How to Create Your Own Photography Business

Introduction

Hello! My name is Zach Nichols. I am a professional photographer living in Spokane, WA. I am primarily a wedding photographer but I also do just about any other type of photography people need. In my spare time, I love to travel and take photos that I often post on Instagram. In fact, I assume most of you reading this are coming from my Instagram page.

Ok so let’s get this train rolling by asking a VERY important question… why should you listen to me? If you google “How to Start Your Own Photography Business,” you will find endless articles and guides on what people recommend and their “guaranteed” “fast-track” to becoming an “award winning professional photographer who travels the world”.

Let me be the first to tell you; credentials are important. I could tell you that I am an award winning photographer (like everyone else)… or that I am the top rated wedding photographer on Google for my area. Maybe I could tell you that I was featured in an article on SLR Lounge for both my travel and wedding photography, or that I booked 21 weddings my first year and have booked more every year since while charging more money every season, but even still, what makes my advice worth listening to? Professionals charge hundreds of dollars for the information I am giving you in this article but I want to give it to you simply because I love giving back to the community. You can take what you like from this article. All I want to do is tell you the seven steps I took when I first started my own photography business and what I have learned on my journey to get where I am today.

Step #1 - Buy Beginner Gear & Build A Portfolio

Buy Beginner Gear

So you want to be a full time professional photographer? First you are going to need some gear. The key when starting off is to buy gear that you can afford, while keeping the future in mind. DON’T go maxing out a credit card to buy gear, you don’t need much to get started. I personally started off with a Nikon D5300 and a 50mm prime lens which was perfect. The combo cost me just under $500. I bought the camera refurbished and the lens used, and they were perfect for starting off. When buying lenses, make sure to buy full-frame versions or buy used as you will likely one day upgrade to a full frame and don’t want to loose out on money if you don’t have to. I actually wrote an awesome article on the subject of the best photography gear for beginners In 2020 so go check it out!

Build A Portfolio

Building a starter portfolio is by far the best step to getting starting your own photography business. After all, who would hire someone without any experience or visible work to show? What I did and what I would recommend is taking photos of your friends. If you want to get into weddings, do mock-engagement shoots and take photos of couples. Work on learning angles, posing, and lighting while developing your photographic style. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just need photos that YOU love and would be happy to show to potential clients or other photographers… speaking of other photographers… that brings us to our next step.

Step #2 - Create Your Own Photography Business Entity, Work with a Professional Photographer, & Invest in More Gear

Create Your Own Business Entity

The first and most important part of creating your own photography business is… well, creating your business. As you begin to make income from photography, you will want to create a business entity. The easiest and best way to do so is to start with is an LLC or “Limited Liability Company”. Until you create your own LLC, you are personally liable for anything that can go wrong with your business or clients. An LLC shields you from loosing everything you own, and instead, you are only liable for the assets within your business.

You can also start to use write-offs to offset your taxes which will save you a lot of money in the long run. Starting your LLC early allows you to get used to how everything works so that when your business takes off, you aren’t going 0-100 and having to learn everything all at once. I did not do this and wish I had but hindsight is 20/20.

Work for a Professional Photographer

The best way to get good at something is to learn from those who are better, know more, or are more successful than you. This is true in sports, scholastics, business, and… photography, which is why my next step is to work with a professional photographer. “But wait, YOU said that you were going to teach me how to start my own photography business.. why am I working for someone else?” Trust me on this, it is the quickest way to kick your business into high gear and get an insanely good portfolio. I understand that this is not a true necessity for all genres of photography but for weddings, it is of the upmost importance.

Let me start by saying, getting to work for a professional isn’t easy. You have to do research and find the best photographers in your area. Treat this like you would when trying to find any professional job. Don’t settle for just any professional, look for the best; someone you would want to emulate and who’s style you love. Oh, and be prepared for many of them to turn you down or not even write you back.

This part of my personal journey is still a bit of a sore memory to think back on. I actually wrote five different photographers in my area when I was first starting out.. Can you guess how many wrote me back? One. Do you want to know what he said? Something along the lines of, “Thank you for contacting me but I do not think your work is quite up to par or what I am looking for.” No “have a great day or thank you anyway!”, just short, sweet, and very blunt. It hurt. At this point, I made a HUGE mistake and let pride play into the equation. I was young and I thought I was pretty darn good (which I wasn’t) and that surely someone would want to hire me. So when I was met with failure, I gave up. Let me tell you one of the most important rules of being an entrepreneur and professional photographer, do not let failure or a closed door stop you. Let it be a lesson and use it to fuel you to become better and improve.

So then, how did I become a wedding photographer? It wasn’t till one very random day, nearly half a year after I had given up on weddings, that a photographer out of Coeur d’ Alene named Brent Looyenga contacted me and asked me if I was interested in photographing weddings with him. I was shocked. I had given up entirely on weddings and here was a guy I had never met who reached out and asked me to work with him (after an interview and a “trial” wedding to see how I stacked up). I met with him and passed his interview and later on went on to pass his “trial” wedding. That year I shot ten weddings for him as his second photographer and soaked in all the information I could. He told me about his photography business and his tricks when taking photos and also allowed me to use all photos that I took on my website for a portfolio. It was a HUGE head start. During that year I also bought a full frame camera and a couple lenses from the money I made second shooting for him.

