I am a professional photographer. You may be wondering why I am telling you. Believe it or not, it’s a common question from others: “How do you know when you’re a professional? When did you consider yourself a professional photographer?”
Welcome to my office!
The easy ways to tell:
1. I have a business license.
One morning my home phone rang and I answered it. There’s only one reason I did, because I was still asleep and didn’t know what I was doing. On the other end a woman from our county business office began questioning me. Before my mind caught up with my half open eyes, I was fumbling with my thoughts while trying to respond. The fact is, as far as my photography was concerned, I was shooting, but I was not charging anyone anything. I was past practicing, but just slowly building a portfolio for ‘what if.’ That was a hard sell. As I explained I didn’t have a license because I wasn’t collecting any money or doing anything beyond favors, really, the voice on the other end said, “I’m on your website and I don’t believe you’ve done these photos for free.”
Now I was awake. It occurred to me that she was harassing me, or at least it seemed that way to me. I told her I was not in business and that is all she needed to be concerned with. I’m a big believer in being upstanding no matter what I’m doing in my life be it personal or business. She informed me of Chesterfield County’s rule (unwritten?), “You need a business license if you’re pursuing clients or they’re pursuing you.”
By the time I hung up the phone that day, I was a bit shaken up. I had decided it wasn’t a good time for me to be in business and yet I felt like I was being cornered into it. And, so I did. Let it be known, what the IRS says is a hobby could very well be considered a business in your county…and never charge even a penny if you don’t have the license to do so.
2. I file and pay taxes
Check out your city, county, state and federal taxing requirements, and then pay them. Enough said.
3. I know the importance of insurance for both liability and equipment.
4. I support the industry in a professional way.
My husband works for a company who sells paper and corrugated. If another in their industry came in with quality material and sold them at a mere fraction of the price, it would be detrimental to the industry, to his company and to any hope of longevity for the other one. Same is true with photography. I remember thinking I would never consider charging $30, $40 or $50 for a single 8×10 print or why it mattered to any other photographer how I did things on my end…I was so naive’ and had zero idea how to run a successful business. Things have changed, and I now help other beginning photographers with just these types of things. It’s important to build your own clientele, your own business plan and your own success while supporting your peers in this business. Not only will they be thankful, they’ll support you, too with kindess, friendship and even referrals for work. There are a million stories I could insert here, but just take the high road as you start out. No need to dig out from the bottom and throw dirt on anyone. It’s much better for everyone to just do it right from the get go.
5. I have a solid mastery of the basics of photography.
While I’m learning all the time, I can walk outside (or inside) to a session in any given weather or time of day and know where I’m going to set my wb, meter, ss, ap and iso before picking up my camera and lens. I can make adjustments on the fly and create the style I’ve grown to love and make my own. I know what I’m going to hand over to my clients and I am confident that it’s going to be consistent with what I show on my site and fb page. I do not depend on editing to ‘save or fix’ an image.
6. I invest in education (vs cloning myself to become someone else or some other photographer)
I’ve invested time and money, and time and money, and time and money, and time and money, and time and money, and time and money…you get the picture. (Ha, I made a funny!)
More to come, but I want to stop and elaborate on point #3, because this was hard for me. I’d rather just give everyone everything. Reality check was looking at my youngest son one day and realizing, at the risk of being cliche’, time is money. This job I was doing was time intensive.
Every single day I see a local fb page announcing –photos for CHEAP, FAIR, BEST PRICES ANYWHERE….
So, what does one session look like in numbers?
I’ll take the infamous $50 for all edited images:
* Session is 2 hours (prep and travel to/from time bump it to 3 hours)
* Editing 30 images is minimal 30 minutes and I can say with confidence it’s probably 3 HOURS or more.
* Uncle Sam’s hand is out and an average of 30% is due him.
* Booking and delivering/uploading a session even without prints is another 30 minutes at least.
* So far, no problems encountered, you’ve done a 4 hour job…if you’re really good and have honed your editing skills and sooc shots (not likely as you begin). I wonder if any of you just starting out would be willing to tell me how long it takes you to edit one full session?
* That $50 is less $15 for taxes. Congratulations, you’ve got $8.75 an hour IF you got it completed start to finish in 4 hours and IF you didn’t have any costs of goods involved.
* How much did that camera, lens, computer, editing program, card, extra battery cost you? (gas???), childcare? insurance? fees? Oh and so much more. Double it, $20 an hour…still not going to make a profitable business out of it–can you imagine how many of these sessions you would have to do to just pay for one lens? I hope you can see some aspects of photography business to consider, and that you’ll reconsider your pricing if you need to. There are smart ways to build your business once you have #4 above solidified , and that includes pricing.
Email me; I’d love to help you out!
