“If I work harder, I’ll be more successful; if I’m more successful, I’ll be happier <- This way of thinking is scientifically broken, and backwards."

So shares the funny and fast-talking psychologist Shawn Anchor in his TEDxBloomington presentation, “The happy secret to better work.”

I just saw this video for the first time today, and I had to share with you guys – I think Shawn speaks to an illness that afflicts so many of us photographers, especially in the early stages of our professional careers.

We’re never satisfied.

We’re always wanting.

We think, “If I could just create art like that photographer, I’d be so happy.”

We look at the work we’re creating today, and a negative flood of emotions washes over us: disappointment, frustration, confusion, sometimes downright disgust.

The self-critical nature of photographers, like most creatives, is legendary. Humility has its place, but especially when just starting out, we beat ourselves to a pulp in the process of trying to hammer out why what we shoot doesn’t look like what we envision.

We always say to ourselves, “If I could just succeed (get more paying clients, buy a better camera, create art on par with our mentors), I would be happy.” And thus we work harder trying to chase an ever-changing vision of success that always hides just over the horizon – no matter how far we’ve come.

Shawn’s presentation covers this affliction with humanity and insight, and although the solution seems simple (be happy first, then greater success will follow), the application of wise words is always harder than hearing them.

“When you raise the level of positivity in the present, the brain experiences a happiness advantage; the brain at positive performs better than at negative, neutral or stressed,” Shawn shares.

How much better? If you’re happy, you’re 31-percent more productive; 37-percent better at sales, so says Shawn.

No wonder the “sales session” comes as such an unnatural experience to most new-to-the-profession photographers – we artists love to make salable art, but then we stress out about pricing, products, policies, session fees, minimum orders, and the entire sales process.

This is one of the many reasons I try to help you, dear PTP reader, to keep your business simple and honest. Get right legally, don’t sweat the small stuff, price your work fairly but profitably, and don’t be afraid to buck tradition and convention to build a business you can believe in.

If you let negativity stick around, by the time you’re done with your daily responsibilities and you’re able to invest some time in your photography and business, your motivation and inspiration will be flatlined. I’ve experienced this myself, and it almost caused me to quit professional photography – by the end of a stressful work day, the last thing I wanted to do was take on the additional stress and worry of shooting a paying client.

You started your business because you love photography, your skills are well beyond just being a Mom or Dad With a Camera, and you’ve been encouraged by friends or family to step up to a professional level and serve your community. Never let the business side of your venture kill the passion you have for creating art. There is a balance to be achieved between your the two, and while each can be frustrating at times, they should work symbiotically in uplifting the whole.

Shawn shares five tiny lifestyle changes that can (re)train your brain and create ripples of positivity in your life. Here they are, with my advice on how to translate this into your walk as a part time professional photographer:

3 Gratitudes

Consider three new things you’re grateful for each day.

I loathe mornings. I won’t lie, one of my life goals is to do work that does not require me to wake before my body says it’s time. It takes purposeful, conscious effort to drag me past my disdain for an early morning and replace it with a positive, enthused, motivated vibe for the day.

But that’s okay. Because I’m aware of it, and I know how to do it. I am grateful for the opportunity to take a dreadful morning and turn it around by the time I get to work. It’s not easy, but it is possible.

One of the tools in my kit for brightening these mornings is to focus on the things I’m grateful for. And it’s improtant to always explore your heart for new things – it’s too easy to fall into a lazy rut of being thankful for God, country, and family, and to never really light the spark that comes from considering specific people, moments, experiences, and comforts that you’re truly thankful for.

You know you best – pay attention to your mood throughout the day, and identify when you could most use some positive reinforcement. It may be in the mornings, or after lunch when you want to do anything but go back to work. Make it a daily ritual at this time to pause and consider three new things you’re grateful for, and see how quickly you’re able to halt and turn back that negativity.

Journaling

Is it cheating that my day job is as a journalist?

You don’t have to be a professional writer to journal honestly and introspectively about your experiences in life. Nobody needs to read your journal but you – and honestly, once you’ve put pen to paper, you may never read your words either. It’s the act of pouring it all out on paper (digital or dead tree) that helps you purge distress, think more clearly, and take time out of a busy day to focus on your dreams, goals, and life experiences.

Shawn encourages folks to journal each day about one positive experience from the last 24 hours.

Length is irrelevant, but try to “get it all out” on paper – don’t skimp on the details, the feelings, the people, the moment.

As young reporters here in Bandera, Texas, my fellow journalist Jessica and I would always ask our salty old editor Newt, “How long should this story be?” And Newt would respond, while typing away in clack-clack fashion with just his two index fingers (as he had done for over 40 years), “As long as it needs to be, children.”

Sit down, start writing, write until you’re done.

(ProTip: If you get writer’s block, kill it by embracing the art of The Crappy Draft. Just start writing. It can be complete horsesh*t, it doesn’t even have to make sense. Everything will fall into place. That is how almost every single article here on PTP starts out.)

Exercise

Shawn shares that exercise teaches the brain that behavior matters.

The benefits of good exercise are many, but where I think most folks get caught up is on the idea that they must be physically suffering to experience worthwhile benefits – and this is by no means true.

• I hate to run, but I love to cycle.
• I hate to walk on a treadmill, but I love to walk the park with my kids.
• I hate physical labor, but I love lifting weights.
• I hate dumbbells, but I love kettlebells.
• I hate fitness classes, but I love cross training with YouTube.
• I hate most competitive sports, but I love shooting hoops and disc golf.

You don’t have to do things you hate to lose weight or just improve your fitness level – there are limitless options for physical activity that can improve your health and give you the benefits, mental and physical, of good, regular exercise.

My fitness grew to be an issue as I moved from the studio to doing more location shoots, and I’d find myself running out of breath while walking from location to location with my clients – it was embarassing, and it threw my focus off of my subject and my art.

Doing anything more than what you’re doing now will be a major improvement, even if it’s just going for a walk. If you’re already exercising, mix up your fitness routine and do something completely different – keep your body guessing. Whatever your fitness level, challenge yourself daily to improve – and you will see the results of those improvements faster than you think.

Meditation

“Meditation helps us get over our cultural ADHD,” Shawn says.

I will adimt that I struggle with this more than any other activity. Between a day job, photography business, wife, three kids, and friends, it’s a real challenge to take time to stop everything and just breathe.

Ironic, isn’t it? To get more done, you have to slow down.

I try to meditate in the mornings when the world (and my household) is still quiet. I let my brain address and sweep out all its concerns and responsibilites, I envision success in any projects I have coming up for the day, and then try to simply be still, breathe, relax, and calm my soul. It is vastly more challenging than it sounds, and it takes practice.

But what clarity, what energy I have when I make the time for meditation! Instead of letting life pick me up and whisk me away on a sea of reaction, meditation lets me retake control of my mind and my activities – all of a sudden, I’m in charge; I’m reframing my day around the actions that will really make a difference, and I take on the day with a clear, bright, burning vision of what I want to achieve, and why.

Meditation is as much about retaking control as letting go.

It is so, so easy to let life carry you away – then one day you realize the past six months (years?) passed in a blur, you’ve gained 15 pounds, and you haven’t even started on most of the goals you wanted to have reached by now, much less made notable progress on them.

Stopping everything, disconnecting from the world, and just being quiet with your Self allows you to chart your journey and adjust course on a daily basis, instead of finding yourself lost and far from where you wanted to be as though you’d been unconscious for months.

Meditate, and live consciously.

Random Acts of Kindness

As my BFF says, “It’s the little things that improve the overall quality of life.”

I think it’s safe to say that folks like you and me are “good people,” but life just doesn’t often present us the opportunities to show it. Again, we get carried away on the buzz and rush of life, and we don’t take time to do the little things that make life better for ourselves, or others.

You know what Random Acts of Kindness are – you’ve performed them, you’ve been the recipient of plenty, no doubt. The little things aren’t hard to do; the hard part is slowing down and shifting your focus long enough to do them.

Shawn suggests opening your e-mail and writing one positive letter each day to someone in your social support network.