This is why you should pursue a professional photographer. The experience and portfolio you can achieve is, in my opinion, impossible to get on your own in such a short time frame, especially as a wedding photographer. There are a couple things you want to watch out for though. First off, don’t pay money to learn from a professional. There are photographers who charge money for these things where I live and I have always viewed it as such a scam. Also, make sure that the photographer you choose will allow you to use the photos you take for your own website. They may not let you post them to social media (Brent did not which was fine) but being able to do so on your website is key as that is your main hub for booking your clients.

Invest in More Photography Gear

As you make more money from working with the professional photographer and free-lance work on your own, you should be acquiring more gear. At some point, you will want to buy a full frame camera (if the professional you are working for doesn’t already make it mandatory for you to own one to shoot with him) and some lenses to go with it. I am actually working on a blog post currently on what general gear to look into as a beginner and new professional. I do however have a blog post out that is a Complete List of the Wedding Photography Gear I Use, go give it a read!

As you buy more gear, use it as a write-off since photography gear is a business expenses. You can also write off gas when on the job through keeping track of your mileage. Taking write-offs is huge toward lowering taxes which is one of the biggest things you will battle with as a self-employed individual so take as many as you can while still doing so legally.

Step #3 - Building a Website & Your Brand, & Pricing Your Photography Services

Building a Website & Your Brand

Ok, so you have created your own photography business name and have an awesome photography portfolio… Now it’s time for one of the most exciting and tedious things you will do in getting your photography business off the ground: creating your own website using a website builder/host. There are many website builders out there. The main ones I have run into for photography are Wix, Squarespace, and Wordpress. I have tried Wix but moved to Squarespace this year due to how clean Squarespace looks and how it re-sizes so nicely regardless of the devices that are used (Wix does not which was a big deal to me). Wordpress can be great from what I’ve heard but requires the user to be much more code and tech savvy so that turned me away (I hate coding). Whatever you do, make it something you want to show off to your potential clients. After doing so would be a great time to buy some business cards as well so you can give those to people you meet, talk with, or take photos of. For business cards, check out MOO. I love their options they have and their prices are not bad at all.

Pricing Your Services

Pricing is one of the things I struggled with most when I first started as does most every other photographer. This is a question that in the end you must answer for yourself, but let me tell you some helpful advice I once received. A photographer once told me that price is reliant on two main things: confidence in your abilities given any circumstance and the quality of product you believe you can give to your clients.

A good example of this can be evidenced in my own story. Before I was asked to photograph weddings with the professional photographer, I did photograph one wedding. It was a courthouse wedding and the couple wanted 6 hours of coverage. I didn’t know how much to charge so I just said “how about $600?”. I told the couple I had no experience with weddings but that I did with general portraiture. They said that sounded fine and I photographed their wedding day. Most of you probably are thinking, “$600????" Are you serious?”. I am, and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I was not confident in my ability to perform nor could I guarantee the quality of my product.

Fast forward to my first year of wedding photography on my own, after working an entire year under a professional; taking notes, asking questions, and paying very close attention to what he did. I decided to charge $1500 for my main package because the confidence was now there. I knew I could give a quality product no matter the circumstances and that my product was easily worth that much (if not more). If I am being honest, I knew I could have charged more money but I wanted to book A LOT of weddings to help get my feet under me and work on getting references (which by the way are the best form of advertisement). I booked 21 weddings my first year due to that price point, the quality of my portfolio from working with that professional, and proper advertising. If you would like to have a peek at what I charge now after three years of experience on my own, go take a look on my wedding pricing page. Now, back to the next topic… advertising.

Step #4 - Advertising - Getting Your Brand Exposure

There are two types of advertising: free advertising and paid advertising. As a photographer, you have two great free advertising sites at your disposal, Facebook and Instagram. These are great tools to help get your name out and build a portfolio to share early on, use them.

Paid advertising was personally my largest leap of faith other than quitting my other jobs to become a full time photographer. Paid advertising can be VERY expensive and there is no guarantee that you will get any return on investment. This is why it is important to ask photographers in both your industry and location what they use and do your research.

For weddings, there are two main websites that brides turn to most to look for vendors. These are WeddingWire and The Knot. Recently, WeddingWire bought out The Knot but they did not combine the two. I personally pay to advertise with WeddingWire because it is used by more brides in my area than is The Knot. However, the Knot can be more popular depending on your location. An easy way to find out which one you should advertise on (if you choose to do so) is to enter the following search into Google in incognito, “(your city) wedding photographers”. Whichever one is displayed first, unless it is an ad, is the one that you will want to go with for maximum exposure.

