Advice on Starting a Photography Business

The wife's being made redundant from her current job in a couple of months time and looking to start and baby & toddler portrait photography business. She'd welcome advice on any & all aspects of this from kit recommendations, business plans, words of experience and any other advice or photography forum links etc… that might be helpful

Cheers Dan

She sounds incredibly inexperienced if she even needs kit advice. So my advice would be not to spend too much (it MAY end up an expensive failure), do some free shots for friends and learn the ropes/ get a reputation. But it would be very difficult – it is a competitive marketplace.

Don't bother. Seriously, since the advent of DSLRs, this is not a business to go into. Everyone is a "pro photographer" these days.

A friend of mine had a very successful business until about 5 years ago. Then boom. He gets very few jobs now despite years of testimonials and experience.

I'd say, from a non professional perspective, the market looks insanely competitive. Go and look on flickr, the quality of photography there, in the 'interesting' section for example, is astounding. And as above, so many people with a DSLR have proven to be quite capable photographers, the show us a photo threads on here are seriously impressive at times.

I reckon she'd need a niche market to succeed and make a name for herself with the people that matter in that field, art studios/magazine editors/newspaper editors. Be very good at taking specialist pictures, that's the way forwards I reckon.

Try talkphotography – there's a business section on there.

I get the impression a lot of people's bread and butter is doing weddings and cheesy portrait shots.

Thanks for the posts, I think she's quite worried about the possible lack of business!!

I think she's quite worried about the possible lack of business!!

I know several very experienced Pro Photographers that can't keep themselves fully employed cos of lack of work (due to so much competition) these days, so they have to keep a day job too.

Sorry not to be more encouraging!

Don't bother. Seriously, since the advent of DSLRs, this is not a business to go into.

pretty much what my friend, a struggling pro photographer says.

open a studio near a daycare/creche.

Mate of mine took a redundancy package around 18 months ago and started up a photography business. When I spoke to him soon after, he reckoned he could afford to live for around a year earning nothing from the business. Speaking to him now, he can still afford to live for around a year earning no more from the business. So, he's sort of broke even in his first 18 months. The first 12 months he earned almost zilch though – and invested a large some on kit, and even more time on networking to gain contacts etc.

He has a couple of niches which are doing OK for him, but he's decided he'll never do weddings as that's just "selling out". 😀

A friend of mine who is a professional advertising photographer has just emigrated to OZ as work is scarce… I'm trying to make a bit of cash as a live music photographer, and I'm finding it almost impossible.

Going slightly off topic – can anyone recommend any short courses for anyone who likes photography, wants to do more but is, in fact, a fairly shit photographer?

A good wedding photographer friend of mine is now only offering short (four hour) wedding packages and is concentrating most of her marketing efforts on child portraiture.

She has a ready made market as she has two kids of school age and she's naturally very chatty and gregarious – so she gets a lot of business just by chatting at the school gates to other parents who then go off and look her website.

Her clients seem very willing to part with a lot of money for her work. So there is a market there if your wife is charismatic, business minded and willing to spend a lot of time and money. As has been said though, it is a very, very competitive area to be entering right now – to be completely frank, I wouldn't start again right now, purely due to the numbers of (sometimes) talented amateurs willing to work for free, or next to free….

Echo the comments above. In one of my roles I see loads of young(ish) people wanting to set up a business, and am amazed at how many want to set up a photography business.

I think your wife needs to ask herself a number of questions – what is her experience in this type of photography, does she have a relevant portfolio, what is the local competition, what can she offer that is different / better than the competition, how will she communicate / market to her target market, how much budget has she for kit and marketing, what are the exit costs if it goes pear-shaped etc.? It would be worthwhile her doing a fully costed business plan which will help her decide whether the business would be profitable – Business Link and many of the banks have templates for business plans. But you need to be honest when you write one – having too optimistic projections to make the business look profitable are only going to end up in tears.

Seems like a whim to me, wouldnt it be nice to get paid for taking photos of babies. Not sure it works that way, in fact I think it's quite the opposite from what I'm told.

A mate does it part-time and does OK (although he obviously needs much less work as he has a full-time IT job so just does it occasional evenings/weekends). Key for him was setting up a decent web-site (he did Yellow Pages to first year but thought it was a pants return and when he didn't renew they phoned him constantly trying to get his business back).
He mostly does family portraits but made decent cash doing some wedding stuff (but it's a lot more responsibility so you've got to be confident in your abilities). He reckons doing school album type stuff is lucrative but most schools have existing agreements (mostly with friends of teachers) so can be hard to break into.

I was thinking again about this – why not try to carve a niche in this market. I know that 'reportage' style wedding photography is very popular at the moment but I am not aware of any child photographers doing the same (but of course I may well be wrong – it wouldn't be the first time).

It means no studio fees, relatively low equipment costs (just need the camera, GOOD lens and a good flash set-up). Then all you do is chat with the family, agree on the location (favourite park, playground, seaside etc) and you go on location with them and take lots of natural 'family' shots.