The Facebook “Like” button has disguised itself as this sort of support, but I think it’s worlds apart from actually showing someone personal attention and caring.

I recently helped a young friend put together an awesome resume which landed her a job when she needed it most. I spent 15 minutes talking honestly with another friend about his new efforts as a musician, offering constructive criticism and encouragement. I try every day to text someone on my contact list and let them know I’m sending them good vibes for a great day. If you’ve ever left a comment here on PTP or written me an e-mail, I hope you’ve found me to be open, interested, and invested in your success.

These aren’t heroic acts by any means, and none have taken more than a few minutes each day averaged out. But this kind of caring, personal attention is so rare in our ever-efficient digital age – very few people take the time to really listen, to really invest their emotions and imaginations in offering support or friendship.

And these acts of kindness are by no means limited to your friends – you should look for chances to do the same for your clients. Pay attention when they say their child’s birthday is coming soon, or that their husband is returning from Afghanistan in two months, or their mother is undergoing chemotherapy. Even so little an act as dropping an e-mail to say you remembered the conversation and show you care enough to ask how things are going, it means the world to people.

But don’t be reactionary – don’t wait for an obvious situation to present itself before you spring into action. Each day, by e-mail, Facebook, phone, or in person, take just a few minutes to be a positive presence in someone’s life.

Remember that passion and excitement you had when you first decided to become a professional photographer? Despite what the grognards say, that honeymoon doesn’t have to end. By cultivating a positive nature, you’ll not only find success more quickly overall, you’ll enjoy the journey throughout.

Next Steps

• Take 12 minutes out of your life to laugh and learn with Shawn Anchor. His presentation is spot-on, and it may well be one of those lightbulb moments that changes how you perceive your world.
• Add Shawn’s five little suggestions to your daily routine. Start right now: plan where those five acts will take place in your day, then make it happen. Do it for a week. Do it for three weeks, then take the time to evaluate how much of a difference these additions have made in your mood, art, business, and life.
• Brainstorm session: What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy? How can you have more happy and less unhappy? What little changes can you make to your lifestyle that will make a big difference over time? What’s stopping you? How can you overcome those hurdles? Write all this down and file it away in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I’d love to hear how you use the ideas here to better your part time photography business!

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• Vision: as a photographer, as a business owner

I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions – I always figured, if I saw a change I needed to make in my self or my life, why not make it then? Why wait?

Well, for the same reason we eat too much around the holidays, put off going to the doctor too long when we’re sick, and spend more time trying to learn photography in front of a computer instead of behind the lens – we are imperfect creatures.

We need a catalyst to make change so immediate and important that we get off our butts and do what’s right instead of what’s easy.

So here we sit together, on the brink of 2012 – let’s look at 12 ways we can make this year the best in our lives as part time professional photographers.

1. You are your own worst enemy – Procrastination

I’d bet good money your first gut reaction to seeing this subhead was to put off reading it. Odds are you felt that uncomfortable twist inside that says, “Meeeeh, I’ll come back to that later.”

I’ll tell you honestly and up front, Procrastination and its conjoined twin Inaction are by far the biggest reasons your business is not where you dream it to be.

You know the dreams – when you read something inspirational, or you start to get something done to better your business, or you get a big compliment on your art, or in that twilight time between laying down and falling asleep – that time when your heart’s desires manifest themselves in wonderful half-moment visions of what your business and your life could be like, “If only…”

Your ego’s defense mechanism is of course the excuse – “If only I had time,” “If only I had more money,” “If only I had a better camera…”

Horsesh*t.

But you didn’t need me to tell you that, you already know it. Sometimes our egos sound like 4-year-olds – they whine and make up excuses with absolutely no connection to reality. But just like little kids, often we let our egos get away with it.

2012 is the year to give your ego a swift kick in the arse.

(Complete aside: While covering a local school board meeting here in Texas for the newspaper, my coworker overhead a few members of the board of trustees talking about spanking kids – one said spanking was ineffective and barbaric, another said such punishment was an act of teaching and love, and the third said, “Well then my daddy suuuure must have loved me!”)

The first step to beating procrastination’s butt is to recognize it and call it out to its face. When you should be taking action of any kind – walking out the door to practice your art, reading your camera manual and practicing to better understand shutter speed and F-stops, updating photos on your Facebook page or blog – and then you don’t, you need to stop everything and at the least acknowledge what you are doing, that you are putting off something that would benefit your business or life because it scares you in some small way.

Just the act of consciously acknowledging an act of procrastination can begin to empower you against it.

The next step is to do “just five minutes” or “just 15 minutes” of work. The hardest part of any act, any project, is to start doing it. Reading, studying, learning, thinking, absorbing – that’s the easy part, of course, because it requires no real effort, and there’s no risk involved. Taking action imparts the risk of failure, which we all have an absolutely disproportionate fear of. Start with baby steps.

And of course the final step is to follow through. You’ve packed your clubs, you’ve driven to the golf course, you’re on the first tee and you’ve drawn back to hit the ball down the fairway – let loose. You’ve got 18 holes to go, and you’ll never score until you finish them all.

Projects, goals of any kind, take focused effort to complete – and don’t fool yourself into thinking that becoming a better photographer is a passive act. Certainly, making any photo is better than making none, but real progress as a professional artist comes as you take on specific challenges – bettering your grasp of manual camera controls, improving how you pose subjects in relation to your light source to make their eyes dazzle, practicing and adding one specific new scene to your must-shoot list.

Honestly, you can skip the next 11 suggestions if you’re going to ignore this one. If you don’t overcome procrastination, you’ll never get around to them anyway.

As the goddess of victory commands, “Just Do It.”

2. Imitate your way to the top

Pick a photographer whose art you really love. Not some over-the-top weird artsy type whose work belongs in a turtleneck-magnet gallery, but someone who is obviously doing very well in the industry of professional portrait photography.

Now do whatever it takes to shoot just like them.

Don’t copycat their work of course, but make them your subject of study as you learn to improve your art and make it more attractive, more salable to your market.

“But, but, but, I’m an artist! I’m a unique and precious snowflake and I must carve my own path lest I stifle my creative spirit!”

Well Princess, you learn to walk before you dance – you have to learn to make serviceable, salable photography before you set out to revolutionize the industry.

As marketing guru Seth Godin so precisely puts it, you don’t have to be the best in the world – just the best in their world, in the world of your target market.

You limit your growth as a photographer when you invest all your focus into creating “new” art instead of learning the nuts and bolts of how other successful professionals earn a living. I could trim my entire portfolio down to about six shots and do those same six shots every shoot from now until retirement and make an honest living doing it. That wouldn’t be very fun or exciting, but it’s the truth – you’ve got to consistently nail the basics, your foundational salable shots, before you can begin to successfully play and create from imagination and vision.

It will come, and it’s a great place to be as a photographer, when you can quickly knock out your basics during a shoot and then just play and flow throughout the rest of your time with a subject. As an artist, as a creative type, it’s both fun and satisfying.

Until then, choose a photographer to study and imitate, and work toward equaling both their technical and artistic abilities. Study each image, each scene, each setup – study the lighting, the catchlights in the subjects’ eyes, the posing, the background, the colors and textures – learn what makes each image tick, then practice those parts until you can consistently recreate the whole.

This kind of specific, purposeful, guided learning will help you make much better photos much faster than the typical scattershot, passive practice most photographers employ.

Once you’ve mastered one photographer’s repertoire, choose another, better photographer, and learn their work. It can take months, years if your practice time is limited, but just being on equal artistic footing with a successful professional opens so many doors to your own financial success – and the resultant time and artistic freedoms that come with it.

3. Get your web site right

Bless your heart, but you don’t know what you’re doing.

I say this with all the southern gentility I can muster. It’s nothing personal, it’s no affront to you as an artist, but photographers are no more web designers than your dentist is an optometrist.

If your business is off the ground and you’re turning a profit, one of the first places you should invest those profits is into an inexpensive but professional web site. Just like in the start-up end of the photography market, there are plentiful talented-if-inexperienced web designers ready to do good work for honest pay. Their grasp of code and layout and search engine optimization at their worst is better than yours at your best – you neither can nor should “do it all.”

