Assumptions

Let’s assume basic things, ignoring the obvious pitfall of doing so.

• You love photography, when given the choice you wouldn’t do anything else.
• You’ve taken classes and maybe have a degree in communications/art/photography.
• You already own some basic equipment, and know or are willing to learn how to use the more advanced stuff.
• You aren’t completely unlikable, this is a service job after all.

Startup VS Apprenticeship

I want to make a distinction here between a Startup photographer and the traditional method of Apprenticeship. My experience running a Startup can be summed up as; a complete commitment to making the business work, no matter what. I don’t know much about the Apprenticeship method, because I’m impatient and an experiential learner. The following definitions of each pretty clearly explain the differences to me. I’ll leave it at that and get back to the point of this post.

Startup: “The action or process of setting something in motion.”

Apprenticeship: “A person who is learning a trade from a skilled employer, having agreed to work for a fixed time at low wages.”

Equipment

The first hurdle of starting up a photography business is that the equipment is expensive. Starting up you’ll need a couple things to even pretend you’re the real thing. Here is a short list:

dSLR camera
Lenses
Computer
Lightroom or Photoshop or Aperture (likely two out of three)
Strobes*

*Optional only temporarily, plan for these ASAP.

Good Advice:

As a startup Photographer you will likely need to work another job while you accumulate the new toys. If you’re pragmatic you’ll gradually work into your new vocation.

What I did:

I’m particularly not pragmatic, I’m an artist and a visionary and prefer action over planning. I bought my basic setup with my savings and got straight to the business of “setting [this] in motion.” I am however very lucky, tenacious and stubborn.

Equipment Philosophy:

Fortunately my philosophy about photography has facilitated my start into business of photography. I’m not a big gear guy. I don’t believe the equipment makes the photographer and I don’t think you need a thousand gadgets to make a great image. A lot of commercial photography is about solving problems, and having the biggest strobe in the world will not magically make that happen. That said, I also appreciate having access to right tools when solving those problems. And I have a list the size of my arm of tools I’d like in my bag.

Equipment Strategies:

• In a startup resources are limited and the build up of equipment is slow, giving you a chance to learn and understand each new item completely.
• Don’t wait until you have everything you need to get started, you will never have have everything.
• Use what you have, even if right now that is only the sun.
• Practice constantly, know the limitations of your equipment and learn to see the world photographically.

These strategies all say the same thing: Don’t wish away your development time, if you’re lucky you’ll never stop learning.

Previous: How to Startup a Photography Business.

Next: Portfolio Strategies for Startup Photographers.

Legally become a business (LLC)

Actions:

Apply with the Corporation Commission (for your state, link is for AZ). I thought this would be the hardest and most difficult hurdle, turns out to be quite easy. In Arizona there was a one page form to fill out and submit with a ~$100 fee.

Ask about the tax laws in your state. In Arizona I’m a Retail business and pay monthly sales tax on the whole invoice. The Revenue department has a horrible website (duh. It’s the govt.) but there is help at the State building and they told me what I needed to do in about 5 minutes.

Order some business cards

Actions:

These are your tickets to working your ass off for the first 2 years, also they point people to you. They grant you access to all the business networking, handshaking and introductions you can handle, from conferences to even god forbid the Chamber of Commerce.

Your cards don’t need to be fancy, just informative. (Obviously style is always nice too, and I am confident yours will be better than mine on first try). Give them to everyone that asks what you do. I started with 500 cards and just about figured out what to say when asked “What do you do?”, by the time I handed out the last one. No need to plan an answer before it happens, as you have 500 chances to practice and get it right.

Online portfolio

Actions:

Buy a domain. Put up one or more pages of content, photos, words, contact info. Obviously there is a whole rabbit hole of bullshit that I stepped over but essentially that is all you need online.

We are lucky to live in a time where there is virtually no barrier to entry. You don’t need expensive prints, books, direct mailers etc. You can stake your claim in the digital world, sometimes for free, and point people to it.

Also we are incredibly burdened by the fact that there is essentially no barrier to entry. There is more crap out there than you could sift through in a lifetime, so stand out. Do something interesting, special or game changing.

Next: Equipment strategies for Startup Photographers.

This week, following nearly a year and a half in business, I received another call asking about my photo services. The proposal in short was to photograph an event for a nationally distributed product. It would require that I drive 3 hours out of town and stay on location for 2 days, the client was unable to pay for any of my travel or lodging expenses. They wanted the rights to all the images shot. Proposed payment: One bottle of tequila.

the bad

This is bad, really bad. Somehow I’ve made it on a list that says “will work for free”. I am not exactly sure what I’ve done to give the impression that I can photograph commercial events for nothing more than the experience. Being on this list is really bad for my business. Not only that but all that self doubt creeps in and I wonder: Is the work produced not be good enough to warrant an exchange in dollars? Or are people just looking to take advantage of my time and services? Neither is a good way to run a successful business.

