pa href='http://rss.buysellads.com/click.php?z=1259904k=f7b7931ec28da9e4ff2580bfd4eddb18a=22378c=512846608' target='_blank'
img src='http://rss.buysellads.com/img.php?z=1259904k=f7b7931ec28da9e4ff2580bfd4eddb18a=22378c=512846608' border='0' alt='' //a/pbr /p?Photographer? is one of those professional titles that many people want. And why not? Taking pictures is fun and exciting./p
pHowever, reality isn#8217;t so glamorous. According to a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos264.htm"a report prepared by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)/a, ?More than half of all photographers are self-employed, a much higher proportion than for most occupations.? The BLS adds, ?Salaried photographers?most of whom work full time?tend to earn more than those who are self-employed.?/p
pIn short, what we have is a business that isn#8217;t a hotbed of jobs ? or high earnings for those who aren#8217;t employed as photographers. Not a pretty picture./p
pThe BLS continues with the killjoy theme by saying, ?Most photographers spend only a small portion of their work schedule actually taking photographs. Their most common activities are editing images on a computer?if they use a digital camera?and looking for new business?if they are self-employed.?/p
pHowever, similar things can be said about the music business. But people still pick up guitars and start to play. Likewise, the theatrical arts. It#8217;s tough to make it onto the stage or screen, but somewhere, there#8217;s an audition attracting hopeful actors right now./p
pOkay, so I#8217;ve acted like your parents and given you the ?Tough way to make a living, but I know you want to do it!? speech. Now let#8217;s get to work on helping you succeed in the business of photography./p
pspan id="more-22378"/span/p
h3How to Start a Successful Photography Business/h3
pimg class="alignnone imageborder size-full imageborder wp-image-22380" src="http://freelanceswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/harrington.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="472" //p
pAs mentioned above, a lot of your professional time will be spent away from the camera. You#8217;ll need a first-class set of business skills to succeed as a photographer./p
pTo help you along the way, here#8217;s a href="http://johnharrington.com/"John Harrington/a, a Washington, DC-based photographer who has worked full-time in the business for decades. And he#8217;s very good at it./p
pWhile it#8217;s fun to admire the photos of President Obama in his portfolio, I urge you to head over to his a href="http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/"Photo Business News + Forum blog/a. While Harrington isn#8217;t a hyperactive, daily blog poster, he offers lengthy and well thought out essays on topics like contracts, photographers#8217; rights to shoot in public places, copyrights, and business skills./p
pIn addition to writing thoughtful blog posts, Harrington is also the author of the highly regarded book, ema href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1435454294/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8amp;tag=freelanceswitch-20amp;linkCode=as2amp;camp=217145amp;creative=399349amp;creativeASIN=1435454294"Best Business Practices for Photographers/a. /emIt covers successful interactions with clients, examples of proposals and contracts, negotiation skills, and the day-to-day operation of a professional photography business./p
pThen there#8217;s photography#8217;s famous first name, a href="http://selinamaitreya.com/"Selina/a. If you see your photography business as a spiritual journey, her ?synergy of spirit, soul, skill and sweat? approach will appeal to you./p
pWant some street-smart intelligence to go along with Selina#8217;s synergistic attributes? Read Dan Heller#8217;s a href="http://www.danheller.com/bizfaq.html"photography business FAQ/a./p
h3Professional Photography Contracts and Other Legal Issues/h3
pimg class="alignnone imageborder size-full wp-image-22390" src="http://freelanceswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/photo-business.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="570" //p
pAs much as we#8217;d like to shoot whatever we want, whenever we want, the real world doesn#8217;t work that way. One of the best resources on the law as it applies to photography was created by a photographer who is also a lawyer. She#8217;s Carolyn Wright, and her a href="http://www.photoattorney.com/"Photo Attorney/a website is definitely worth a bookmark./p
pIf you#8217;re ready to start dealing with clients, don#8217;t work without a contract. Ever. Be sure to keep a href="http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/news/10-critical-points-for-strong-photography-contracts/"10 Critical Points for Strong Photography Contracts/a in mind. This short, easy-to-understand tutorial is part of Envato#8217;s Phototuts+ series, a href="http://photo.tutsplus.com/sessions/the-photography-business/"The Photography Business/a./p