There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but far more often than not I see budding professional photographers with perfectly salable art wrapped in a broken, ugly, Do It Yourself mess of a web site. Or a WordPress blog straight off the default template.

The profits from just 2-3 photo shoots will afford you a far better web site. Keep in mind, your web site does work for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week – give it the investment it deserves to do the best job it can for you. You don’t need to spend a thousand dollars on a custom site far beyond the scope of your present work – all you need is a home page, a portfolio gallery, an About page, a blog, and a contact page.

If you’ve yet to turn a profit or charge for your work (see No. 12 on this list), draw on the talents and advice of anyone you know with web design experience. A six-pack of beer or a bottle of wine is often enough compensation to have a friend over to help you go over your site and make improvements. Start with a simple WordPress blog site where you can post fresh photos every week and develop from there. Even the least technical among us can change the logo out, set up pages and make posts to a WordPress site – if you have trouble with it, just visit the Google or watch the YouTubes.

Along with your business card and e-mail newsletter, your web site is an equal part of the core of your business marketing – if you’re more interested in what new lens or flash you’ll buy next instead of having your web site given a professional’s touch, your priorities are misplaced.

4. Set a Facebook and blog posting schedule

All of my business comes from Facebook and word of mouth – which, here in the digital age, are pretty much the same thing.

Around 2005 is when MySpace became my biggest source of clients. When Facebook took over, so went my clientele.

Facebook is all about being where your market is. Easily three out of every four times a client contacts me to set up a shoot, it’s through Facebook. Surprisingly often, I’ll never even talk with a client by phone or e-mail before or after our shoot – Facebook is instant, convenient, and a daily (if not hourly) stop for most folks.

Would I rather enjoy a chat on the phone or, better, a face-to-face visit with a client? Of course, but as the service provider it is not my place to force a consultation on a client who obviously prefers a digital medium – hence why they contacted me on Facebook in the first place.

My personal Facebook also serves as my professional presence – most folks prefer to keep the two separate, and Facebook even has different profile setups to provide specific accommodations for each.

Once you’ve set up your Facebook page for your business, you need to maintain it, alongside your blog on your business web site.

I like to post something to Facebook daily, and update my blog with a recent photo shoot weekly.

Facebook being a casual place, you don’t have to always post your latest professional work or only talk about your photography business – share links to local news, post a photo of your cat and tell a funny story – but just be sure that what you post is something of interest and appropriate to your target market. Be creative, have fun, add value.

On my blog I stick to highlights and commentary about recent photo shoots, and photo stories of fun or interesting life events. I try to pack each post with good keyphrases, writing conversationally but with purpose while including terms potential clients may use on Google when searching for a local photographer. I try to include the names of all the locations my client and I shot at, where they went to school if they did so locally, etc.

Make posting to Facebook a daily part of your routine, and pick a day of the week (I’m partial to Sunday evenings) to update your blog with fresh photos. It only takes a few minutes, but the free exposure you get with your target market is unmatched by any other venue.

5. Be Wise – Advertise

Getting your name and art out there for potential clients to see is one of the biggest challenges photographers face as they make the transition to paid professionals.

Early on, the problem is not that your art is bad, it’s that your marketing is nonexistent. It’s not that everyone thinks you suck, they just don’t think about you at all.

Advertising to me is the paid arm of marketing – print ads in your local newspaper, postcards in the mail, a billboard out on the highway, your Google AdSense campaign, that sort of thing. You trade your hard-earned dollars for access to the eyeballs of thousands of potential clients.

Despite the fact that my day job for the past 13 years has been with a newspaper, I am a very frugal and measured supporter of paid advertising. “Any advertising” does not equal “good advertising.” Any act of marketing you undertake should have an intended result from a specific, targeted set of people. If you want to book more newborn baby shoots, don’t advertise in your local paper’s automotive section, unless there’s an article on car seats. Make sense?

Advertising is the quick and easy way to get in front of a market, but it’s also scattershot – it’s often inexpensive because it’s mass marketing. The more targeted the advertising venue, the more expensive it is.

Advertising is also a process of placement, measurement, and adjustment – it is not something you just do and hope you book more shoots. Advertising has to be done over time, the results must be measured, and adjustments should be made to make your advertising dollars more effective.

For example, at my newspaper you can run a one-column by one-inch display ad for $8 a week. The cost isn’t exorbitant, and the ad will reach around 8,000 people each week. Odds are, 400 (five percent) of those people invest in professional portrait photography at all. Maybe 20 (five percent) of those people are in the market for portraits right now. I’ll do well if one (five percent) of those people sees my ad and calls me to book a shoot. But assuming I make more than $8 on that shoot, my money was well-invested.

Unfortunately, while advertising salespeople like to suggest there’s a formula to guarantee a certain amount of business from an ad, people are infinitely unpredictable creatures. You may run an ad for a month and never get a bite from it. You may stop advertising and six months down the road have someone call you and say they saw your ad in the paper months before and finally got around to calling you. It’s almost random.

Almost.

Over weeks and months and years, you can run consistent advertising and get fairly consistent results from those ads. You’ll learn through your measurements what months are better than others, and what promotions to advertise when to get the best results. Every market is different, and unless another locally advertising photographer wants to clue you in, you’ll have to go through the learning process yourself.

It’s not an inexpensive education, but it’s fun, and almost always if you stay frugal, the return on your investment will have been worth the cost. Keep in mind that every new client is a potential repeat client – every subject with whom you shoot is worth far more than the first sale you make with them, both in repeat business and word of mouth.

That said, my newspaper also sells full-page color ads for over a thousand dollars for a single week’s placement – just because an advertising option exists doesn’t make it a smart choice for your business. Should the local liquor store take out a half-page color ad in the paper the week before New Year’s? Of course. Should you bump the size of your family portraiture ad in November while promoting Christmas card photos? Of course.

Spend as little as possible on advertising, and only spend more when there’s a clear and profitable purpose for doing so.

Salespeople will give you a million reasons why you should spend more money – that’s their job. Holt tight to your pursestrings, and only invest within your means.

6. Volunteer your talents

Volunteering with a worthwhile charity has long been one of my first suggestions to newly-minted professional photographers. It gives you great face time with potential clients, it gives you an established venue where your art can be seen, and it’s just a good thing to do for your community. Do right by folks and they’ll do right by you.

Charitable organizations often have many needs for professional photography:

• Portraits of founders
• Annual individual and group portraits of board members
• Photos to accompany news and press releases
• Photos of fundraising events
• Photos and photo stories of the beneficiaries of the charity’s work

Explore your community for a charity with a cause you support and that has some connection to your target market.

For example, we have several local non-profits that help high schoolers earn scholarships in a wide variety of fields. High school seniors being my specialty, I attend their events to provide photos for the newspaper, I set up a mobile studio and do stylish portraits at their annual prom fashion show, I donate gift certificates for photo shoots to their silent auctions, etc.

There’s always a way to help, and the rewards both social and financial are more than worthwhile.

7. Set up a photo event

Most folks don’t need professional photos, they need a reason.

This is true of almost all sales and marketing – you don’t sell the steak, you sell the sizzle. Hardly anyone who buys a new car needs a new car. They need transportation; good marketing makes them desperately want a specific car.

A photo event can give potential clients just the reason they need to invest in fresh portraits for themselves or their families.

Bunnies and baby chicks at Easter, Halloween costume contests, sitting on Santa’s knee at Christmas – yeah, I hear you, it’s cliche and done to death, but there’s a reason. It pays.

Three weeks ago my wife and I took the kids to the Bass Pro Shop in San Antonio, and there were so many families in line to pay to be photographed with Santa that the store had to use a ticketing system and offered everything from a remote control truck arena to an in-store merry-go-round to ease the misery of waiting parents.

Touching on the next tip in this list, you want to be the photographer hosting these events in your own community. Whether it’s for your apartment complex, your neighborhood, your city, your zip code, your potential clients would likely much rather spend their money with you and receive timely and personal service.

