How I Started My Photography Business (+ Grew Fast!)

hey guys i love getting your questions a lot of you send them in through email or dm and a lot of those questions have to do with what i would do differently if i were starting over how i got started and also just how i grew so fast so i thought it would be fun in today's video to answer some of the most popular questions i get all the time and for those of you that don't know me yet i started my business as a part-time passion while i was a broke college kid and i quickly fell in love with being a wedding photographer so i dropped out of my final year of college to pursue it full time and quickly built that little budding business into one of the most successful photography businesses in my local area easily bringing in six figures a year and only working with a select group of dream clients so that i don't burn out and just feel creatively filled in my business and that's what i would love for you too so let's go ahead and dig into those questions how did you go from not knowing anything about how to shoot weddings to being confident enough to book one shoot it on your own and charge for it i actually really love this question because i remember what it was like when just getting started feeling like there's so many things that you need to focus on there's a lot of information out there for growing a business but it kind of feels like you're getting hit with everything all at once all these things that you need to do to be successful and when you're just getting started that can be a tall order and feel a little bit overwhelming when you don't have that confidence yet of what are the right things so uh i have just a few things that for anybody in their first like year or two or three of business that you want to know the exact areas to focus these are the things that i think contributed to me growing so fast in the beginning and the first is really just getting out there on location volunteering to assist or second shoot whatever you can to get that initial experience and that's really going to build up your confidence because you're going to get a better idea of the flow of a wedding day and how that works and also by assisting or second shooting different people you're going to be able to watch how they work you'll find things that you really love and how they work and also things that you would do different and that's going to also build your confidence and also your own unique style and way of working with people during a wedding day for instance when i started there was things that i noticed um just kind of that hectic energy of a wedding day and i decided really early on that i wanted to be the calming presence on a wedding day so when i'm going into a wedding day i'm playing like upbeat music in the car on the way in the morning and when i get there i arrive early so that i can like slowly get settled into the room and just be that calming presence uh on what can be a really crazy hectic day for everybody i like to be that kind of calm in the storm so you'll find your different things that you want to bring energetically and also creatively based on just getting that experience through second shooting and assisting other photographers the second thing that i think really helped me grow in the beginning is even when i was just getting started and had lower price points i treated every single one of my brides like a 10 000 client i treated them like gold and i think that experience is such an important thing early on um to no matter what price point people are spending at this is their wedding day this is the most important day of their lives and it's going to go so far treating people well and giving them that experience and as far as like referrals and also just help you grow even outside of like brides treating other vendors that way as well it just comes back to you it's karma other vendors will refer you and appreciate you as well and word will get around that you're just an awesome photographer the other thing was in the beginning i didn't have a website or a portfolio after a short while interning with another photographer i wasn't allowed to use any of those images in my portfolio so i started out from ground zero a little bit of experience second shooting and assisting but no photos to show for it so uh one of the things that really helped me build that portfolio early on was setting up style shoots and even like really simple shoots where it was just like uh somebody i knew that had a really beautiful dress and we went out to the desert or a cool location and just got some images and i got to be creative the key here is to try to find people in your area or models that fit your ideal clientele because like attracts like so if you can find people that are like the type of clients that you would like to be booking that's going to be attractive to that client and also those people are going to have friends that they can refer that are similar to that clientele so that's what i would do as far as like building up your portfolio early on to attract more of those dream clients that you want and finally with pricing it can be a really controversial topic i know a lot of people really dog on photographers when they're just getting started that have low prices and say that it's hurting the industry i see it as everybody starts somewhere and in order to get those first few bookings and get that experience and build your portfolio it's okay to start low but i wouldn't start free and the reason is um you need to start valuing your work and even just having you know a few hundred dollars a thousand dollars something um for those first weddings will show that like what you do is valuable and other people will appreciate it more as well the key here is to just make it a win-win where they're getting an amazing deal uh in the beginning i let them know hey i'm just getting started i'm building up my portfolio right now so this is an introductory offer you're getting a special deal because i don't really have a lot of images to show actually had no images to show so you know my first few weddings were like 800 and then a couple at a thousand and then a couple at 1500 and every couple bookings i actually raised the price so the key is if you start low i don't want you to stay there and i actually have an awesome video on pricing strategy that i'll link up