Of course you also get to charge for travelling and any hotel costs too.

Not wanting to state the obvious, but isn't she going to do any market research to find out if there is a market? Ask the people she thinks are the target market what they want and how much they are going to pay. What will she offer that is going to be different from the existing photographers who have experience and a reputation?

When she has an idea of what the customers want she can then decide if it is viable or not.

I think that there is opportunity if you look and there shouldn't be any problem in starting the business, but she needs to be sure that she know where that business is, and how to get it! That's the hard part… 😆

Good luck.

Mastiles – that 'look' is definitely no longer niche – everyone's at it. It's been branded as 'lifestyle photography'. Exactly as you describe – get the family down to the beach / fave park / wherever else, take lots of natural looking shots of the kids playing, put together a nice little book, charge arm and leg, job's a good'un.

I tried kids' events for a while (footie touraments and the like), thinking that I really did need to find a niche, but have since decided to stick with regular old portraits using a portable studio kit – I suppose the USP is that I go to my clients at a time to suit them and do the shoot in their living room, where they feel comfortable? Although I am still more than happy to do the down the beach shoots too…

To the OP – the only time I make any real money out of portraits is in the months before Xmas. Having said that, I put precisely £0 and (nearasdammit) 0 effort into marketing portraits so any comissions are a bonus.

As above.

I run a PR company and we often use good photographers. One called me up the other day – he's is very good indeed and quite well known – he's short of work and struggling. This guy has done big shoots for car firms, some of the biggest Blue Chip names, lots of famous people, etc and is amazing to watch in action. I was a little gobsmacked TBH.

Apparently people are often happy to use a cheap as chips photography graduate and a bit of photo editing.

I also know another good snapper who has decided to stop doing it and moved onto other stuff.

Fair enough – it doesn't surprise me that everyone is doing it – I guess it is only natural.

Perhaps go the other way…

There would also be the CRB check as she would be working with kids.

There would also be the CRB check as she would be working with kids.

Would there be? (Assuming parents would be present).

Geoff Burch, Go it Alone.

are often happy to use a cheap as chips photography graduate and a bit of photo editing.

why not if the results are good enough ?

http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2008/6/20/633495987683532308-What-Has-Been-Seen.jpg

Nothing wrong with that at all. Except if you used to make good money as a photographer!

I am a part time wedding photographer and yes it is hard but i believe it is doable.

Get yourself a good website, i recomend a company called creative motion design, they did mine[/url] and get yourself a blog[/url] (free) Work hard at your seo and you will start getting hits.

I started by just shooting friends for free. Try it its easier than most make out especially if you are prepared to put in the time.

and get yourself on the dwf[/url] (digital wedding forum) i know its a forum for weddings but there is a section there for portrature and a lot of good advice

Yeti Guy – Gallery 1 in wedding photography is spelt incorrectly.

Can't say I am the biggest fan of that site sorry – it is very slow to load. Is it built entirely in Flash?????

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek corny music 🙁

Website (and the pics) looks good to me but I agree about the music – and the typo is a bit of a shocker.

Wasn't too slow to load for me. Good idea to have a html version too though if possible.

Like everything else you only get out what you put in. I started 18 months ago (sports) and if you put the legwork in it pays. The portrait buisiness is very competitive because so many nurseries/schools are tied to the big companies however the small ballet schools, dance schools etc. are still there to be approached.

One bit of advice: don't buy cheap kit, decide a budget, do your research, then buy once. Good kit lasts a long time.

If you want a chat email me, I'm glad yo help if I can.

Go for it and don't stop it's hard work but great work!

ha ha !

Thanks for the critique guys, maybe i should spend more time doing spell check and less time biking 😉

As for the music, yeah i know but you have to see it from a gushing wanna be brides point of view, consensus from the ladies is that they like it.

PS there is a html version, and despite the fact that its entirely flash based, it ranks in the top 3 on the first page for all my preferred search terms.

Off to do a spell check. 🙂

Yup, too slow to load here too. Given the competition, I'd have got bored and looked for someone else by now. Sorry, but Flash and fancy graphics for no good reason just slow everything down without doing anything useful…

If there is a HTML version there should be an option to view it. I assume you have a Flash auto-detect on it?

<Rant>

I've just been looking at wedding photographers for July. Can some one tell me why every bloody photographer has to have a **** flash based site? Whats wrong with a HTML gallery or a flickr style set up. Do people see crap flash and think 'yes, that's the photographer for me'

And don't even get me started on sites that resize your browser window. 😡

</rant>

It's easier to stop "image theft" if using Flash

It's easier to stop "image theft" if using Flash

happen so, but who wants to nick small versions of shots of strangers ?

Is it easier? Anyone can screen grab a frame of Flash almost as easily as right clicking an image.

Why would someone looking at wedding photographers want to steal someone elses photos? It's all 'My first flash website by Tomy'

The place for all your answers is going to be the SWPP.
Not a market to get into TBH but this is the place to find out more both with the lectures and the on line community.