When I set up a photo event, I try to do the sales session directly after the shoot. For my Easter mini-shoot, we keep it super simple – we buy a bunch of stuffed animal bunnies in sizes from small to massive, make a big pile of them, and then photograph the kids hugging and playing with the toy bunnies. We spend 15 minutes shooting, five minutes culling, and 10 minutes selling. We book one shoot every 45 minutes for one or two days, depending on the number of bookings. If my wife and I double team, her doing photos while I do sales, we can pack twice as many shoots in a day without anyone feeling rushed.

Donate a portion of proceeds to a local non-profit, and you’ve got an instant press release for your local newspaper and radio station, both pre-event and post-event. We also do a drawing from our list of clients to give away the biggest, most expensive bunnies from the shoot, and donate the remaining stuffed animals to charity – local toy drives, the thrift store that benefits our local non-profit medical clinic, emergency services which gift stuffed animals to young children caught in stressful situations, and so on.

Photo events only grow in popularity with each event you host. I’m partial to frequent (weekly to monthly) promotions and quarterly photo events – more often of the latter if I’m targeting different markets. Even if a client doesn’t bite on your Easter promotion, they may at Christmastime.

Photo events give clients a motivational reason to finally get the photos taken they’ve been putting off for too long.

8. Own Your Zip Code

You can be somebody to someone or nobody to everyone – never cast your net too wide.

The more narrowly you can focus your efforts as an artist and business owner, the easier and more deeply you will reach within your target market.

It’s far easier to become the best baby photographer in your community when you’re not trying to be the best family-senior-industrial-corporate-fashion-commercial photographer at the same time – you dilute your artistic development and your marketing message in equal amounts.

Have you done your first paid shoot yet? If not, the entirety of your artistic and marketing efforts should be focused on that goal, that first paying client. Once you’ve shot one, focus everything on your next client, then the next, then the next. So many photographers prepare their business for shooting dozens of clients before they’ve landed their first, and they market to everyone when they have yet to make an impression on any one.

Define the kind of art you want to make (re-read item No. 2 on this list), choose a specific clientele you most enjoy working with (I love working with the energy and personalities of high school seniors), and direct your efforts toward earning the business of that clientele on the smallest reasonable scale – earn the business of friends and family first, then neighbors, then of the folks who attend your church, then the folks who shop at the same businesses you do (hair stylists, for example), and onward.

Your market can always be broken down into small, manageable, reachable sets of people. When you do so, the daunting task of “marketing your business” becomes much easier, an application of creativity to common sense in how to reach and impress those people. Own Your Zip Code – be the best in their world.

9. Get photographed

By way of arrogance or ignorance, photographers rarely have their portrait taken. Indeed, the cobbler’s children have no shoes.

Photographers will pay a thousand dollars for a “guru” to tell them how to perform a photo shoot and sale, but they won’t pay $50 to $150 to just go to a successful photographer and have their portrait taken. If you’re astute, pay attention, and write down notes after the experience, the resultant gold nuggets of wisdom will be very similar.

Soak up the experience from initial exposure through booking, shooting, selling, and delivery.

Here’s my process:

• Pick a nearby community that you don’t particularly serve.
• Go online and search for a photographer in that community. Where does their web site place in the Google results? Why? What keyphrase did you search for, and how does their web site capture that keyphrase? In the title? The domain? In the body copy? In a blog post?
• Visit their web site and note your first impressions – does it load fast? Is their art attractive? Is their site easy to navigate? Does it answer all your questions? If not, such as if the photographer doesn’t list prices online, does the site provide easy ways to contact the photographer?
• E-mail the photographer and ask any questions the site didn’t answer – pricing, current promotions, booking, etc. Study their response – how long did it take them to get back to you? Was their response friendly and professional? Did their e-mail include a call to action – did they ask for your business, or ask you to take some other action? Was their e-mail signature professional and complete?
• Call the photographer and follow-up on the e-mail. Ask a couple more questions, then if you feel good about them as a consumer (as you would with any service provider), book a shoot with them. How did they answer the phone? Did they answer at all, or go to voicemail? If they went to voicemail, was the greeting professional and helpful? Did they guarantee a call back within a certain amount of time? How long before they called back? When you did speak to them, how was their phone etiquette? Were they aggressive, impatient, or friendly and helpful? Was the booking process easy? Were they booked solid, or did they have accommodating hours and options for different days of the week?
• Between booking and your shoot, did the photographer e-mail you after the phone call to thank you for booking and provide more information? Did the photographer send a reminder e-mail before your shoot?
• During the shoot, pay attention less to the photographer’s artistic specifics and more to how they treat you and make you feel, how they elicit comfortable and natural expressions from you and your family. Watch more for methods they use when working with you as a subject than what their specific artistic choices are – the latter you can appreciate during the proofing and sales session. At the end of your shoot, did you feel the photographer did a good job? Did they tell you when your proofs would be available for viewing, and how? Did they set up a date and time for the sales session?
• Some photographers proof online, some in person. Either way, measure how you feel about the process and experience. Were their online proofs easy to view and make selections from to purchase? Did the online process leave you with any unanswered questions? Did the photographer make suggestions as to which images might be best used for what purposes (wall hanging versus wallets, for example)? If you proofed in person, was the process comfortable? Did you feel pressured to buy more than you wanted? Did the photographer explain your buying options clearly? Did they photographer ask questions so they understood what it was you were looking to buy in the first place? Did they provide guidance or did they try to sell you what you didn’t want? Did they give you a solid date for delivery? Did their sales tactics and policies leave you feeling empowered, confused, taken advantage of, uncomfortable, or well taken care of?
• When the photographer delivered your purchase, is the presentation professional? Were you invited to join an e-mail list for future sales and promotions? Were you invited to like their Facebook page? Did the photographer ask to go ahead and pencil in your next photo shoot (for Christmas, or next year, for example)? Do you feel like what you were handed was worth what you paid? Would you work with this photographer again? Would you recommend him or her to your friends?

With all of these questions, try to write down notes from your experience, how you felt about each aspect, and what you wish they had done differently. From just one photo shoot as a consumer, whether the experience was good or bad, you can write a book of policies and procedures for your own business that will shape the experience your own clients will have with you, from start to art.

10. Break out of your comfort zone

Your comfort zone can single-handedly kill your business.

Everyone gets stuck in a rut sometimes, and the longer you’re in that rut, the harder it is to dig out. Even when staying in that rut has painful consequences, or is a miserable experience in itself, it’s what you know – it’s what you’re familiar with, and familiarity breeds comfort, which leads to complacency.

Human beings can learn to put up with a lot of unnecessary crap. Most corporate cultures are built on this reality.

It doesn’t take much introspection to see where our bad habits lie – procrastination, eating too much, reading too much and practicing too little – but we’re too good at giving ourselves a free pass. “I’ll do better tomorrow,” is right there with Joe’s Crab Shack and their “Free crabs tomorrow” deal – there’s always a tomorrow.

Breaking out of your comfort zone is like jumping out of an airplane – throw caution to the wind and Just Do It.

Should I starting charging for my work? Just Do It.

Should I call up my friend and set up a shoot with her so I can practicing my location lighting and poses? Just Do It.

Should I call myself a professional photographer if I’m not sure if I’m ready? Just Do It.

Should I leave the house and go photograph some Little League games today? Just Do It.

Should I go by the newspaper and see if they need any events photographed this week, in exchange for a byline? Just Do It.

Should I go to that children’s resale shop downtown and ask to set up a co-op marketing campaign with them? Just Do It.

Should I set up my Facebook page and tell my friends and family about it today? Just Do It.

Should I walk up to that attractive man or woman and tell him I’d love to photograph them for my portfolio? Just Do It.

Should I go by one of the local daycares and offer to do their annual portraits of the kids? Just Do It.

I think you get it – you’re just a shade better off in your comfort zone than you are with outright procrastination and inaction; in fact, like a trio of thugs, they are often seen hanging out together, sippin’ on forty’s and scheming how to steal your success from you today.

Don’t let them. You sure as hell wouldn’t have read this far if you didn’t truly want to make your photography business a success, to make your artistic and business vision a reality. If you feel fear or hesitation, you’re probably on the right track.

