An Empowerment Guide for Aspiring and Professional Photographers

Discerning yourself as a true professional from a budget photographer and why you should


Countless friends and clients have come to me wondering what kind of recourse they have after mistakenly hiring a budget photographer instead of a pro. Every time, there's been little I can do at this point. Photoshop is not the magic easy button it's purported to be. If the shot isn't captured properly IN CAMERA, there's no amount of Photoshop that can fix it.


These stories encompass memories ranging from baby's first days, to weddings, to 50th anniversaries. Once milestones have passed, it's impossible to retake the photo. It's heartbreaking when the special moments are not adequately captured, edited, or backed up for the future.


I've been compelled to put a list of criteria together to help you become a better artist and business person. It will help you differentiate yourself from competition. Learn to compete on quality not price.


1. Pricing:


No one wants to reinvent the wheel, but you need to understand your own numbers before copying another photographer’s pricing structure. You deny yourself the gift of running your own business when you arbitrarily use another photographer’s market research. You’re also shooting yourself in the foot and charging more than the market will bear if you don’t have the same level of experience, clientele, money management skills and creativity. Instead of trying to be someone else, learn about your own artistic desires and passions. You might have a terrific product line that can be created at a lower cost and reap more profit. You’ll never know until you do the work of tracking expenses, income, fees and more for at least three years.


We are all budget-minded these days. But be careful where you cut. Instead of pricing yourself as the local cheap alternative, do some research. It’s impossible to compete on price alone unless you’re Walmart. You can try, but you WILL LOSE MONEY. The client gets what they pay for, no matter your best intentions. A package that includes all files and prints for $100 or less means you will not have time to adequately process your photos. Spending more time than you charge for is fine for a hobby, but it will not become a career.


Make sure you're editing the best of the best. You want every photo that you release to the public to be the BEST possible image. Every photo you release has the power to either strengthen or weaken your brand. Decide now whether you want to be an artist that makes a living or a hobbyist who makes money on the side. Either is fine, but make sure you know which dream you’re going after. Understand that the best artists charge more because clients GET MORE, in terms of quality. The remainder of this article applies to professionals and aspiring artists, so Hobbyists, please don't feel the following is a criticism.


Photographers who offer a photo shoot and all or most of the images on disk for $100 or less are simply NOT able to shoot for quality; they hope quantity will make them money. Or they hope to win clients with unrealistically low offers and will eventually be forced to raise their prices to compete with established pros. You cannot possibly recoup your costs and run a business at those prices. This is a cold hard truth.


Let me break it down for you:


Photo shoot: 1-2 hours minimum. Your clients are paying for your education and experience to make them look their best and capture priceless moments. You provide a stress-free environment, they get to have a blast laughing with their family, and priceless pictures are the result. Pros make it easy for clients to be themselves without looking awkward or posed. That doesn't mean there won't be awkward moments! Photos are high pressure, and it's your job to gracefully usher them through the experience.


Editing pictures: 20-40 hours for 35 finished photos. This means culling the bad shots, (quality, quality, quality!) fixing exposure, cropping, rotating, requested retouching, and then doing artistic treatments. It's a labor of love. For me, this takes up to 40 hours per shoot. It is NOT the client's job to to do any of the above. If you give them too many similar photos, it's WORK for them to find, choose, and print the keepers. You should never share the closed eyes, black frames, or unflattering poses. Take pride in your craft.


Prints: Everyone is keen to have a disk, but most people leave them there and don't make prints. Then their disk fails in 3 to 5 years and they want a backup to make their own prints. We ALL want to cave under the recent pressure of photographers offering high res disks with ridiculously cheap packages. But I promise that if you stand up for the integrity of your art, people will respect it. And you will grow as an artist when you trust yourself. Just because someone asks, doesn’t mean that you can’t explain why not. This is where you need to know your own worth and be able to communicate it.


I offer prints and include digital images. I want my clients to walk out with high quality files and prints. That way they get the most bang for their buck.


I have not found a Walmart or Walgreens that can print without altering the crop, colors, or contrast and changing the image my clients fell in love with. My lab mounts archival prints to high quality matboard that I feel confident will last for several generations. I can't say the same about CDs, DVDs, or thumb drives. I encourage my clients to back up their digital copies in at least two places.


Create a document for them that details the best way to keep their prints, DVDs and downloads safe. It protects their investment, educates them and shows how much you care about your work.


2. Education and licensing:


What kind of education do you have? This goes a long way to translating your worth. Formal, self-taught? It doesn't matter where you're learning, even if it only ends up in your bio.


How much actual on-the-job, paid experience do you have? If you don't have any, GET SOME! The best photographers are lifetime learners. We have to work full time to keep up with changes in technology, equipment and software.


Many new photographers are working to build their portfolio and as long as you are honest about that, more power to you. But PLEASE do not let your inexperience alter an important event. Be honest with potential clients about your abilities and areas that you don’t have as much experience. I cannot stress this enough. People will still book with you, but every client deserves to know in detail what your abilities and limitations are.


One way to make sure you're on the same page is to have them bring inspiration imagery and then be totally honest about whether or not you can replicate it. It's vital to ask enough questions to know what they want and what you hope to accomplish.


Here are some common serious problems among inexperienced photographers:


* Inexperienced photographers commonly use a wide-angle lens for a large group. The closer you place people to the edge of the frame, the more they get distorted. It's incredibly unflattering to have your face stretched and widened by half, or for people's feet to appear two times larger than their heads. There is NO simple or realistic fix for this in Photoshop. This needs to be taken care of in camera.


