences tend to be us speaking our truth. If you’re the f2, light-filled photographer, then it’s not very often that you’d shoot in that way and then look for a hard light source and move to f8. Once you’ve hit on a formula, even if not perfect, is the time where clients will be able to know what they’ll receive and that’s a huge sign you’re ready.
You’re ready to go into business
You may now have all the photographic elements falling into place, which means you’re ready to start charging. But hold on! These words don’t just mean someone can hand you some money. You’re not just starting to charge, you are starting a business. Now, you can tell me it’s a side hustle, or fun money or whatever, but regardless of part-time, full-time, or sometimes, it’s still a business if you take money. Governments have rules about how you can take money for services, because they’ll need you to pay taxes and do appropriate activities for the type of business you offer. Additionally, people have expectations if they pay for something, that you now have to deliver.
Be prepared to do some fundamental business things, even if it’s a tiny side business. Find out from your local government offices what the small business rules are, and if there are thresholds for reporting income. Find out about licensing, and insurance. Then, create a business plan, which should carry you through the steps of what to charge, and how to set up a business with the proper features of contracts, invoices and policies, as well as how you’ll find clients and be found.
If you have confidently sailed through these questions with only positive answers, then you are ready! Read other posts on MBP to power-up your marketing as you start finding and booking your ideal clients!