11. Relax

With all this talk of what you should do, here’s something you should not do: stress out.

The grognards will tell you you have to do this, do that, and then worry yourself into paralysis.

Never forget: you’re the boss. You’re in charge. You make the decisions, and you can change your mind any time you want, for any reason. You don’t have to follow the rules – you are the rulemaker.

Often we start our businesses with a take-charge sense of ownership, but by the time we’re done getting shot down, critiqued and “warned” of the many pitfalls ahead by the grognards, all of a sudden we’re submissive and feel we have to do what Soandso said or else we’ll surely fail and embarrass ourselves in front of the whole community.

When you feel overwhelmed, with how far you have to go as an artist or as a business owner, just relax. You’ll do no good for anyone if you burn out before you even get started.

This is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be profitable. It’s supposed to let loose the creative spirit within us. It’s supposed to be a joy – that’s why we’re doing this, right?

We are consistently our own worst enemy, our worst critic, our greatest challenge to overcome on our path to success. You can choose to worry, or you can choose to act.

My father’s advice always was, “Do something, even if it’s the wrong damn thing.”

As you make this mantra a part of your professional life, you learn that all the decisions we think are so huge at the time, in the end have so little influence on the outcome. Whether you charge this or charge that, offer this product or that, go with this logo and web site design or the other one, name your business this way or another, it’s all minutiae in the long run.

What counts is what you do.

If all else fails, remember what Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy.com, was told by his father: “Son, they can’t eat you.”

12. Get paid

It’s time.

I’ve been telling you for over two years now, it’s time to get paid. You’re reading this web site because you want to get paid – some of you need to get paid, and you’re still resisting. You’re letting the mortgage slide and credit card payments go late while giving away more “portfolio building” shoots.

If your friends and family have been telling you a while now that your work is good enough to charge for, or you’ve been asked, “Wow, you make great photos – how much would you charge to do my family photos?,” then it’s time for you to get paid.

I am all for portfolio-building shots. I am all about trading free shoots for subjects’ time so you can practice bettering specific aspects of your art.

But you’re good enough to charge. You have been for a while. Your art has value, it is not worthless – in fact, it’s a blessing to anyone with the opportunity to shoot with you. You will never stop getting better at this, so the time is nigh to get paid for your talents.

It’s time to hang your shingle, call yourself a professional (or pro-am), and do work. This is what you’ve been working toward, and 2012 is the time to do it.

No excuses.

No fear.

No procrastination.

No inaction.

No comfort zone.

I don’t care what you charge – but get paid for your time. Scribble some notes on a napkin, figure out what you reasonably want to earn for your time, and from now on that’s what a photo shoot with you will cost. You don’t have to charge a session fee or have a minimum order to get there, but start somewhere, anywhere, and you can grow from there. My bet is that you’ll earn more money than you think you will. As you grow, as an artist and business owner, so will your prices, and your profits.

You’ve been blessed with a talent, creative spirit, vision – you are imbued with the skills of a painter with light, a photographer. You are not reading these words by accident, you haven’t come as far as you have on a whim. I write these words for you, for your eyes, to address your fears and inspirations. I can say with complete surety, as you read this, you are ready to break free from your fears and grow toward infinity.

There are no limits. No one is stopping you.

Let go.

Then grab hold tight, because 2012 is going to be one hell of a sweet ride.

Next Steps

• Pen and paper time, mates. Quickly go over this article one more time, and for each section, write down your thoughts on how you’re going to do things differently in 2012. Keep your list to one sheet, and make your plan clear and specific to address each issue. Tack this to your wall or somewhere where you can read it every single day for the rest of this year. I am not kidding – make the study of this list a part of your morning routine. You will not believe the difference in attitude and progress you will see from this simple act.
• There is a lot to commit to in this article. Start here, and just work your way down the list: Vow to recognize procrastination every time it rears its head, to stop and acknowledge it, then to power through it.
• Head forth to the Flickr and find an artist whose portraiture you really enjoy. Find someone who makes beautiful photos, but obviously something your typical family would hang on their wall – practical, but absolutely lovely. This person is your new artistic muse – study their work and learn to imitate what makes them successful. In time, you’ll grow beyond this, but for now, lay your artistic foundation.
• Look at your web site. Be honest. Start over. Begin with simple, a blog if nothing else, and let your art be the centerpiece.
• Set up your Facebook page, set a day each week to blog on your site. Stick with it. If you miss one, don’t let it knock you off track – just get back on schedule as soon as possible.
• Seek out inexpensive but effective local advertising opportunities. Start with your local community newspaper.
• Pick a non-profit, and volunteer your photography services. If they can’t come up with an immediate use for you, move on to another non-profit.
• Pick a photo-friendly holiday coming up in the next few months (Easter a good option), and plan a photo event around it. Prepare the promotion, do a couple example shoots, pick a charity to donate a portion of proceeds to, ask a friend to set aside the date to give you a hand, collect any props you may need, visit with your community newspaper about a story or press release, arrange to update your advertising in advance of the event, post preview details to your Facebook and blog, and make it happen.
• Introspect about the kind of art you want to make, and the kinds of people you want to photograph. Exclude supermodels (or any models) from the results. Adopt the mindset that your business exists to serve this specific set of people, and let that guide you in all of your decisions of how to spend your time and money this year.
• Use the step-by-step instructions above to get photographed and use the resulting knowledge to nail down how you want to run your business.
• Step out of your comfort zone every day in a small way, every week in a medium way, every month in a big way. Eventually you will move through life with complete freedom of will.
• Relax. Learn some breathing techniques. Exercise and take up yoga or meditation. You’ve got to slow down if you want to get ahead.
• Set your prices. Know that you can change them at any time. When anyone asks, state your prices clearly, simply, and with confidence. It is what it is – if you don’t make a big deal of your prices, neither will your clients.
• Brainstorm session: Enough of my advice – what do you want to change about your business or your life in 2012? Write it down, and file this in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I’d love to hear how you use the ideas here to better your part time photography business!

Similar Posts:

• How to find and partner with non-profits to better your photography business
• How to use coop marketing to instantly build your client list
• Top 15 Internet Marketing methods, from least to most effective, from Darketing to Arketing
• Vision: as a photographer, as a business owner
• To do with more what can be done with less, is vanity

What?

What in the name of Richard Simmons does losing weight have to do with being a successful part time photographer?

Business badboy Donny Deutsch said it best – “Pain or paunchiness can render you almost helpless. If most of your energy is being spent keeping you upright, it’s not going into the areas where you need it most keenly. Go to the flip side of that equation and you’ll see how being in tip-top shape can help you immeasurably.”

It’s safe to say that most folks would like to lose a few pounds – a few as in five pounds, 20, 100, some even more. Especially us Americans who have nigh unlimited access to the most fattening, unhealthy food in the history of mankind.

It’s entirely possible to kill yourself, 99 cents at a time.

If you’re like me and you’ve struggled for years and years with being overweight, over the course of this weight loss series I want to offer some words of encouragement and some resources that have proven invaluable in my finally succeeding in losing weight.

What does this have to do with part time photography? Just from my own experience:

• Being overweight saps confidence, and confidence acts as a multiplying factor when it comes to success with marketing your work and staying creative and playful during your shoots. A lack of confidence causes both hesitation and anxiety when introducing yourself to new people, and it is a constant distraction when you’re trying to do creative work with the camera.
• Being overweight literally eats your profits. Professional photography, especially in the early years, can be very stressful – surviving stressful situations can trick you into thinking you need a reward, and often with us overweight folks, that reward comes in the form of food. I can’t tell you how many times I would get through a photo shoot then take my family out for a big meal in San Antonio, about 45 miles from my home. Between gas and the cost of eating out, I’d blow a chunk of my income from the shoot before I even processed the photos.
• Being overweight limits your artistic flexibility. I love shooting overhand shots, reaching to put my camera in the air and shoot down on a client – and I love shooting from super-low angles. This is a lot harder when you’re worried about your shirt coming untucked, or flopping around on the ground like a walrus, grunting to get back up. I don’t believe our subjects actually care, but still, it’s a state of mind that leaves you trying to protect your dignity instead of focusing wholly on the art and experience for your clients.
• Being overweight is uncomfortable. I love shooting sports from a low angle, on a knee or seated or even laying down – but with all the extra weight, I get about 60 seconds in one of these positions before I start getting very sore and uncomfortable. And it’s both embarassing and distracting when you’re sweating, huffing and puffing just walking around a location with a client.