It certainly doesn’t escape me that over the last year and a half of business I have volunteered or traded my services on a number of occasions for big events in town. Possibly that is where people became confused? Perhaps I didn’t make it clear enough that they were contracted trades that offered me a greater value at the time in advertising and name recognition.

the good

As a business owner it is hard to complain when the phone is ringing. I hope it means that the potential clients are familiar with what I do and they want to bring that same quality and style to their own projects. I’ve certainly marketed myself in Phoenix effectively and I rarely meet anyone anymore that doesn’t know me and my work. The greatest benefit of these recent phone calls is they will cause me to evaluate why I’m on the “will work for free” list. And more importantly they will have me reevaluate why I’m in the photography business at all.

intentions

Of course I entered the business of photography with grand intentions of changing the game, bringing creative value, and reinventing the business model. Unfortunately, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and this is no exception.

I’ve been lead by my intentions and my desire to execute business on my terms, to a place that neither seems viable nor rewarding any longer. I believe that I do have a talent; an eye for photography. I know I can execute a concept or copy a mockup with equal skill. I also know for damn sure that I have the technical skills and equipment to execute advertisement quality work. Advertising photography that I’d much prefer to work on both in the business sense and personally.

Instead I’m in a difficult position of having created a niche brand and effectively exhausted that niche. At the same time I’ve become known as a candid event photographer, which within my current business model does not make sense and is not profitable.

proposal

A mandatory 31 day evaluation of my photography business in August.

• I’m not taking any new client projects for 31 days.
• In those 31 days I will shoot the kind of work I’d prefer to be making.
• The work I produce in 30 of these days will build a commercial advertising portfolio.
• After 30 days I will evaluate my pricing, my brand and my business plan.

When I come out of the evaluation I hope that who I am, and what I do, will make a lot more sense.

About a month ago Gary Vaynerchuk sent out a simple question to twitter. Is anyone out there using Flickr to get PAID? I answered that I’d been doing things online to help my personal brand as a photographer on twitter. He responded with a Direct Message asking me to email him back with more about how I was using Flickr. Specifically an example where I got paid.

A month later

I stared at that email in my email inbox for about a month. How could I answer? I’ve been in business for a little over a year at this point. Was I really getting PAID? It was so intimidating in all caps like that. Yeah, I knew I was doing some experimental things. Mostly because I didn’t follow the traditional path to becoming a commercial photographer. I needed to innovate and experiment with this whole “business” thing, just to see how it worked. But was I to the point where it was really paying off? Finally, I answered the email.

The email

First of all: Congratulation on your daughter!

Gary,

Thanks for reaching out. I apologize for the delay in my response and also if it is far too late. I know you are much like me, juggling too many projects to keep track so I hope this answer still helps.

Using Flickr:

I’ve used flickr to post my images online since the founding of my company in 2008. I tried to experiment in the space and push the boundaries of “commercial photography”. The reality is that the space is changing and there are many who don’t get it yet. Digital offers us an immediacy to the work and flickr offers a social opportunity to educate and build brands of individual photographers. There is a lot of risk and basically no one has quite figured out the space yet- including me. (one of the reasons I struggled with responding to this question.)

Industry vs Audience:

I’m certainly in the building brand equity stage of the process. However, I’m also faced with changing the perceptions of an industry that is stodgy at best, and couple that with an audience that until recently hasn’t had access to the information about what makes good photography.

Audience:

One of the first things I did was start an “edit” account on flickr. I introduced something called a “soft edit” to bridge the gap for the audience and shake up the profession. I had some very interested first clients they were early adopters of twitter and understood the main points: transparency and authenticity. They needed real portraits of themselves to promote their own personal brand. Also I used it as a marketing platform to build my brand and educate the audience through participation in conversations on flickr. The audience is very organic in its growth.

Profession:

Shaking up the profession, prior to this most professional photographers would only show their best images to the audience. This portfolio showed off their skill level and attached usually famous brands to their own. I was showing 15 images from a portrait session, good and bad to educate the audience. Most of the professional photographers did not like this at all (still don’t). I also put my images under creative commons, completely going against the previous model of selling prints and rights. I see the market changing and societies expectations about copyright are changing with it, I’d like to figure out how it all works but I’m not quite there, yet. I’ve got an idea that if I can spread my brand and my philosophy far enough that it will make up for it in the end. But I’m in the very beginning stage just barely into my second year of operation.

How to get PAID:

So to answer your question: I think the key to “getting PAID” through flickr is tied directly to a photographers personal brand. We must own our space with specificity, mine is that photography is a philosophy one that should honor its roots in authenticity. :)

Current Flickr account:

http://flickr.com/tysoncrosbie

Tyson Crosbie Edit account:

http://flickr.com/tysoncrosbieedit

Blog Posts:

http://tysoncrosbie.com/blog/projects/soft-edits-opening-the-process-to-the-community/
http://tysoncrosbie.com/blog/main/controling-your-brand-online-the-avatar/

Sincerely,
Tyson Crosbie
602.254.2880
http://google.com/search?q=tyson+crosbie

Conclusion

I realize that I generalized a lot of situations, still I think the spirit of my first year of business is still in this email. I hope that by sharing it with young photographers it will help them as they build their business. Because even though there are a ton of people doing it the traditional way, there is another way. It isn’t as easy and it requires a ton of patience but I think in the end it will result in getting PAID.