Take Photographs to Take Photographs

I was surprised at myself when I realized I had never mentioned how just getting out and taking more photographs is a key in helping develop your business. If you only pick up your camera when you are getting paid you will live a short life as a photographer.

It is important to challenge yourself and your style. Create projects and shoot new and exciting images for your portfolio that represent the type of work you want to be getting paid to produce. It works double because you can use it for the next promo you should be sending out every 4-8 weeks.

I personally don’t believe you need to stick to one particular niche to make it as a photographer. It works for some people but I myself want to have the opportunity to shoot many different projects so I am continually evolving and adapting to the changes from what is going on around me. From what’s popular in European Vogue to new styles in pop coulter. Being able to change and adapt will help you create the most success.

Unfortunately I have seen many photographers that have been around for a long time start to go out of business and take on new jobs. Their clients slowly slip away and for many different reasons. To compete in this market today you need to keep producing new fresh images and market them appropriately. If you have a website from 5 years ago have a new one made. A client will turn and walk at first site of an outdated website.

I sort of dragged this into two categories but I hope you get the point. Stay on top of your game by shooting all the time and things change so change with them.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

What Should You Charge?

Ok so this has been covered a million times all over the internet but it still gets asked all the time. Basically you need to start with your cost of doing business; you can get help figuring this out with NPPA’s online calculator here. You also must understand how photography is priced.

Charging for actually taking the image (creative/photographers fee) plus expenses is most the time only half of the cost of an image. The other half is the licensing fees. Licensing is basically renting the image to a user based on how and where they want to reproduce the image. If a client wants to use the image in a billboard in time square I would charge far more than for a local business who wants a billboard down the street in their small town. Think viewer ship here (Who and how many people will see the image). I also charge a different rate for a small local publication than I would for a major national magazine. You get the picture?

You can get lots of help with developing your price from sources such as stock sites (Getty & Corbis) and there are a few different software programs available that can help such as FotoQuote, Hindsight’s Photo Pricing Guide and Blinkbid. There are also some photographers like John Harrington that allow you to get price estimates for usage directly off their website.

There is also a more personal aspect of what to charge that only you can develop. This should be based on your quality and skill the area in which you live and your target markets. If you live in a small town you probably are not going to be able to ask for the same day rate (photographer fee) as if you lived in LA, people just can’t pay it.

I also don't believe it is a great idea to post your prices up on the internet or give them out to whoever asks. What you are going to charge is between you and each individual client.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Marketing Part 4 (Strategy)

Year marketing strategy should be made of up seven parts. First you must come up with the purpose of your marketing (what it is you want people to do). Second your competitive advantage and benefits (what makes your photography service special). Third who your top target markets are (families, seniors, engaged couples, ad agencies, restaurants needing food photography etc.). Fourth what tools you will use in your marketing (webpage, email, direct mail, cold calling, newspaper ads). Fifth is your niche (what you stand for as a photographer). Sixth the identity of your business (Your identity is similar to an image but can be considered false. You want your identity to represent exactly what your business is without falsely representing it or people will become distrustful) and seven, the budget you want to spend on your marketing (if you are already in business this could be expressed as a percentage or if you are a new business you would allocate a specific part of your initial investment to marketing)

This will make up the basics of your marketing plan rough draft.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Marketing Part 3 (Position)

To begin the process of developing a marketing plan you are faced with a list of questions that need to be addressed. When developing the answers to these questions it is important to keep in mind your service with regard to you final objective. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Who is your competition? What are your target markets? The needs of your target market? What economic trends are affecting your industry and market?

Once you have answered these questions your market position will be much easier to determine and will greatly help when developing your marketing strategy.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Marketing Part 2 (Objectives)

Think about your business. Think about what you want from your business. Think about what your business must do to get what you want from it.