for you so also check out that as well um and it talks about how to grow quickly so that you don't stay in that low-priced market where most of the competition is that's a very competitive marketplace to stay in you want to be raising up where the competition is lower and also where you can work less make more and also just really give clients the amazing experience at at those higher price points where you're not having to take 40 to 50 weddings to make six figures you're able to take on less and just give a stellar experience and be very creative in the work that you do anything you wish you would have done differently when starting out oh yes i will say that i did try to do things differently from the start just because the market that i was in here in vegas was a very very saturated market where it was all photographers at this like a low price range and so i knew early on that i wanted to do things a little bit different so that i could rise above that low price range market where people were having to bring in huge volumes of wedding in order to like really make a decent living doing it but that said you don't know what you don't know and i was fresh so there's definitely some big mistakes that i made probably one of the biggest ones was bridal shows early on and luckily i learned from my mistakes pretty quickly i did two shows in that first year and they're pretty expensive and i very quickly learned that this was not for me but a lot of photographers get stuck in that trap of bridal shows and you know if you want to try it just to see if it works for you it's i am all a huge fan of like trial and error and seeing what works for you but i just discovered that a lot of the people coming to the bridal shows are like price shopping so not to say that there isn't great brides there as well it just kind of it encourages that price shopping mentality just because you're lined up with lots of booths of a lot of people so it's just kind of blending in same with listings on popular listing sites where you're just one of the many on a list of 20 30 40 100 uh different photographers and so i knew that i wanted to stand out and those bridal shows they were a big waste of my money of my time and of my energy and those are three resources that we can't get back and we need to be really protective over um so instead of that i found that if i were to put that same investment in other areas of my business i was able to grow so much faster so that few thousand dollars that you're spending on a bridal show could instead be put towards uh creative shoots like we talked about on the last question lunches for you know different vendors in your area or photographers to like get to know people i mean honestly just that alone if you were to every week go out to lunch with a different planner photographer florist uh different wedding professionals in your area and just really get to know them and build real relationships every week at like going to a decent restaurant would cost about the same if not less than the price of doing a bridal show and would build your business so much faster because that's how you get referrals and build relationships and do collaborations and it's just a much better way of going about things there's also gifts you can do client gifts so many different areas to pour your time and energy also you know all that time that you're putting towards putting together bridal show and all that focus can be put towards building your portfolio and building not just a portfolio but your dream portfolio that will be attractive to your dream clients so i think that that's a much better place to spend your energy and your time and if i could go back and start over i would definitely mix those two bridal shows but it was just a rite of passage for me the other thing that i wanted to mention was vendor lists since this isn't something that i struggled with in the beginning but it's something that i've noticed a lot of friends of mine that are just getting started in photography or just students of mine are putting a major focus on getting on vendor lists and what i've noticed it was kind of my philosophy in the beginning but i've noticed it over the years as well is if you really focus on creating a great work you don't have to like go and try to get on these lists they will start coming to you because really these venues and these different vendors they want what we want they want a great portfolio that is going to be attractive to their ideal customers so if you can create that portfolio that's perfect for those ideal customers for you other people are going to want it for their ideal customers too because we have a built-in portfolio but the more we can share and give and that's another big thing right after a wedding be very sharing reach out and share your images with other people and that will be something that will be huge for your growth when first starting out do you have any suggestions for gear i should get or not get there are so many things to buy i get this i still get gear lust and i have all the things that i need so in the beginning i like i said was that baroque college student and uh i you know we would screen scrap for change at the bottom of the car seats to get 99 cent nachos at taco bell and share them so just to put into perspective uh we would you know bring up change so i didn't have hundreds or thousands of dollars to be spending on gear my first camera was a borrowed camera and my first weddings were shot on that borrowed camera with the kit lens and a 50 millimeter 1.8 so when starting out i am a huge proponent of not going into that uh starting simple and growing and learning and as you're making money in your business reinvest back into the business there's nothing wrong with starting small super basic camera setup i would recommend is just having a zoom and a good portrait lens 50 millimeter 1.8 usually is around a hundred dollars if you can afford the extra hundred dollars for the 1.4

