More than a Hobby

[DigiSLR]

For all you professionals out there, how did you know it was time to take the step from hobby to business?

I'm not looking to start a photography business that pays all my bills and becomes a full time job, but I have always had a dream of earning SOME income from photography. Currently I work 4 - 10's and have 3 days a week I could dedicate some time to photography. I hope to possibly suppliment my income and maybe earn enough money to possibly pay for my photo gear.

At what point did everyone jump from "just a hobby" to "making some money"?

Do you all have a professional portfolio, and if so, how did you go about initially creating it?

I'm thinking of starting small, maybe with stock photgraphy submissions. I don't have a particular area of expertise, I just enjoy taking photos. Would it be best if I narrowed my sights to one specific area?

Thanks for any feedback and support. (Don't worry, I won't be taking anyone's clients away from them.)

[Tom]

I did it wrong. I thought I was good enough, but I really sucked and I really suffered because of it. So I sorta went pro in 2005-2006ish. But really wasn't good enough to make enough to support myself minimally until 2008-2009ish. And didn't really thrive until 2011.

Some lessons learned:
1. Specialize. The easiest path to going pro is to become good at portraits. What kind? Choose. But specialize within portraits. Figure out if you like kid, baby, bellies, families, seniors, fashion, corporate, environmental, etc and then focus wholly on that. Sports and landscape are the two most difficult (if not impossible) things to make a living in because they are so popular most of your competition will do it for free. Weddings are somewhere in the middle, but much harder to get started in and build up your portfolio for than portraits.

2. Learn how to run a business. Find out your cost of doing business. File all necessary tax/government documents. Figure out how much it costs you to do a shoot, how much you need to make for each shoot, how many shoots you need each month to break even and how much you want to make per shoot/month/year to stay profitable and be able to make it worth your while to actually do it rather than spend time with family/fish/watch football/go to church/whatever else you do for fun. Get insurance. Liability/gear/errors and omissions. This will probably be the toughest part of your journey.

3. Get all the equipment you need to start. Two cameras. Overlapping lenses in case something fails. Extra flashes. Failure does happen and it is good to be able to recover from failures without missing a beat. If you shoot with two cameras, get a third as well.

4. Be prepared for running a business to sap the fun out of photography. The accounting, answering emails, processing, phone calls (at all hours), etc take WAY more time than the actual photography. I don't really enjoy processing/accounting and all the other stuff the way I enjoy capturing a moment or figuring out a complex lighting technique. Know that you are going to often have to shoot things you don't enjoy as much because you have to get paid to keep the business running. And you may do portraits to make money to afford that two week trip to Yellowstone to take pics of sunsets and bears, but you will lose time to do that with your business.

5. Build your portfolio ahead of time. Do that while you can control EVERYTHING about the shoot. Build up what you enjoy. You will always add/update it, but it is a mistake to try to sell yourself with an incomplete portfolio. Make it good.

6. Enjoy it. Photography is fun. Make sure you love it enough to invest the time on all the crappy parts of running a small business. It may me a lot better to keep it as a hobby and do what you really enjoy.

You mentioned stock. I know a few people on here can tell you more about it, but in many cases, stock is really dead. The heyday of stock photography was about 2004-5. But with microstock now, you need to create pictures that will sell multiple thousands of times. Your cut as a photographer on most stock sites (like the big ones like Getty) is 20-30%. And the rates keep going down because of $1 uses from microstock. It takes a lot of $.20 sales to make the work in shooting/editing/keywording worth it. But I don't really have a stock portfolio, so I will let those guys tell you how it is.

I don't know it all, but these are things that I learned along the way.

[Photogdude]

Be very aware of #4 above.

[DigiSLR]

Tom,

Thank you VERY much for the thorough and honest reply. I've thought about many of the things you mentioned but certainly not all of them.

Now I have much more research to do.

[txdoc]

My biggest advice would be to spend some time helping out a professional photographer. Yes, I mean volunteering your time to help their business.
If you do this for a few years you will:
-acquire tons of technical skills and knowledge and become proficient with way more equipment than you could afford to purchase on your own
-experience what the business side of photography is like
-understand which photographic specialty you are interested in

It will help you become business-smart, you will learn more than you can imagine, and you will find your photographic niche. If your profession allows some free time, it will be an invaluable experience.
After a while, this experience will help you decide whether you want to keep photography as a hobby, create a side business while you also keep your primary profession, or open a full-time photography business.

