Photography Business

If you have a passion for taking great photos, you can start a photography business that can help you live a relaxed lifestyle while making great money over time. In this section we will go over step by step how you can start with nothing and grow a photography business to a profitable company.

The first thing you will want to do when starting a company is to identify your niche. You can take all the work you can for the first couple of months to get an idea of what type of work you enjoy and do best. Then once you have a portfolio of a specific type of work you want to specialize in, you can create a photography brand and website that showcases your work. It is important not to be too broad with your work and eventually to only take work that is in your niche so that you can charge more for each job and make a name for yourself in that type of photography. Stick to one thing like weddings, automotive, sports, real estate, wildlife concerts or headshots and focus on getting more experience in that specific niche.

Once you know what niche you want to focus on, it is time to set up your site and social media profiles which will act as the showcases for your work and the point of contact for your customers. Get together as many of your best pictures that you have taken in your niche and create an Instagram and Website to display them on. You can use Wix to make the site and check out our section on how to build a professional site to learn everything you need to know about building a site. Be sure to look at sites of other successful photographers in your niche to get a good idea of what a great layout looks like. You want to make sure you have plenty of call-to-action buttons on your site and forms and contact information that allow your customers to get in touch with you quickly. A basic photographer site will have a gallery of your work with a list of your services, examples of those services and call to action buttons which we mentioned before.

Now that you have your site set up it is time to start using your personal Instagram account to grow your brand or create one if you don’t have one already. Unlike with many businesses where we recommend making a new Instagram, using your personal accounts, and adding your location and (niche) photographer to your bios will allow you to market yourself as your business and get customers from people that follow you already. Be sure to slowly start posting your best work and branding your pages to focus on your photography business while also adding some posts here and there about your personal life still. You should also post creative reels about your photography occasionally with your location geotagged to show it off to more people in your area. This is a great trick that can get your reel posts in front of potential customers rather than just random people around the world. If you create montages of your best photos with some attention grabbing music in the background you can post different versions of these clips each day to reels to continue reaching more potential clients. Search #photography on your social media platforms to see what content is going viral and give you ideas on how you can get a ton of new customers looking at your work.

On Facebook you should also update your information to make it clear that you are a photographer and what areas you work in. You can also make a specific page to promote your photography business and invite all your current friends to follow the page. A lot of people tend to do this, but I suggest sticking mainly with your personal account which people are much more likely to interact with. Photography is an industry that is much more of a personal business and people like to talk to you directly rather than a page about your photography company. Join as many groups as you can about photography in your area and check groups frequently to see if anyone needs work in your niche. Also be sure to post offers for deals or referral offers if someone knows anyone that needs work done in your niche. Keep growing and adding new friends on Facebook to reach as many people as possible. People are also much more likely to accept a friend request from someone with mutual friends than following a page about a business.

Once you have all your platforms set up, you will want to create an LLC and business bank account for your business. You want to do this early so that you can write off your camera equipment and declare your income without having any trouble from the IRS. This will also keep you more accountable and make you look at your photography as the business that it is rather than just a side gig. Check out our section on how to create a business entity to learn how you can start an LLC easily and obtain an EIN number for your business. Once you have an EIN number you can use this to open a business bank account for your company. You can check out our section on starting a business bank account as well.

When choosing a camera or buying a new one when you get to that point, do not obsess too much on what type of camera you are going to get. Instead focus more on the lenses that will work best for shooting for your niche and decide on what ecosystem you would like to use based on price, quality, and accessories. You can search online what lenses work best for your type of photography and use this to decide what ecosystem of camera you want to dive into. Whether it is Nikon or Canon, or something else make sure that it simply makes sense for the type of work you are doing.

We have already touched on a few ways that you can grow your business but something that can really help your business grow when starting out is by taking work from friends at a discount or for free so that you can grow your portfolio of work. If you do not have much work to showcase, getting some jobs that will allow you to show off your skill, open yourself up to future opportunities, and allow you to ask for referrals can be a great way to get started. You can even post on craigslist citing that you are a talented photography student looking to get more experience and offering discounts to grow your customer base. Keep in mind that this should not be done for the long term but simply as a way to grow your   photo portfolio and get referrals starting out.

Speaking of referrals, this should be your main way of getting business and something you are not afraid to ask for. When you have completed work for someone and they are a happy customer, be sure to always ask if there is someone, they know that could use similar work. You can also offer them a discount on future services, a gift card, or even money for sending you new business. Make sure that you ask for this confidently and make it seem like something that is normal that most of your customers do for you. You can ask for a list of 10 people and their numbers in exchange for 10% of your service for example. Get creative and keep asking for new business! Most successful photographers get work simply because of the network they have and the reputation they have as a great photographer in their niche.

Another amazing way to get more customers for your photography business is to surround yourself with potential customers in your niche. You should be asking yourself where your target customer spends time and how you can interact with them more. If you like shooting photography for cars, then you should be attending every car show that you can with your camera and business cards to hand out. If you do weddings, you can go to venues in your area and talk to the offices about recommending you to people that don’t have photographers in mind. You can show them some of your wedding photography work and offer them commission or something else in return for sending you business. If you do photography for real estate, you can reach out to realtors and agencies in your area and offer your services the same way. Whatever your niche is, think about how you can get people that are in positions where they work with your potential clients to refer you and how to get in front of those clients yourself. Make a name for yourself in your niche and make sure people know about you so you are the first person someone thinks of when they need work done.

Once you start growing your photography business and start taking on a lot of work, you should also start outsourcing some of your more tedious tasks. If you shoot videos for people, you can pay people on Fiverr Pro to edit them for you. If you are tasked with making a graphic overlaying an image, you can outsource this on Fiverr as well. No matter what it is, if it is taking away form taking your pictures and getting more important work done, see what it would cost to outsource some things and determine if it is worth the cost for where you are at.

The last thing you must keep in mind is that once you are getting a ton of work and it becomes hard to keep up with it, you should begin raising your rates. That is how business works, when the demand begins to outweigh supply (which in this case is your time), then prices should go up. Instead of having to ever decline business in your niche because you are too busy, you should start asking more and working less jobs for more money. All the most successful photographers raised their prices multiple times throughout their careers so don’t be afraid to ask for more.