i'd say go for it lenses last for forever but that's really all you need to get started is a great portrait lens for those first weddings i kept that 50 millimeter on my camera the entire time so i didn't really use the kit lens you can also rent lenses and honestly even with a full kit now i still keep things pretty minimal in my shoes if you've seen my what's in my camera bag video i'll also link that up as well uh for more advice around gear i have like a whole lineup of lenses but at the end of the day there's only really two that i use the majority of the time on my shoots and that's my 24 to 70 millimeter 2.8 and my 85 millimeter 1.4 with those two lenses i can shoot an entire wedding and make it be gorgeous so you don't need a lot if i were to add a third lens that's my favorite into the mix it would be my 70 to 200 2.8 just for those church weddings and situations where i want to be a bit further back and zoom in but that is not a lens that you really need in the beginning when just getting started and don't have a lot of money to invest it's a lot more in how you use your gear and really learning how to shoot so it's not even really about learning a manual and reading it back to front because i don't do that either i've never read a manual that's not fun for me it's more in your eye and being able to see light and to be able to capture images you give any great photographer a point-and-shoot camera a kit lens or an iphone even and they can go out and create really beautiful images without expensive tech because they know light they know how to shoot they understand it so that would be really where i would focus more and not worry so much about the gear early on because as you get better you'll reinvest back into new gear and you're you'll build that kit trust me so it'll come as far as like building up your work in your eye to get better we talked a bit about second shooting and assisting i would definitely recommend that just to get that experience and really do that with photographers that you admire so i would look for photographers that you admire in your local area or even online you know reach out to them find assisting and second shooting opportunities if they have a course or workshop or a one-on-one mentorship training anything along those lines where you can learn from people that you admire and get better and more confident in your work and that's going to help you grow the business really fast so that you can then reinvest back into it and if you like my work i actually have a signature shooting and editing program that i'm be opening up doors to again very very soon so i'll drop a link in the description below in case you'd like to find out more details about that do i need a website in order to get paying clients i've been doing free shoots for a while and i have a small portfolio built up but i don't really feel like a pro photographer and i'm afraid to charge for my work because i don't have one first off i just want to tell you if this is you you're not alone a lot of my students in shoot to edit don't have a website or if they have one a lot of them just aren't happy with it and don't like to share it or promote it which is just as good as having no website but the great thing is my advice for this is when in the beginning like it doesn't really matter the website is not that big of a thing yes sure further down the line as you're building a premium brand you're going to want to have that website where people can go to look but really to get started all you need is an instagram and facebook page where you can begin sharing your work and get it in front of your ideal clients and most of them aren't even looking at the website to get started that's really all you need i'm all about keeping things simple and not adding noble obstacles into the mix in order to begin getting out there and getting the work and a lot of times honestly a website can be a huge time money and energy suck i'd actually rather people focus on other areas such as your work and you know building up that portfolio before you start focusing on things like a website when you are at the stage where you're ready to build up that website have a decent portfolio of images and are ready kind of to take things to the next level some of my recommendations for that would be show it i really really love is a website platform especially as you're building a higher end brand and show it just has so much available as you're building it out and i would recommend as far as templates go looking into go live and tonic sites by jen olmstead have really beautiful high-end templates simple to customize to you and make their own right within show it so that's what i would recommend as far as building out a website if you're at that stage where you're ready if not no worries it's not needed i'd rather you not wait to get yourself out there and then as far as client delivery goes i use and love and recommend a pixie set for delivering client galleries and that has a really amazing presentation so those are some of the tools that i use myself personally and love and can recommend for you as you're building out your website and client presentation in your own business but really my number one piece of advice would be start before you're ready own the fact that you were a photographer start putting yourself out there and don't worry about the website start calling yourself a professional photographer today because you are and that's the most important thing is to just start practicing that and building that confidence so you can go out there and bring in that work that is going to build a portfolio and all the other pieces they'll fall into place eventually how to do skill from budget to premium weddings it seems like a wall that i just can't bust through so i struggled with this for a while as well until i finally cracked it i in my own business hit a certain level of success and it did seem like this barrier to like get to that next level this is something i've noticed throughout my photography career is like there's kind of these ceilings that you hit within these different markets where you need to kind of bust through and get to that next level and um what really did that shift for me was for a while i was so focused on like why am i not getting those kind of weddings like why am i not like getting a wedding's at these venues with these beautiful details because i love all the details i love the beautiful dresses i love the floral like gorgeous floral i love all the little details in a wedding i really wanted those super detail-oriented brides uh with these luxurious weddings so from for me what really helped me bust through to that other side was instead of focusing so much on how to how to get these weddings like how to get that work