Once you know what you want from your business (example: gross revenue of 70k over the next 12 months) you must figure out how your marketing will get you to your goal. You must create marketing objective. It could be to drive higher traffic to your website, increase your print sales, shoot one wedding a week, get 4 meetings to show portfolio with art buyers next month etc. without knowing your objectives you will not be able to develop effective strategies to achieve your goal.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Marketing Part 1 (Consistency)

The key to successful marketing is to “start with a plan” and “stick to that plan”. Even if you make a plan, if you are not consistent it will be ineffective. The challenge is developing your plan, once you have it you just need to set up a calendar and implement your marketing events on a continuing basis.

If you are a wedding photographer and you take out an ad in a local wedding publication your return for the first ad may be low but think compound interest, the return on your investment will grow larger and larger even though you are still spending the same amount of money on the ad. The more times your ad is seen the more likely you will be the first photographer on the potential clients mind when the time comes.

No matter what type of photography you do once you have a plan you need to stick with it or it will not truly generate revenue.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Registering Copyright

I figured I would just explain how to register copyright of photographs for anyone that does not know. It is very simple these days just go to www.copyright.gov create an account on the eCO by clicking on the forms link on the main page. Once you have an account you locate the Register a new claim link fill out the form, make the payment and upload or send in hard copies of your images. You can upload your photographs as jpg format in a zip file or send them in on a CD/DVD. That pretty much sums up the main idea. They have a help system you can find most questions answered also.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Stock Agency

Stock photography is rapidly evolving with the new micro stock agencies selling images for a $1 but for the true professional photographers being signed with a major agency like Getty or Corbis can set you up ahead and provide a good income in the future. Big agencies like those don’t just let anyone join and submit work so it can also help build a little rep with your clients and when you are starting out any and all good reputation you can create around yourself is priceless. If you happen to be shooting a bunch of portfolio work this is also a great opportunity to get even more value from it. Just make sure you always get a model release as you will have more work options for submitting available to you.

As you grow as a photographer so will your stock portfolio and your potential income.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Model Releases "Get Em"

This is more of a lead in on a topic I am going to write about next but for now lets just say a word about model releases.

If you are not already getting a model release signed by every model at every shoot you need to. If you don’t you could end up in a tight spot when the model sees her photo in an advertisement (even if the shoot was paid with the intent of it being used be a specific client) and deciding they don’t want their picture displayed. Blah Blah Blah I don’t want to cover all sorts of scenarios but just get a model release signed every time you shoot even if it is just for your portfolio. You can find plenty of example forms on the internet if you google it or if you buy this book Business and Legal Forms for Photographers you will have one you can customize for yourself plus a bunch of other very helpful forms.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Marketing to Art Buyers

Heather Morton who writes the blog Ask an Art Buyer wrote a nice bit on getting your work noticed by art buyer's. Read it here. It is nothing jaw dropping but more of a plain and simple truth.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

Spend Time Not Money!

When you are first starting out with a new business you generally have more time than you have money so rather than pay for many of the services you need (website, marketing material etc.) spend your time learning how to do this stuff and save the money for something you can't possible do yourself. When I first started I needed a website but did not have the money to spend so I spent my time (about 40 hours) and $20 on a book to learn how and create a site www.allehphotography.com Time is not money unless you could have been doing something that was paying you in that time, otherwise it's just time.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer

"How to Fail as a Photographer"

Over at SportsShooter.com Allen Murabayashi wrote a fairly cynical article about some key points of being successful as a photographer. I believe every single one of them is spot on and very commonly people are doing these things. It applies to more people than can even become aware of it. As proven by the mass upset it has seemed to cause many people on many forums. Take a read here and if you feel even a little attacked by his words take a second and really think about it. Things often tend to be much simpler than people make them.

That being said he does talk about going after higher paying jobs but if your photographic skill does not even come close to people competing in that price market then keep shooting the cheap jobs and improve your skill and portfolio and slowly raise your prices and go after new clients.



Alleh Lindquist | Portland Fashion & Advertising Photographer