It’s not that your weight has a direct influence on your art, it’s all the mental and physical distractions that come with that extra weight that in aggregate can have a profound influence on your work, on how you interact with people, on how confident you are in marketing your business.

Two months ago, I needed to lose 100 pounds to get in the vicinity of my goal weight. Today, I’m 25 pounds closer to that goal. By my birthday in April 2012, I’ll be at my target weight. I have never had such success with my weight as I have this summer, and I’ve never been so confident that I can actually reach that goal.

In this series I’ll outline what is working so well for me, all the ‘little things’ that add up to create success. I’ll continue to add articles to as I reach milestones on my way to losing 100 pounds, so you can see from the perspective of a fellow part time professional photographer all of the challenges and solutions along the way.

Know this above all else: you can lose weight, get fit, and both feel and look fantastic. It needn’t be torturous or miserable. You just have to find the right mix of resources and methods that work for you – here’s my greatest one:

WHAT THE GURUS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

Here’s the big secret nobody selling diets or exercise equipment wants you to know: if you eat right and exercise, you will lose weight.

You already know how to lose weight: you eat healthy (not less, but healthier), you move around more. Veggies, lean meat, lift some weights, hop on the treadmill. You already know that every “easy” and “quick” weight loss method is a scam. You already know what you’re doing right, and what you’re doing wrong.

I knew it. Heck, I learned this stuff watching PBS Kids as a child.

But knowing something and doing something about what you know are two hugely different things.

I knew it all the way to 270 pounds. On a stocky 5’6″ Irish frame, that’s a massive amount of fat for a human being to carry around.

It’s like watching grass grow, though – on a day to day basis, you just don’t notice it while it’s happening. Especially for us men, who have built-in rose-colored glasses when we look in a mirror.

You graduate high school or college and stop playing sports. You work your first real jobs, and the added stress both distracts you from staying healthy and causes you to eat more crappy food. You get in a serious relationship or get married and get lazy with your physical appearance. You and your spouse have a baby and you both put on baby weight, then a whole new world of stress and distraction takes over.

Your pants get too tight, you go up a size and tell yourself, “Meh, I’ll lose it when this stress at work settles down.” Then you go up another size. “I just haven’t had time to get to the gym, I’m going to start hitting it hard.” Then another. “I’m getting older, I’m married now, I’m focused on more important things in life than my looks.” Then another…and so on. Until one day you’re laid up in bed with back problems, or your doctor tells you you need blood pressure medication, because you’ve slowly let yourself balloon up to a wholly unhealthy weight.

MY SECRET WEAPON: MOTIVATION

I didn’t realize how unhealthy my lifestyle had become after high school until I got married and had kids. My sedentary job and lifestyle led to a back injury, my back injury led to putting on a huge amount of weight, but reality didn’t strike me until I was unable to hold my own newborn son for more than a few minutes because of my back problems – back problems greatly extended and exacerbated by my weight.

This kick in the pants took me to the gym to rehabilitate my body. I didn’t lose weight, but I rebuilt my muscle and gained strength all over, especially in my back. I can now lift and wrestle and play with my 7-year-old girl and 4-year-old boy. My 11 month old is light as a feather.

But my weight didn’t become an slap-in-the-face issue until my birthday in April of this year.

There comes a moment when you realize you’re the fattest person in the room, at a get-together, or in your entire family or circle of friends. This struck me at my birthday party, when I looked around and realized I had at least 50-75 pounds more fat than anyone at my party.

It was during this time that I made a bet with my two best friends: I wagered by my birthday in 2013, two years time, I would be in better shape than either of them. They would have to tone up and put on muscle, but I would have to lose 100 pounds of fat.

The bet got me started. My trip to the doctor for a sinus infection got me scared.

While checking my stats, my doctor looked at me and said over her glasses, “Are you on blood pressure medication? If not, you need to be.” I had to convince her not to write me a prescription right then.

I hadn’t felt “bad” in years, since I started hitting the gym with regularity. I’d never had heart issues or any symptoms of high blood pressure. But my weight was affecting me in more ways than just confidence and clothing – it was wearing down my heart at a greatly accelerated rate, and putting me at risk for heart disease, heart attack, and a very reduced lifespan on this earth.

I may end up on blood pressure medication anyway (my mother had hypertension), but I want to eliminate weight as a potential influence first.

With death staring me eye-to-eye for one of the first times in my otherwise charmed life, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had to make changes. I have too much I want to experience, achieve, and leave behind in this life to risk losing all opportunity to do so over cheeseburgers and milkshakes.

That visit with the doctor was two months ago. I’ve lost 25 pounds since. My clothes don’t fit. I’m about to punch a new hole in my belt because I can’t tighten it enough to keep my pants up. I put on and had room to spare in a nice shirt that I was about to bust the buttons on just a few months ago. People are asking me if I’ve lost weight. It’s greater motivation than I ever could have dreamed.

Weight loss is possible. Progress is real and tangible. If you stick with healthy eating and some exercise, weight loss is an inevitable, natural result.

In forthcoming articles on the topic, I’ll share with you all of the meals, practices, methods, tools, books, blogs and resouces that have proven invaluable in my weight loss success. There are no silver bullets, there are no magic pills, and honestly, it’s not even been all that hard.

The secret is motivation. Identify your motivation, your reasons for truly wanting to lose weight, the tangible and real benefits you’ll experience from reaching your ideal weight, and you will have taken the first and biggest step toward the fitness success you’ve fantisized about for years.

NEXT STEPS

• Go to www.MyFitnessPal.com, sign up for a free account, and begin tracking everything you eat each day. It’s not a hassle, it takes almost no time at all, it’s free, and it will be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. In fact, it becomes addicting, and fun. You’ll thank me later. Please feel free to add me as friend – my username is BanderaOutlaw.
• Buy a copy of Tim Ferriss’ “4 Hour Body” and start reading. I have both hardcopy and Kindle versions. The super simple diet and exercise outlined in this book is what has worked for me after every other diet and exercise plan failed, every single time for lack of sustainability. The diet is inexpensive, healthy, quick to prepare, easy (I’ve almost never cooked in my life), and with Tim’s suggested seasonings, delicious.
• Brainstorm session: Why do you want to lose weight? Be brutally honest, dig deep, and tell all. Your motivations are valid, no matter how personal, unique, vain, or unreasonable they may seem. You have a right to your reasons for wanting to lose weight. How will your life be better if you reach your target weight? Brainstorm every reason you can think of, write it down, and file this in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I’d love to hear how you use the ideas here to better your part time photography business!

Similar Posts:

• Practice because you love to perform
• What should I charge for my part time photography? – Your First Customer Series, Part 3
• How to make money as a part time portrait photographer – Startup Series, Part 1
• Your pre-photo-shoot checklist in four easy steps – Your First Customer Series, Part 6
• Should you buy an Apple iPad for your photography business?

Photography Business Vision Workout: Men’s Health, September 2011

Just as you strive to improve your artistic vision as a portrait photographer, you need to develop your business vision as a professional and business owner. Consider this, my Photography Business Vision Workout series, as us hitting the gym together for some much-needed exercise. With time and practice, you’ll learn to see business and marketing inspiration all around you, just as you see artistic inspiration in everyday scenes.

The September 2011 issue of Men’s Health magazine is on the shelves at your local bookstore and newsstand. Grab yourself a copy, and let’s thumb through all 190 pages together to see what nuggets of business wisdom we can glean!

Cover: First of all, check out the cover of this or just about any other magazine – see how Aussie actor Sam Worthington stands in front of the Men’s Health logo? It’s simple, requires just a little zoomed-in time with the lasso or extract tool in Photoshop, but it has a powerful and graphic effect to engage viewers. Consider this trick for a future marketing piece, or the best of your senior photography.