pNeed some ready-made contracts to for your photography business? Check out Tad Crawford#8217;s book, a href="http://www.allworth.com/book/?GCOI=58115100458460"emBusiness and Legal Forms for Photographers/em/a. It offers 34 commonly used forms ? and instructions on how to use them. Each form is included on the CD that comes with the book./p
h3Don#8217;t Buy ? Rent!/h3
pimg class="alignnone imageborder size-full wp-image-22383" src="http://freelanceswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/borrow-lenses.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="340" //p
pIf you#8217;re like a lot of new pro photographers, you can#8217;t wait to get your hands on some top-of-the-line gear. Then you start researching the prices of said gear. Ouch. Expensive./p
pSo, what#8217;s a rookie photographer on a budget to do? In a word: rent./p
pFor a few hundred bucks and a visit to a href="http://www.borrowlenses.com/"BorrowLenses.com/a, you can rent a Canon 5D or a Nikon D3 for a couple of weeks. Try #8216;em before you buy #8216;em! And when those sweet assignments really start rolling into your studio, emthen/em you#8217;ll be able to afford to buy your dream gear./p
pThe same advice applies to studio space. You can rent that as well. Easiest way to find out who rents space in your town is simply to call other professional photographers and ask them. After all, studio space that isn#8217;t being used is just costing money./p
pAnd that#8217;s a tip for you when you acquire your own studio space. Use it as another one of your income streams./p
h3Selling Your Photography/h3
pimg class="alignnone imageborder size-full wp-image-22386" src="http://freelanceswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/burns.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="340" //p
pSince finding photography clients is going to be a never-ending quest, you#8217;re going to need some razor-sharp marketing and sales skills. So, steer your browser over to a href="http://www.burnsautoparts.com/"Burns Auto Parts/a, which bills itself as ?the oddly-named brainchild of Leslie Burns.? A San Diego-based a href="http://burnsautoparts.com/BAPsite/Index.html"creative marketing consultant/a and a href="http://burnstheattorney.com/"intellectual property attorney/a, Burns writes, speaks, and a href="http://www.burnsautoparts.com/blog/"blogs/a on promoting your work./p
pIf there were such a thing, Leslie Burns would easily win the award for the most offbeat business book title, a href="http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/burnsautoparts"emTell the World You Don#8217;t Suck: modern marketing for commercial photographers/em/a. Best takeaway: You may think that you could never shoot for the likes of Nike, emThe New York Times Magazine/em, or Apple. So you don#8217;t even bother trying to contact them. Why are you depriving them of the opportunity to work with you? If you shy away from approaching your dream clients, you#8217;ll never do any business with them./p
pWant a photography business book with a title that#8217;s, ahem, more business-like? Burns has you covered. a href="http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/burnsautoparts"emBusiness Basics for the Successful Commercial Photographer/em/a offers hard-to-find things like scripts for cold calling potential clients, templates for job estimates and invoices, and a questionnaire to use on that wonderful day when your phone rings and it#8217;s someone interested in hiring you./p
pWhile Burns#8217; books are very good at showing you the basics of photography marketing and sales, you#8217;ll still need people to practice those skills on. Let#8217;s get you introduced to some real, live buyers./p
pIf you#8217;d like to get assignments from advertising agencies, book and magazine publishers, and major corporations, get an account with a href="http://agencyaccess.com/"Agency Access/a. Since its recent acquisition of AdBase, Agency Access now has one of the world#8217;s largest contact databases for creative freelancers. You can take Agency Access for a test-drive via its a href="http://agencyaccess.com/trial"three-day free trial/a./p
pIf you#8217;ve spent any time hanging out in your public library#8217;s reference section, you#8217;re probably familiar with the annual emPhotographer#8217;s Market/em directory. The good news is that you don#8217;t have to leave your studio to access this valuable tool. Simply go to a href="http://www.artistsmarketonline.com/"Artist#8217;s Market Online/a and sign up for a 7-day free trial./p
pAnother good subscription-based resource is called a href="http://www.mastheads.org/"Mastheads.org/a. It#8217;s where you go to find the name of the photo editor at that magazine you#8217;ve always wanted to shoot for./p
pPrefer not to deal with the challenges of finding clients to assign photographic jobs to you? Welcome to the world of stock photography, where you can make money from what you#8217;ve already shot. Your go-to guy for learning the stock photography business is a href="http://www.photosource.com/"Rohn Engh/a. This veteran pro runs his stock photography business from a farm in rural Wisconsin. Which just goes to show you that you don#8217;t have to be in The Big City to succeed in the business of photography./p
