How Do You Start a Photography Business? |  |
- How Do You Start a Photography Business?
- Interesting Daily Photo: Dust & Helicopters in the Desert, the Kopp-Etchells Effect
- Wildlife Photographers Using New Technology to Get Closer to Lions in the Wild
- Stunning Hyperlapse Photography of European Landmarks at Night
| How Do You Start a Photography Business? Posted: 12 Aug 2013 04:37 PM PDT The business of photography is something you really need to approach based on an honest assessment of your abilities, strengths, and interests. From there, you can see if there’s any kind of market for your planned products or services, and do some proof of concept research to ensure those markets will indeed pay you for your offerings. Then you’ll be ready to start planning your business!  “Photographers at Work” captured by Fiona McAllister Unfortunately, most photographers come at it from the opposite direction. They have a desire to make money selling their photos but no real understanding or interest in the business processes involved in converting photography to income. They mistakenly believe great photography is all it takes to build a successful business. 1. Assessing Your Current SituationPhotography is extremely competitive, simply because it seems like such a dream job to so many people. Modern digital technology means anyone with basic camera skills can create a good image, so everyone thinks they’re a great photographer with real prospects. You need to work out what makes you different.
 “Pet Photographer Delaware” captured by Katie Faulkner (Click image to see more from Faulkner)
The idea here is to first identify the kinds of products and services you’re able to offer, and then assess whether those skills are at a level where people will pay you for them. 2. Determining the Market for Your Products and ServicesIt’s one thing to know you can produce some amazing work, but it’s another to know there are people out there who want it. You really need to put in some time to determine whether or not there is a market for what you do. It doesn’t matter how good your work is if you can’t find anyone to buy it, and yet many photographers go into business with little more ‘market research’ than the encouragement of friends and family. “Wow, those photos are good; you should sell them!” So somehow you have to answer the following questions:
 “Family” captured by Irina Oreshina (Click image to see more from Oreshina) The best approach here is to find other photographers offering similar products and services, and then see how your offerings stack up? (Google is great for this!)
If you’re serious about making a business of your photography, you need to be totally honest with yourself when you answer these questions. The truth is, you don’t necessarily have to be a great photographer to build a success photography business, but your work does need to be at least as good as your competitors. You also need to be clear on what you’re offering, who you’re offering it to, and why they are going to buy it. Unfortunately, many photographers–and many other would-be business owners–start with little more than a product idea and rarely take the time to objectively test their idea to see if there’s likely to be genuine demand. They build a business based on wishful thinking and wonder why it fails. Fortunately these days it’s quite simple to test any idea and assess the likely demand using the search engines and keyword research tools. 3. Proof of Concept TestingThis is where you prove to yourself that there is a real demand for your offerings. In days gone by, this would have involved surveys and focus groups and taken considerable time and money, but these days it’s quick and easy. The best place to start is to simply search Google for other people offering something similar. The volume of search results will give you an indication of the competition, which is a good start. Too many competing results means your idea probably needs to be more unique. No results at all means there might not be enough demand for it to be viable. The real test, of course, is whether people are making money offering those services, and that’s easy enough to gauge. For that you look at the AdWords ads, to the right of the search results. In simple terms, lots of ads mean that those photographers are making money offering those services. No ads means there’s no money to be made in that market. That probably seems a bit over-simplified, but it really is quite simple… People only spend money on ads that make them money, so if no one is paying to advertise a specific service, chances are good it has been tried but didn’t work. To be sure though, you should also test your idea in a proper keyword research tool. Google offers a very useful free keyword research tool here. You may need to log in to a Google Account to access it but it’s well worth setting up! The process is quite simple. Once logged in, type a keyword phrase into the tool that represents the product or service you’re considering building your business around. It might be the style of photography, the field of work, or the subjects you want to focus on. Once you submit a query, you’ll get real-time data back showing you the number of people searching for that phrase–and similar related phrases–every month. So the first thing you’re looking for is search traffic–proof that people are, in fact, looking for the services you plan to offer. The next thing to look for is the CPC value. This is the average/approximate price paid by AdWords advertisers to have their ad shown beside the search results. This is a cost-per-click, meaning the advertiser pays this amount for every single visitor they get. So while most general photography terms might be in the $1-2 range, when you start seeing prices higher than that–sometimes $5 or more per visitor–you know you’re looking at a highly commercial term. And if that is closely related to your business idea, then you also know your concept has merit! Of course, this kind of research is all relative and quite subjective, so spend plenty of time on it. Test some broad phrases to give yourself a benchmark, and then zoom in on phrases related to your planned business to see how it stacks up. If you find genuine search volume you know there’s interest, and if you also verify that people are paying to advertise with those phrases, you’ll know there’s a viable market–and that’s a good starting point for building your photography business! 