Cover: Your marketing pieces should always try to speak to what your target market wants or needs. What gets the biggest play on the cover of this issue? “Strong & Fit: See Results in Record Time” – is there any man who doesn’t want to be a walking example of these attributes, and quickly at that? Consider the same focus in your marketing. When you want to grab people’s attention, speak boldly to a subject they actually care about (hint: it’s not the size of your hard drive).

Cover: Note the repetition and focus on the word “Your” – Your Nutrition, Your Health, Your Fitness, Your Money. This is good – when you ‘talk’ to your clients via your marketing, speak to them, not around them. “John Smith Photography wants to help its clients to experience an enjoyable and fun photo shoot. Clients can expect glorious, life-changing, heart-rending artistic photos from their session with award-winning photographer John Smith…” does not engage readers what-so-ever. Don’t let the About page on your web site read like an good review of a bad art house film on Rotten Tomatoes.

Cover(s) : Note the cool factor of the reversed and upside down style guide. Slip a little something unexpected into your marketing pieces now and then, give people a reason to ‘flip over’ (interact) with your business card / web site / e-mail newsletter / Facebook page.

Pages 2, 3, 6, 7: We’ll just blow past the minimalist (and completely boring) car and shoe ads…

Page 8: I like this Holiday Inn Express ad. I’ve flipped through this magazine about three times now, and it catches my eye each time. What’s a secondary aspect of your photography business that might make an interesting subject to feature in your marketing? Photographers are always blasting their portraits, their end products, in their marketing – what about featuring your post-processing touch-up skills? Your great humor and talent at making clients laugh? Your extensive collection of props for baby shoots? Your access to beautiful, exclusive locations on private property? Your location Strobist lighting setup? Your buy-what-you-love pricing? Your digital image offerings? How do these features benefit your clients, how do they improve their experience and enjoyment through working with you? Instead of pimping the obvious, your end-result art, consider picking one piece to feature from within the puzzle that makes up your overall value offer.

Page 18, From The Editor: Men’s Health Editor David Zinczenko (what a name!) outlines five adjustments you can make in your life (or business) to find Your Big Break: 1. Attack the clichés; 2. Ask why; 3. Collaborate across borders; 4. Think big about something small; 5. Step outside yourself. Great advice, with specific examples of how the magazine has applied these adjustments to better itself over the years. Study the advice here, ask yourself how each nugget could apply to your own business, and as I’ll suggest at the end of this post, add the resultant ideas to your Brainstorms folder.

Page 18, The Tweet Life: “What Winners Knows – You can’t control everything. Sometimes giving up is the best way to achieve command over chaos.” I’ve written before about how you’re going to run into bad clients over the course of your professional photography career. Shake the haters off, and sure as hell don’t let them dictate your customer service policies – don’t treat all your good clients like criminals because of a few nincompoops.

I’m a fan of almost all the health tips in Men’s Health, but I won’t touch on them here. Just keep in mind: a sound mind and sound body are invaluable tools in growing as an artist and business owner – enough so that I highly suggest you spend as much time learning about and practicing good health and fitness as you do your photography. Happiness, the arguable goal of all this work, will increase commensurate.

Page 20, Our Advisory Board, 1. Stay in great shape: – Winning is motivational. If you’re struggling to “do what’s right” with an aspect of your photography business – practicing your art regularly, talking to potential clients, discussing co-op marketing campaigns with other business owners, reducing your post-processing time, turning around proofs quickly – accept where you are, and set a goal to improve by some small measure. If you’re only practicing your art on occasion, set a goal to practice every week. If it’s taking you seven days to turnaround proofs for clients, set a goal of six days. Achieve these, then improve by another measure. Within just a few months, you will have improved your business in tangible, important ways, which you and your clients will enjoy the benefits of for the rest of your photography career.

Page 22, Ask Men’s Health: Pay attention to “What’s the fastest way to eliminate a crick in my neck?” and “I often work late. What’s the best way for me to reboot mentally and finish strong?” These tips will be immediately useful after any marathon post-processing session in front of your computer. (Takeaway: escape your desk every 50 minutes for 10 minutes, indulge in a brisk walk and deep breathing. I set a timer on my iPhone for 50 minutes, then 10 minutes, then repeat for as long as I’m working in my office. With a sort-of deadline, you’ll find yourself working faster and with more focus. Efficiency is definitely a good thing when you have a wife, kids, and/or friends waiting for you.)

Page 34: I first saw this graphic informational juxtaposition in Sports Illustrated – feature a big number, then explain what that number means. It’s like Jeopardy, where you give the answer then make the viewer wonder what the question is. Slip this well-worn but effective visual trick into one of your future marketing pieces.

Page 37: If you ever do any marketing with the word “FREE” in it, I beg of you, don’t put a big ol’ asterisk right after – you just deflated any momentary intrigue your viewer may have felt. : market on your value, your personality, your customer experience, not your freebies.

Page 38, Wake Up A Winner: Just replace “athlete” with “photographer” and you have the exact same insomnia many artists face the night before a big photo shoot. My best tip: when you catch yourself losing sleep over tomorrow’s shoot, calmly promise yourself you’ll obsess over the details in the morning when your alarm goes off. Until then, you are absolved of any responsibility whatsoever.

If You Do Nothing Else, Do This – Page 40: Want a fun challenge? Write a page of marketing copy for your photography business in only 123 words. No photos, no fancy layout, just a small version of your logo at the end (perhaps a phone number and web address would be prudent). If you had to convince a potential client to book with you based on these 123 words alone, what would you say? Now purify down to 60 words. Then 30. Then 15. Then just 10. Call your local newspaper, and place a classifieds ad featuring these 10 words, your web address, and phone number. It’s a cheap and fun experiment, and likely the best, most effective classified ad you could ever place.

Page 42, The 2-minute Office Workout: I love ‘office workout’ tips. We photographers spend way too much time in front of our computers, and often suffer pains and problems because of it. Here, Men’s Health shares that two minutes with an inexpensive resistance band can relieve tension. Add this into your 10 minute every-hour break. Office Yoga is the absolute best method I’ve found to reenergize during a long day of photo processing and Reddit…I mean, research!

Page 46, Build Your Own Breakthrough: As always, you’ve got to Do the Work. Actor Sam Worthington shares wisdom learned as a hard-working bricklayer turned hard-working actor. The takeaway: work hard, and cherish the opportunity to do the work. That you’re reading this now says you hold enough talent and tools to become a successful professional photographer; be thankful for the opportunity before you.

Page 52, Your First-Date Playbook: First-date advice is almost always good advice for your first shoot with a new client. From what you wear, how you smell, where you take your client, to what you talk about – forethought and thoughtfulness will go a long way toward making a great impression. Outside our home studio is a sidewalk where my wife will write “Welcome, <insert client name here>!” in bright, bold chalk before a shoot. It’s the little things.

Page 56: That photo of a foil-wrapped brick sitting atop a grilling chicken has a ‘what the heck is this?’ effect on viewers. Add something quirky or irreverent to a future marketing piece and make your potential clients do a double take. Cultivate curiosity.

Page 59, bottom: I like the “Win This!” graphic with a photo of the prize. Try this graphic trick next time you run a contest.

Page 61: The old comparison chart isn’t a bad format for a marketing piece. If you’re feeling cocky and want to fire a shot across your competition’s bow, and you can back up your claims, use this format to highlight why your offerings are superior to an “unnamed but obvious” competitor. Just make sure your proclaimed advantages are benefits people actually care about. If you have a popular photographer in your market who has draconian customer service policies, this is where you want to highlight the differences between your business and theirs.

Page 64, Major League Muscle: Are you keeping your photography muscles trained, even during the ‘off season?’ You will multiply the rate at which you grow as an artist if you simply shoot more often. If you spend more time reading about photography than you do making photographs – practicing what you’ve learned – you’re out of balance. Pay attention to where you’re investing your time, and divvy it up evenly between learning (both photography and business), marketing, and shooting.