pIn addition to working on assignment and selling stock photography, there#8217;s fine art photography. It#8217;s what you see hanging on art gallery walls./p
pIf fine art photography is your life#8217;s ambition, you#8217;ll still need to treat it like a business. That#8217;s where a href="http://www.artistcareertraining.com/"Artist Career Training/a comes in. ATC#8217;s goal is to ?help you make a better living making art,? and it offers a series of courses for beginning and experienced photographers./p
pWant help with getting your work into the leading galleries? Then book some consultation time with a href="http://mvswanson.com/"Mary Virginia Swanson/a, an internationally renowned photography author and editor. She knows everybody who#8217;s somebody in the fine art photography world./p
h3Your Photography Portfolio/h3
pimg class="alignnone size-full imageborder wp-image-22387" src="http://freelanceswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/photoshelter.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="410" //p
pDoesn#8217;t matter what kind of buyers you#8217;ll be dealing with. They#8217;ll want to see your photography portfolio. If you#8217;re like most photographers, you probably don#8217;t lack for work that could go into your portfolio, but buyers are busy people. They only have time to view your very best work./p
pIn the photography world, the word ?portfolio? can mean two things: It#8217;s the physical book that you bring to a meeting with an advertising agency art director or the photo editor at a magazine. And it#8217;s that thing that lives on your website and/or blog./p
pFor help with creating and editing your online and hard-copy portfolio, I recommend the uniquely named blog, a href="http://blog.noplasticsleeves.com/"No Plastic Sleeves/a. The a href="http://www.focalpress.com/Book.aspx?id=16108"book of the same name/a is also worth a read. PSTuts+ offers a brief, easy to implement tutorial, a href="http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/post-processing-articles/10-steps-for-building-a-photography-portfolio-to-be-proud-of/"10 Steps for Building a Photography Portfolio to Be Proud Of/a./p
pMost of the time, photo buyers will ask for a link to your website so they can take a look at your online portfolio. A few will also want to see your printed portfolio, which is often referred to as your book./p
pWhen this happens, stand up, take a bow, and give yourself a round of applause. An buyer who wants to see your book is emvery/em interested in your work./p
pSo, time to get busy building one. First thing to do is order a copy of ema href="http://publishyourphotographybook.com/"Publish Your Photography Book/a. /emIt has a very good section on self-publishing. Next, sign up for a free account with a href="http://www.blurb.com/"Blurb.com/a, download the free BookSmart software, and start your photography book layout./p
pOkay, we#8217;ve covered printed portfolios. Now let#8217;s look at their electronic counterparts. Many photographers take the website/blog approach. Meaning that they have a website with online portfolios showing their best photography. Along with the website, they have a blog that describes recently completed client work, personal projects, or whatever else they#8217;re pointing a camera at./p
pWhen it comes to websites, many photographers would rather do a shoot among unfriendly lions and nasty alligators than deal with the vagaries of HTML and CSS. For them, there are turnkey services like a href="http://www.photoshelter.com/"PhotoShelter/a and a href="http://livebooks.com/"LiveBooks/a. Both of these services offer template-based websites that can be built via a browser-based interface./p
pThen there are those photographers with a web development background. There are quite a few of us web-heads running around with cameras, and the Phototuts+ article a href="http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/internet/how-to-create-a-photography-website-with-wordpress/"How To Create a Photography Website With WordPress/a is our idea of a good time. If you#8217;re a WordPress-loving photographer who has a hankering for one of those really cool photo slideshows, check out the a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/"NextGEN Gallery plugin/a. You can use it to run one online gallery ? or dozens of them!/p
pOn to your blog. If you#8217;ve never photoblogged before, Phototuts+ has you covered with a two-part tutorial, a href="http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/internet/the-beginners-guide-to-creating-a-photoblog-part-1/"The Beginner?s Guide to Creating a Photoblog/a. Start with a href="http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/internet/the-beginners-guide-to-creating-a-photoblog-part-1/"Part One/a, then head over to a href="http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/the-beginner%E2%80%99s-guide-to-creating-a-photoblog-part-2/"Part Two/a./p