4. Developing Your Business PlanIt’s only after you’ve done all of the above that you’ll be ready to start planning your business, and that’s where the real work begins.  “Hard at Work” captured by Krista Guenin You need to spend even more time now planning how you’re going to market your offerings, transact your sales, and deliver your products or services. As a photographer your options are virtually unlimited so it’s important that you take your time to get clear on your business model so you can focus on the best options for that and avoid the distraction of trying to do too many things at once. The good news is that by now you know you have the skills, the product or service, and the market, so it should be easier to focus on the specific processes– sales & marketing, fulfillment, and operations–that will turn your idea into a sustainable business. One final point to keep in mind is, you don’t have to be a great photographer to build a successful photography business. In fact, there are many mediocre photographers who do extremely well on the strength of their business skills. There’s obviously minimal standards required to ensure customer satisfaction, but you should never assume great photography skills will guarantee you a successful photography business. The truth is, you’ll be hard pressed to find a successful photography business run by a great photographer with poor business skills. So when you consider how many talented photographers share the dream of making a business out of their photography, it should be clear that the best way to succeed is to focus on your business skills as much as you do your photography. About the Author: For further resources, there is an eBook and more here: Going Pro Photography Kit Go to full article: How Do You Start a Photography Business? |
| Interesting Daily Photo: Dust & Helicopters in the Desert, the Kopp-Etchells Effect Posted: 12 Aug 2013 02:53 PM PDT Dust accumulating on helicopter blades doesn't often yield any interesting imagery, but in certain situations the tiny particles atop helicopters in the desert light up making it all the more interesting to look at. An interesting effect the exact cause of which has been debated:  Dust on Chinook Helicopter Blades in Afghanistan (via Imgur) One former Green Beret argues it’s called the Kopp-Etchells effect, and was named that in memory of two fallen American soldiers. From the article:
A scientist argues in this article that the effect is most likely due to another phenomenon:
Go to full article: Interesting Daily Photo: Dust & Helicopters in the Desert, the Kopp-Etchells Effect |
| Wildlife Photographers Using New Technology to Get Closer to Lions in the Wild Posted: 12 Aug 2013 01:51 PM PDT Wildlife photographers have always been fascinated by lions. Equally (and understandably), they have also been afraid of them. Lions have never been fond of camera men roaming about in their territory. Perhaps they’re just camera shy, but in any case, photographing lions has always been a big challenge. Photographers want to get great photos without disturbing the lions, and also without being eaten. Nick Nichols and his crew has come up with some creative ways to get close without putting themselves in danger or disrupting the lions’ lifestyle (for those of you reading this by email, the video can be seen here): Three creative technologies have been used to capture these lions:
 This camouflage “tank” can hold two DSLRs and a small shotgun mic
Go to full article: Wildlife Photographers Using New Technology to Get Closer to Lions in the Wild |
| Stunning Hyperlapse Photography of European Landmarks at Night Posted: 12 Aug 2013 10:50 AM PDT Luke Shepard traveled throughout 21 European countries, including 36 cities, to capture timelapse images of European architecture in a nighttime environment. After three months of travel and time spent editing over 20,000 images, Luke Shepard released his hyperlapse short entitled Nightvision in which he showcases 27 timelapse sequences of the 47 he captured during his trip through Europe. The landmarks he captured demonstrate hundreds of years of architecture and cultural diversity surrounded by present-day nightlife (for those of you reading this by email, the timelapse video can be seen here): Nightvision is intended to “inspire appreciation for these man-made landmarks,” and it does this well. It is awe-inspiring to be able to view architecture built hundreds of years ago in the light of the 21 century, and alongside architecture built much more recently. Each landmark contrasts the next, showing the diversity of time periods and/or culture. The landmarks are encompassed by the bustle of city life and the light-trails from cars passing by. The people and cars are not the only things moving around the structures; the camera is also moving at all times. This movement helps showcase the stillness of each landmark.
The images in Nightvision were captured using a Canon 5D Mark III and a variety of lenses including a Canon 8-15mm Fisheye f/4 lens and a Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens. The timelapse was edited using Adobe Bridge, After Effects, and Premiere Pro. For Further Training on Timelapse/Hyperlapse Photography:There is a COMPLETE guide (146 pages) to shooting, processing and rendering time-lapses using a dslr camera. It can be found here: The Timelapse Photography Guide Go to full article: Stunning Hyperlapse Photography of European Landmarks at Night |
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