Now, I am unfamiliar with The Knot but I assume it is run very similar to WeddingWire. On WeddingWire, there are four tiers of membership and advertising. There are 2-4 “Spotlight” memberships which guarantee you top placement on every page, 18-20 “Featured” memberships which guarantee you placement on the first page, “Pro” memberships which are displayed next but are not guaranteed first page placement, and “Free” memberships which are displayed last. I pay for a Featured listing on WeddingWire which cost me a heart stopping $1300 my first year. When I signed up, I did not have any weddings booked and this was a VERY large sum of money to pay for me with no guaranteed return. It was what most photographers in my area used and recommended though so I went with it… and it paid off. My pricing combined with a great portfolio allowed for me to book 15 weddings through WeddingWire of the 21 total I booked my first year. As my prices have increased, I have booked less and less clients through WeddingWire (due to my price point and average price point brides on WeddingWire are looking for); but I still make my money back ten fold every year from the weddings I book through that website.

As a final note on paid advertising, I caution you to be very careful when dealing with people trying to market to you. I got countless calls when I first started from “venues” and other advertisers offering placement in their no-name websites, networks, and pamphlets for “a small fee” of hundreds of dollars. Most all of them are worthless and not worth your time.

Step #5 - Quit Your Job… Maybe

This is the dream, right? You can finally be done working for someone else and be your own boss; but is now truly the right time? I urge you all to be very cautious and wise when considering quitting your job. The last thing you want to do is crawl back a couple months after quitting because you weren’t making ends meet. Make sure you are making enough money to support yourself and your growing business before quitting your job. I personally worked until I was so busy during wedding season that I had to request basically every day off to work on my business. If you can afford to quit however, CONGRATULATIONS, you have made it.

Step #6 - Efficiency is Key to a Great Photography Business

Now what? Clearly since you are a professional you have it all figured out, right? Probably not, I know I still don’t. Now it is time to make your photography business into a well oiled machine. You may be moderately busy now but what if your business takes off and the amount of work you receive doubles, or even triples… what then?

Let me paint a quick comparison for you. There are two photographers, both have 30 weddings booked and take on just about the same amount of other work every year. They both earn about the same too. Photographer A is swimming in his business, barely keeping up with editing and deadlines, let alone his emails. Oh, and personal life, what even is that? Photographer B is managing pretty well. There are weeks he has to put in some long days but otherwise, he gets to do what he wants; he spends time with his family and friends and even gets to go on trips every now and then. So what separates the two? Efficiency.

There are many apps out there like Honeybook, Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Google Docs etc. to help stay orderly and efficient. Everyone has a different way of doing things but the key is to analyze where you spend the most time and figure out how to cut that time down. Everyone has their own system and it is important to find your own that works for you.

Eventually you may also be taking on so much work that you may want to look into outsourcing work. I would not recommend that though until you cannot handle the work anymore or if you are alright with the costs associated with doing so. It is not cheap but certainly makes life easier.

Step #7 - Give Back to the Community

This may be the last step but is the most important part of what I do and stand for. You could have everything in the world you want and still feel like you have nothing. H. Jackson Brown Jr. said it well,

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”

Recall that story I told you about the photographers who didn’t even write me back? Though it is a sore memory for me to look back on, it taught me two very valuable lessons; NEVER quit and NEVER be like one of them. That is why I love writing articles like this and helping out other photographers in the ways I can. I may not give perfect advice all the time or know everything there is to know, but I have something to offer, we all do.

Final Bits of Advice

In closing, I want to offer a couple final words of advice that I have come to realize set the best photographers apart from the rest. The first is to never stop learning. No matter how much you think you know or how good you think you are, there are always new things to learn or improve on.

Next, I want to encourage you to make your business about your client’s experience. Don’t be shady and create hidden costs. Be up-front and honorable.

On that note, make sure to always give credit where credit is due. I cannot tell you how many relationships I have seen broken among photographers who work together and one takes credit for the work of the other. This goes hand in hand with being honorable like I mentioned before. Create relationships that are built on reciprocation and trust.

Lastly, GIVE BACK. I am not joking. It is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling things you can do. The universe has a unique way of giving back to you in crazy ways when you give to others but do not do it expecting anything in return because that is not truly what it means to give.

I hope you all enjoyed this article on starting your own photography business in 7 steps. Photography is my passion and I love sharing information with you. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions and good luck in your journey!

If you liked this article, make sure to go check out my guide on the Best Photography Gear For Beginners In 2020 and my article on What’s in My Bag - A Complete List Of The Wedding Photography Gear I Use.

If you would like to read another great article on the topic of starting a business, go check out this article by Porch.com. For more specific info on photography, go check out “How to Start a Photography Business” on Pixpa.com as well!

-Zach

Starting Your Own Photography Business - My 7 Step Guide to Becoming a Full-Time Professional

Written by: Zach Nichols

January 8, 2020

Photography Info, WeddingsZach NicholsJanuary 9, 2020Comment