[txBarta]

Good question and very good advice. Thanks for the info

[HotHolly]

#4 is true of anything, unless you actually like the business aspect of things. im writing YA books now too and it has the same issues that the photo studio and the bridal shop had. You gotta learn what MUST be done and what things steal your time that dont actually require your attention. Ive been MIA for a while b/c Ive been a work-a-saurous.

The stuff I would tell you is that if you realize that you suck - then you have a leg up. Recognizing what could b improved is an asset. You need competency to start shooting, not perfection. (So says the perfectionist b/c nothing is EVER perfect).

Read stuff about running your own business. Audit a college class. The average biz won't hit maturity for 5 years. I wouldnt quit my day job to shift to shooting for your income. At the same time, once you start a business, you start a business. You cannot radically change your fee schedule once its set (some ppl do that). It actually shoots your biz in the head and you have to start over again. Once you start charging, charge for the kind of studio you want to b. You wont have any clients at first, and then your client base will slowly build. Around the end of year 4 you should be feeling frustrated trying to do both jobs. That's when you switch.

And you don't need a studio to start. Lots of awesome photos dont have studio space. Keep overhead down while you start otherwise you'll just go head 1st into debt, and debt sucks.

Hope that helps a little bit.

[scottbuckel]

I have done stock for many years and I know many others that do stock and for all of us the market is pretty dead and the sales are getting smaller all the time.

There are a few folks that make a reasonable amount of money, but they are generally very well established and there are only a few of them.

Tom's #4 is very true. Marketing and business is very difficult for most of us and takes time away from the shooting we all enjoy.

Scott

[Phisch]

Once you take money for your work, the tax powers that be like to know about it. Take necessary legal steps to start a business and now your local tax codes.

Tom's #4 is important to remember, but you've read that already. If you make enough, consider outsourcing what you can so you can focus.

Prepare a plan for yourself. A business plan, simple or complex, will help you define what your goals are, your definition of success and how you plan to get there. Review it regularly to see if you're meeting your goals.

[PhotoByLeal]

nuff said from the farmer with a camera name Tom!
Good stuff!!!!

[hdctx]

YA books?

[DigiSLR]

Thanks again to everyone. I am actually taking colleges classes for my business administration degree, and I loved my financial accounting I and II classes. I'm into business law this semister and learning a lot about creating a business. For those of you professionals with a business, do you recommend creating an LLC to protect you from unlimited liability should something terrible happen? (i realize I should not get legal advice on a photo forum... just asking opinions at this pont.)

[Tom]

Originally Posted by DigiSLR

Thanks again to everyone. I am actually taking colleges classes for my business administration degree, and I loved my financial account I and II classes. I'm into business law this semister and learning a lot about creating a business. For those of you professionals with a business, do you recommend creating an LLC to protect you from unlimited liability should something terrible happen? (i realize I should not get legal advice on a photo forum... just asking opinions at this pont.)

I don't think it is really necessary. You should have a liability insurance policy that covers you for $1mm or more (mine is $2mm.) I am not really sure how you could do over $1mm in damages by taking pictures, but I am sure it is possible. If you have insurance and someone sues you, they are probably going to settle for the low hanging fruit - the insurance settlement. The lawyers won't want to sue you for $3mm when they could get 33% of 1mm without going to court.

[DigiSLR]

Tom, I wasn't thinking so much about insurance liability, but you bring up a great point I had forgot about. Starting an LLC as opposed to a sole proprietorship, the LLC would protect my PERSONAL assets as they remain a seperate entity from the business. Should the business go under without an LLC, any creditors would be able to file claims against personal assets.

Of course, I don't see how I could really go THAT far into debt if a photography business failed.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by DigiSLR

Tom, I wasn't thinking so much about insurance liability, but you bring up a great point I had forgot about. Starting an LLC as opposed to a sole proprietorship, the LLC would protect my PERSONAL assets as they remain a seperate entity from the business. Should the business go under without an LLC, any creditors would be able to file claims against personal assets.

Of course, I don't see how I could really go THAT far into debt if a photography business failed.

You could fund all the start up costs on credit. Gear, materials, etc. That could easily be 30k to start up.