When to Become A Professional Photographer.

With DSLRs becoming very widespread and photography becoming increasingly popular, many of us have been left to wonder things like “When should I start a business?” or “Am I ready to start a business?”.  I feel the answer to these questions is very situational and there is no way to address everyone’s unique situations however I do have some things for consideration that you can assess to help you decide if you think you are.

1.  Are your good photos “lucky” or intentional?  We all get lucky shots.. the question is when you take a great photo, is it luck or did you plan out the position, location, camera settings, angle etc and take that photo on purpose?  Could you take that same great photo again?  You  need to understand why your photos are turning out well and what hurts them and makes them turn out bad.  What if you have a lucky session and then someone else wants a similar style to it and you have no idea how you did it?  The main way to learn these things is through experience and research.  One example:  taking photos at 3 PM with the sun high in the sky and harsh lighting and then taking photos in that sunlight will make the person have squinty eyes and harsh shadows.  Have you learned things like this?  Do you know how to handle this situation to fix this problem?  (Move to the shade, add some fill light, or schedule the session for a later hour in the day).

2.  Do people want to hire you?  Don’t hinge too much on this because my experience was that people said they love the photos I take however after I became a business people said things like “now we can hire you to do our photos!”.  I don’t think people even realized they could have done this before I was a business.  However it’s still a good thing to consider (but don’t let it stop you either if no one has asked you..!).  Have people made comments about wanting to hire you or asking if you would do photos for them?  Or even do you just get a lot of positive feedback on photos you take?  This is a good sign that people like what you’re doing :).

3.  Can you shoot with manual settings?  Do not leave it up to auto mode to determine your settings!  Auto mode has no qualms about going to 1600 ISO and f/8!  Things like this can & sooner or later will ruin your photos.  On auto you may be photographing children and your camera may be going to 1/100 shutter speed causing motion blur.  You need to be able to accommodate this and know how to increase your shutter speed, and how to lower your ISO.  Knowing your manual settings you can handle all situations and make sure the camera is doing what you want it to.

4.  Do you have a strong portfolio?  You don’t want to launch with 10 photos of your own kids ;).  Make sure you have a legit portfolio that portrays your style and diversity and reflects the type of shoots you want to do.

5.  Do you have a passion & love for photography?  To be frank, statistically, most photography businesses are going to fail.  The ones that succeed are the ones with passionate, driven photographers, who want to spend time getting better and reaching more people.  Your passion is what will drive you to learn more and do better and fight for your business.  It isn’t easy to start a business and you need that passion behind you!

One final thing to consider in regards to starting a business is that once you become a business then you have to begin gaining clients.  You aren’t one day a business with tons of people wanting to hire you :).  It takes time.  Most of what I have read says at least 2 years and up to 5 years to gain a good client base.  If your main reason for not wanting to start a business is you don’t have time then consider launching anyway (if you do have at least *some* time anyway..) because you probably won’t have tons of business right away anyway!

If you think you’re ready check out this Step-By-Step Guide For Starting A Photography Business to get an idea of what to do next!

-Christine

http://www.christineannphotos.com
http://www.facebook.com/christineannphotos