i instead essentially became the dream photographer for those brides and it was a shift in focus and i think like energetically what happens when we're so focused on like what we don't have and what we want we are pushing that thing away whereas like when we actually just embody and become that person through our work we naturally attract it to us so one of the things that helped me with this was becoming that dream photographer was because i just really wanted to get featured i was like so excited to submit my work and get featured and so i started creating work just for myself that would be attractive to those publications and that in turn made my work focusing on that feature-worthy work super attractive to the clients that i wanted and those weddings just naturally came to me so if i were to boil um this down into like just two simple things to really focus on to push yourself to like that next level in your business and start booking more of those high-end or luxury weddings it would really be to on top of course the experience and all of that which i feel like you should be giving at any stage and always constantly elevating and giving a better experience to your client but like the two things that will really help you start bringing in those kind of weddings are to focus on feature-worthy work and creating the kind of work where they just have to have you high-end gorgeous high-quality images our work is the first impression you know when people see your work they're either going to be pulled towards it or pushed away and it happens in a matter of seconds so you want your portfolio to be strong and be something that is naturally attracting that dream client of yours and then the second part of that is putting that work in front of those dream clients and there's actually a lot of ways to do that that don't cost any money at all one of the primary ones for me in the beginning was submitting to the top wedding blogs magazines publications i if uh you're interested in this have a full video all on this that'll link up for you guys to check out after this on getting featured and that for me for a while like really started to bring in those brides that love those details as much as i did you know by initially creating those images through styled shoots and collaborations and then getting them featured started bringing in more of the same and then i would submit and get those featured and it was just the snowball effect that built up my business over time the second place to really be focusing on to get that work in front of ideal clients of course is just knowing where they're hanging out and stuff but instagram is so powerful um for me personally um a lot of my clients that's where they hang out is on instagram so if you are posting and tagging appropriately you can get that work in front of those clients the thing with this is a lot of people think that they have to have this massive following in order to do well on instagram and it really has nothing to do with follower account it's just really putting out quality work and the other way of really growing fast is what we talked about earlier sharing your images because you know when you're sharing on your platform on your instagram account you're limited to you know people finding you through the hashtags or locations but if you're sharing your work with the full vendor team you're now getting in front of all of their clients and also potential future clients so when you're sharing it with like the florist or the makeup artist or the planner or the different people that are part of that wedding they're going to want to share those images especially if you're becoming that photographer and upleveling your craft they're going to be so excited to show off that work and get it in front of their clients and their future dream clients who might just be dream clients of yours too so that is super powerful to have that referral network that is going to share and promote your work as you're building up your craft you're going to get more and more of that i am now on vendor lists that i didn't even know i get venues that i've never even photographed at just because as you're creating better work people are going to want that to promote themselves so those are my top two things it might seem really simple but really it's just all about perfecting your craft and creating that feature-worthy work and getting it out there in front of those dream clients and that puts you in the position that you are naturally becoming that dream photographer for your people all right so we covered a lot so just a quick recap of what to do when you're first getting started and how to grow fast first i recommend assisting and second shooting to gain experience and confidence to focus on creating an amazing client experience where each and every one of your clients feels like a 10k client focus on building your portfolio through creative shoots based on the ideal dream clients that you want to attract with your work pricing for a win-win to build up that initial experience but don't stay there be sure to quickly raise prices so that you can rise up to where you want to be last put your money your time your energy and your love into the right places and for me that's really two key areas one is fostering relationships with both clients and other vendors and two is investing in yourself as a photographer through courses workshops or one-on-one mentorship with photographers who are where you want to be and whose work that you really admire i hope you enjoy this if you're interested in having your portfolio critiqued here live on my channel uh submit below i'm going to include a link in a couple weeks i'm going to be doing a video all on how to amp your portfolio with my top tips and i'm also going to be doing live portfolio critiques so super pumped for that also be sure to mark your calendar for tuesday march 9th when doors are going to be opening to shoot to edit my signature shooting and editing photography program and last i'd really just love to know what did you think of this question and answer format would you like more videos like this and also if you have any questions for me for a future uh q a style video shoot them my way i always love hearing from you guys and i can't wait to see you in the next video you

2021-02-21 20:00

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