how much.....

[danchez]

did you make in your first year of business? If you don't mind sharing that info that is.

[HeatherLou]

6$ LOL Or at least that was the profit I made! It was less then 10G the first year.

[danchez]

So I shouldn't be picking out the color of my new Ferrari just yet??? LOL

[HeatherLou]

Um prolly not LOL!

[danchez]

ok, so my follow up, how much did you make in your 2nd & 3rd years? Once again, if you don't mind sharing.

[RKEnnis]

Originally Posted by danchez

So I shouldn't be picking out the color of my new Ferrari just yet??? LOL

Red!

[danchez]

I actually prefer yellow....

[TootysMom]

I'd be interested in knowing when the successful business owners started to turn a profit that allowed a decent living - where you didn't need to supplement your income with an outside job doing something else.

[Tom]

I suggest that people wanting to break into photography as a full time job read Harrington's books and blogs.

Start out doing it part time with things you love. Always charge for your work. Take some money for yourself. Save some of it. Put the majority of it towards gear. Have a plan for every piece of gear you buy. You don't need a fisheye. When you upgrade or buy something, write out a justification of buying it of why what you have doesn't work for your business and write out a plan of what you plan to do with this equipment to make a profit on it.

Let your business slowly grow. The people that buy a camera, buy lights, go to all the conferences, dive right in, invest a huge portion of their own money generally flounder really quickly and never recoup the investment. They burn out and go away. There is a LOT involved in learning photography and the business of photography. Way too much to learn it all RIGHT NOW. But you really need to know it all before you are going to run a successful company.

[TootysMom]

I agree, that's basically my game plan now. I'm still working at my 40/hr week job and doing photography part time. The money I'm making is going into gear and workshops...so that when I'm ready to break out into full time I will be prepared. I was just curious about those that have done the same...how successful they were when they took the leap from PT to FT as far as reaching their financial goals.

[bondarnes]

I started in photography as a full time newspaper photographer. It barely paid the bills, so I started doing a few weddings and portraits when I wasn't shooting assignments. It only took me about 18 months before my side business was paying me more than the paper.

My first full year 1976, gross sales were $46K. Ten years later my lab bill was more than that.

[HotHolly]

I dove in head 1st and never looked back. Im also the kind of person who rises the occasion...and the 1st months of keeping your chin above water is a huge motivator. I'll tell anyone that has a day job, to keep it. I was between ministry jobs when I started my photography gig.

Anyway, the PPA is awesome. Once you see numbers, it really helps put things in perspective. It also helps you realize that photography is a service industry and not a product industry. If you try to sell photos at keystone, you are totally screwed. Anyway, PPA has an aspiring membership, which gives you access to their financial benchmark surveys. You can see averages with specific factors (region, home based, studio based, rural, city, etc). I think that will leave your head spinning with more good info that I could dish out. You can look for a similar studio type to yours and see where you stand in comparison.

[bryanlindsey]

I've been "in business" for 9 months and have re-invested everything into gear. So, "breaking even" for now...

[ronocnikral]

^so, not making any money at all....

we're in our 10th year and looking at 20k gross for 2009. relocated business half way across the country 4/09. looking @30-40k in 2010, based on what is on the books. not growing too much larger b/c i like my time...

[park]

I pulled this off the web. With the huge numbers of people streaming into the profession and the state of the economy I would not be surprised if numbers had gone down. I know famous photographers who have almost no work these days.

Statistics show that for a photographer in 2002 the average annual salary was $24,040. The lowest 10% earned less than $14,640, the middle 50% between $17,740 and $34,910 while the highest 10% earned upwards of $49,920. For a photographer employed by a newspaper or periodical the average annual salary was $31,460, while in other professional and scientific services the average was $21,860.