* Lighting ratios that cause extreme highlights and simultaneous shadows are due to the photographer not yet understanding how light falls. This can make skin look older and also make people look larger than they are. Know your angles, know your lighting.


Practice, practice, practice. Get a doll with glass eyes and try your lighting ratios out BEFORE you work with a client. Make sure the catchlights don’t interfere with the pupil. Amazon has a gazzilion (no, really) books on learning proper lighting. But there is no shortcut, it takes PRACTICE to learn to see the light. It's tedious, but you will be a better photographer for it.


* Camera angles are complicated equations. Shooting from too small a distance and tipping the camera an inch in one direction can distort everything in the frame. Don't make someone look bigger. Make sure you understand how this can alter the perception of a person’s body.


* Skin texture should be realistic, not glossy or muddy. There should be pores and fine hair. Bad angles, incorrect exposure, and poor lighting ratios can distort the natural texture of the skin. A dead give-away of an inexperienced photographer is skin smoothed beyond recognition in post, because it wasn't focused or lit properly in the beginning. Please don’t remove every wrinkle and mark. Over-retouching is quickly becoming unpopular in fashion magazines and clients are clamoring for realistic retouching. This is separate from a painterly look that has become popular since I began commissioned pinup portraits.


If you want to become adept at using Photoshop as a tool as not a crutch, get the book Photoshop Restoration and Retouching by Katrin Eismann. Then do EVERY exercise page by page. When you're done, you will know Photoshop inside and out and will have formidable retouching skills.


In addition, to help position yourself as a professional from an amateur, consider some of these questions:


Are you licensed? Are you a member of professional groups, like the PPA? Are you listed and active with your town's Chamber of Commerce? Are you working to educate yourself to be better artists? How much are you investing into your business and equipment?


Know your costs! Pros pay: sales tax (both city and state), around 30 percent income tax, for equipment insurance, for bookkeeping to maintain invoices and data, accounting for yearly taxes, cleaning, hard drives and disks to back up your images, business licenses, attorneys to go over contracts or copyright violations, credit card processing -- the list goes on.


Clients are paying for our hard-earned knowledge to help them look their best in front of the camera. Posing, lighting, helping children come out of their shells, and just plain being fun are tools pros implement to make the best pictures.


3. Innovation:


Since the advent of digital, everyone has the ability to take a ton of shots, and therefore score some good shots. But top-of-the-line photographers constantly push boundaries and strive to grow and change as an artist. They are out creating art. They find inspiration everywhere. They will be remembered in art history books for pushing the medium. You WON'T be remembered for being the cheapest option.


Are you giving back to your community? Are you fostering a photographic community? No matter how little you have, someone has less. The economy has created a competitive and mean atmosphere that we should all work to dissolve. I have spent the economic downturn growing a business when others have not been so lucky. I attribute it to the fact that I practice what I preach.


Do not copy! Do NOT search for photographers and then copy their product lines, pricing and/or marketing. You’re insulting their hard work and experience, and you’re denying yourself the chance to be an actual artist. What might happen if you decided to find your own way? You would be following in the footsteps of the worlds’ most famous artists. You cannot discover new things when you’re busy trying to follow someone else’s footsteps. And we do NOT find it flattering. We have worked hard to build our niche.


Years ago, I broke ground as the only photographer I could find that was focused on empowerment and self-esteem, creating my own unique style of painting, editing and lighting; no one had any idea how I could move forward or what to expect. It was lonely work. I had to work hard for five years to build this niche. When someone tries to grow their own business off of my work, it’s a disservice to all of my dreams, as well as that artist’s personal potential. I'm proud to know several talented artists who have taken up this cause with their own brand of photography.


If you like a genre, then EXPLORE it! Find your own creative process and you’ll be amazed at what you create. I have several friends that do pinup, but do an edgier or separate style and I love and respect them dearly. But they have worked hard to develop something that is their own. They don’t copy my pricing, don’t copy my poses, don’t copy my marketing and publicity.


Do not gossip! Photography is a small community. We talk. We know. And we mark you as someone untrustworthy. Your fellow photographers are your greatest source of information, and camaraderie. We can help with everything from technique to experience. Let’s support each other instead of stab each other in the backs.


In conclusion, I am a professional. I am an artist. And this is my passion. I aim to make this abundantly clear with my training, experience and the time I pour into every shoot. I believe it is rewarding for both me AND my clients that I'm constantly searching, learning and growing.


This is not to discourage students or new businesses trying to gain momentum through discounted prices; we all have to start somewhere, and it's great to support these newbies to help them learn. But remember, that's what clients are paying (or not paying) for: the experience that will potentially lead to a sustainable career as a professional photographer. Aspiring photographers are still learning, and clients are part of that experiment. A responsible newbie knows his or her limits and weaknesses and will openly disclaim them.


However, at all costs avoid being the photographer who plunges his or her prices to steal business from others. If you don't treat other photographers with respect, thoughtfulness and consideration, there is no reason for clients to think you will treat them any differently. Don’t act like an amateur if your goal is to grow a successful and professional business. This kind of planning is short-term and not sustainable, and it is dangerous (not to mention a waste of time) to inadequately handle precious memories. Photographers are historians. You have a responsibility to yourself and the future to act with integrity.


I hope this encourages you treat your clients and families like the works of art they are. They deserve to have the memory of this treasured moment captured beautifully and in high quality to pass down through generations. Most of all, I hope this helps you understand your worth as an artist and inspires you to go after your own dreams.