Do you have an eye for a good picture when others are struggling to see anything worth snapping? Are you always in demand for your friends' weddings, because they know your quality skills are free? Maybe it is time to step up your expectations and start to think about hard cash for your magic.
If you ever thought about whether or not you could make it as a photographer, read on and see what you think.
Be Proud To Be a Photographer Tell everybody you know that you are a photographer, don't be shy and declare your new career to all and sundry.
The longer you masquerade as a student who takes the odd picture, the less serious people will take you.
Offer your services but do not sell yourself cheap.
Start a Business Up! The sooner you take yourself serious, the sooner others will follow suit.
Get yourself licensed and legal, and think about a business bank account as well.
Get some cards made up and hand them out, especially at weddings and parties.
Go onto social networking pages and tell everybody that you have arrived.
Get Clued Up! If you want to be a professional photographer you will need to ensure that you know all there is to know about the business.
This means that you will have to start reading a lot of books about the subject in hand.
It is not enough just to be a decent picture taker; you need to be able to understand all of the financial and planning aspects as well.
You will need to be able to deal with the following features of running a business: • Accounts and Finances - Will you need a loan or can you start off with your savings first? • Stock and supplies - Do you have a quality camera or will you need an upgrade? Plus you will need a decent PC and good photo editing software.
• Publicity - Can you build your own website or will you need to pay someone to do this for you? • Premises - Is it best to run your operation from your home or can you afford to rent a small shop front in the local shopping mall? • Specialize - Will you just do weddings and family portraits or have you a more exciting workload in mind? Talent and Ideas You could have the best business brain on the planet but you still need to have that magic touch when it comes to photos.
Get ready to take photos of absolutely everything you see.
Never miss out on a photo opportunity now matter how daft the topic may be.
And when you start to build a nice portfolio, be prepared to send your collection to everybody that appreciates nice photos.
Enter competitions and start bugging major magazines with your fantastic skill set.
Apprenticeship? The other option to going it alone is to look for a trainee job with your local newspaper.
It may not be the most exciting job out there, but it is a foot in the door and you never know who will be looking at your photos next!