With this article Dan finishes his five part series on the steps you need to take to become a professional photographer. Today he talks about Finding Success and
explores what it takes to achieve success in a
very tough, competitive and rapidly changing industry. The previous articles include:
Part 1- Making the Jump,
Part 2- Getting the Gear and Expertise,
Part 3- Marketing and Self-Promotion and
Part 4- The Business of Photography.
Photographers are primarily right brain people. We’re creative. We focus on the
subjective, the random, the visual and the intuitive. We tend to focus
on the whole picture first, then focus on the details later. That’s why
we bought cameras and chose a career that revolves around creativity. Business, on the other hand, is analytical, sequential, verbal and
it focuses on the details. These are all left brain ways of thinking.
Often times these clash with what may come more naturally to us, and the
result is that we’re just not always the best business people.
Marketing is where things start to get scary for some photographers.
After all, we’re passionate enough about our imagery to want to make
this our full or part time profession, and we’re certainly adept with
technology and digital imaging gear. However, this is where photography
starts enter the business realm, which, unfortunately, doesn’t always
come easy to some creative and artistic types. However, photographers are good at creative problem solving, right?
Well, marketing is the same thing. It’s solving a very simple creative problem that can easily be summed up in one sentence. “How can I convince clients to hire me?”
This is the second of five articles where Dan Bailey discusses what it takes to make the jump from amateur photographer to pro and work towards making a living with photography. This article focuses on the types of gear and professional expertise you'll need to gain as you make the transition. In future articles, he'll discuss, Marketing and Self-Promotion, The Business of Photography and how to put it all together and get started in a photography career.
This is the first of five articles where Dan Bailey discusses his 15 year odyssey in photography, from being an amateur to making a living taking pictures. He starts out by outlining a number of things you need to consider before deciding to jump from amateur to pro. In future he'll discuss Getting The Gear and Expertise, Marketing and Self Promotion and other aspects of the Business of Photography.