h3Photography Tips and Techniques/h3
pFor photographers, there#8217;s nothing more exciting than getting new gear. But after you liberate your goodies from the box they came in, what#8217;s next? How do you use them? If you have a specific question, join the a href="http://photo.net/"Photo.net/a photography help forum and ask it there./p
pOr, if you#8217;d like something that#8217;s more of a reference ? and more easily comprehended ? than your camera owner#8217;s manual, visit:/p
ol
lia href="http://kenrockwell.com/"Ken Rockwell.com/a offers reviews and instructions for many popular brands, including Canon, Leica, Nikon, Pentax, and Sony./li
liIf you#8217;re a Nikon user, you#8217;ll be well served by Thom Hogan#8217;s a href="http://www.bythom.com/index.htm"Nikon Field Guide/a./li
/ol
pWant to learn about lighting your photographic subjects? Head over to David Hobby#8217;s popular blog, a href="http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/"Strobist/a./p
pIf you#8217;ve had enough of looking at the computer screen and would like to improve your photography skills with other human beings, you#8217;re in luck./p
pBefore you log off, take a trip over to the a href="http://www.meetup.com/"Meetup.com/a site and enter the word ?photography? and the name of your city into the search box. Chances are good that you#8217;ll find at least one group of friendly, helpful people who are as interested in becoming better photographers as you are./p
pThe Meetup groups provide a mix of both pro and amateur photographers, which may or may not appeal to you. (Some pros prefer not to mingle with amateurs.)/p
pIf you#8217;re interested in improving a specific aspect of your work, say, wedding photography or nature photography, a workshop might be a better bet than a monthly Meetup. a href="http://art-support.com/workshops.htm"Art-Support.com/a has a comprehensive list of workshops in the United States and other countries./p
h3Photography Workshops for Fun and Profit/h3
pYou probably won#8217;t be a photographer for long before someone will ask you if you offer workshops. And you#8217;ve probably attended a few yourself./p
pIn some quarters, workshops are viewed as a sign of a professional photographer whose career is in decline. However, there are plenty of pros who ignore the stigma and see workshops as the money-maker that they are. And they offer them. Want to offer your own photography workshop? Here#8217;s an article that will get you started #8211; a href="http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-make-money-from-photography-workshops.html"How to Make Money from Photography Workshops/a/p
h3Professional Photography News and Trends/h3
pLike any other professional, you should be keeping up with the latest news and trends in the photography business. Here are three sites worth a bookmark:/p
ol
liThe a href="http://rising.blackstar.com/"Black Star Rising/a blog covers both the art and business of photography. It#8217;s written by photographers, for photographers./li
liOver at a href="http://www.loundy.org/commoncents/"Common Cents/a, they#8217;re exposing #8220;The Good, The Bad and The Ugly#8221; sides of dealing with publications and other clients. And you#8217;re invited to submit your own stories./li
lia href="http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/index.shtml"Photo District News/a bills itself as ?the leading photo magazine.? Suffice it to say that if you#8217;re featured in PDN, you have truly made the bigtime./li
/ol
h3Organizations for Professional Photographers/h3
pBefore you delve into the following list, let#8217;s be clear on why professional photographer organizations exist: They#8217;re not going to be a major source of clients for you. That#8217;s not their purpose. What you will gain by joining is a community of other photographers. That community will help you grow as an artist and a business person./p
ol
lia href="http://www.apanational.com/"American Photographic Artists/a (USA)/li
lia href="http://asmp.org/"American Society of Media Photographers/a (USA)/li
lia href="http://acmp.com.au/"Australian Commercial and Media Photographers/a/li
lia href="http://www.thebppa.com/"British Press Photographers#8217; Association/a (UK)/li
lia href="http://www.editorialphoto.com/"Editorial Photographers/a (International)/li
lia href="http://www.eventphotographersociety.co.uk/"Event Photographer Society/a (UK)/li
lia href="http://www.europeanphotographers.eu/"Federation of European Photographers/a (Covers 21 countries)/li
lia href="http://www.nppa.org/"National Press Photographers Association/a (International)/li
lia href="http://www.ppa.com/"Professional Photographers of America/a (USA)/li
lia href="http://www.ppoc.ca/"Professional Photographers of Canada/a/li
lia href="https://www.spenational.org/"Society for Photographic Education/a (USA)/li
lia href="http://www.sepsociety.com/"Society of Sport amp; Event Photographers/a (USA)/li
/ol
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