Page 68, Wet T-shirt Contest: Grognards act as though there’s only one respectable market or goal in the entire professional photography industry – boutique portraiture. Everything else, from their perspective, is ruining the industry, especially you. Just as this rundown of T-shirts for athletes shows, there’s a wide spectrum of clientele and options in any industry, from best bargain to best overall. And note, the best overall is not the most expensive option.

Page 68: Related to the above, look to the left side of the page; this is a great format for a marketing piece. “The Problem: … The Solution: … The Question: Are all photographers the same? …” Identify a specific, common problem clients have faced with other local photographers (especially the chain studios), then the solution you’ve created with your business.

Page 70: Great photography in this ad, beautiful dog. Strive to capture such variety in your own subjects, canine or otherwise, and watch your sales grow accordingly. Variety = sales.

If You Do Nothing Else, Do This – Page 71: Great layout and concept for an ad. Just replace the dog with one of your photo clients who has an interesting back-story (firefighter, military, police, volunteer, mom, dad, daycare Valentine’s Day king and queen, etc.). None of your clients are very interesting so far? Find someone who is, ask them to tell you their story, take notes, and photograph them. Don’t forget the model release. Tell stories, feature great people from within your community – in your marketing, on your blog, in your portfolio. “Bring out the extraordinary” in your subjects. You could put together a wonderful and buzzworthy marketing campaign with this idea alone. Ask your local community newspaper if they would be interested in running these photos as a weekly series in exchange for a byline: free, and exceptional, advertising.

Page 73, The iPad Hot Spots: I don’t know what else to say about the iPad – it’s the best, most engaging portfolio a photographer can carry. I use mine exclusively for presenting my portfolio and proofs to clients, and they eat it up with a spoon and a canary-eating grin. I picked up a first-gen 16 GB iPad for $300 used. As always, earn it before you spend it, but it’s one of the best investments you’ll make in your business.

Page 79, The Sportsman: Be thoughtful, but you don’t have to over-think your portraits. All you need is a prop and some backlighting (and perhaps a reflector or white wall behind you) for a book-cover-quality portrait of a young athlete.

Page 86, The Bulb, Three Ways: Beautiful layout. Do your price or product lists look this good? If you proof online, does your digital sales presentation look this attractive?

Page 89: Busting myths is a fun way to put a twist on your FAQ page or a marketing piece. Look back over some of the misconceptions your clients have expressed about getting professional portraits done, and do a myth-buster post for your blog, web site, and/or e-mail newsletter.

Page 94: The layout of this article reminds me of the great ‘Table of Contents’ pages Merlin Mann and Leo Babauta have on their blogs. Most photographers’ blogs are a waterfall of photos, marketing, how-to’s, event and sale announcements, studio news, and personal anecdotes. Be a good host and provide your clients a separate and obvious page on your web site which helps guide readers to the best of your blog; photo posts by category, your currently-active or pending events and sales, all of your educational how-to’s, etc. Don’t force your clients to read your blog in reverse chronological order to find what’s interesting to them. (I am remedying this fault on my own blog post haste!)

Page 112, Give Fear The Finger: Willpower. If you’re a human being, you’ve probably struggled with a lack of it. Probably today. Probably in the past hour. Especially for struggling photographers, this article will show you six roadblocks to progress and how to break through them. My tip: the best day to do the right thing was yesterday; the second best day is today. Don’t let negative self-talk stop you from doing something better today, that’s the easy way out and a poor excuse. Try. Fail. Try again. You’ll learn; you’ll get to where you want to be with time and persistence. Kaizen: small daily improvements lead to big changes over time.

Page 120, Tip No. 11: Listening really is proof that you care. With clients, as it is with significant others. Yes – even if you have to take notes. If you show your clients that you really were listening during that first phone call and during your shoot, you will enjoy the rewards in both sales and loyalty. Listen. Care. Take notes, on even the little things. Three years ago, my wife photographed the newborn baby girl of a client named Becca; last week, she photographed Becca’s second-born, and also remembered the first little girl’s name. Because of this one act of attentiveness, Becca posted to Facebook glowing praise for my wife, and recommended to all her friends that they come to Bandera for their baby and family photos. You can’t buy advertising that good.

Page 124, Upgrade Your Whole Life: Being in the startup phase of professional photography is wildly exciting, and it’s wildly easy to obsess over art and business and marketing and forget to live a life outside of your new adventure – at least until you exhaust yourself, emotionally and creatively. If you feel you’re in a rut or have hit a motivational wall, open up your magazine to this list of “little leaps of progress.” By letting your mind focus on something other than your business for a while, you’ll reboot your enthusiasm and refresh your creative spirit.

Page 136, Be a Better Buyer: Look at the statistics down the left side of this page to get an idea of how men think during the sales process. Especially take note of the following stats, and consider how they relate to professional photography: Percentage of men who studiously read reviews before buying (where are the testimonials on your web site?), number of men who say they make their family’s big-purchase decisions (are you asking that Mommy bring Daddy along for the proofing and sales session?), percentage of men who prefer making big purchases in-store rather than online (are your proofing in person or online?), number of online shoppers who’ve been suckered by limited-time offers (if you proof online, do your clients have a deadline to buy at best rates?), percentage of men who say shopping is almost always annoying (what are you doing to make your proofing/sales session more fun for male clients?).

Flipping this month’s Men’s Health to the backside Guide To Style, I won’t lie: I love good-looking clothes. I get lost in style guides like this. Besides taking inspiration from the photography here, consider offering similar style tips for your clients. Create a Style Guide similar to my Client Pre-shoot Cheat Sheet to share with your newly-booked clients.

Post a tip a week to your blog, and compile these tips into your style guide. If you have no good fashion sense, ask a friend who does to help you out. Great wardrobe can really make a photo shoot sing, so do yourself and your clients a favor by providing them the informational tools they need to look their best. Remember, you’re the expert – your clients trust you to guide them in the photo-making process. When your clients feel prepared, they’ll be more comfortable in front of the camera and throughout the shoot.

You can expand this series in your blog to also offer health and fitness tips. Talk with a local personal trainer and feature their advice on your site. Visit with a local nutritionist. Always add value to your clients’ lives. Help them lose weight, get fit, feel better, look great in great clothes, and your clients will go from appreciative photo buyers to unwavering zealots for your business.

If you’ve made it this far, bless your heart, your eyes must be exhausted. But congrats on making it through 190 pages of business and marketing inspiration with me!

Next Steps

• This post is full to the brim with over 36 tips on how to improve your photography business, inspired by the contents of just one issue of Men’s Health magazine. Don’t be overwhelmed – just pick one or two tips that inspire you, and run with them. When you’ve exhausted the benefits of one tip, reach out and grab another. Doing any one thing is far and away better than doing nothing at all.
• If you need a place to start, take action on this tip first: Scroll back up to the Page 40 tip, create that action-packed classified ad, and run it on Craigslist or in your local newspaper. It will cost next to nothing, and you could well score some great bookings with it.
• Brainstorm session: Your mind is probably overflowing with ideas for your business right now. Just start writing things down, stream of consciousness; let it all flow out onto a notepad or into Notepad. Empty your mind onto the page. File this in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I’d love to hear how you use the ideas here to better your part time photography business!

Similar Posts:

• Vision: as a photographer, as a business owner
• Want to make money as a part time photographer?
• Should you buy an Apple iPad for your photography business?
• What the super-rich can teach us as entrepreneurs
• 12 ways to make 2012 the year your business takes off

Occam’s Razor: To do with more what can be done with less, is vanity.

Don’t fall victim to the endless barrage of “you gotta have this!” and “you gotta do that!” and “you gotta spend money to make money!” horsesh*t you read every single time you get on the Internet.

By the time you “need” brochures and postcards and direct mail campaigns and print/radio/online/CPC/CPM/banner/TV ads and a professionally-designed web site and an iPad and a projector and a comfy sales room with framed prints on the walls and Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3 and Animoto and a hand-stitched leather 16×20 print portfolio and die cut business cards and a marketing consultant and an outsourced post processing team and studio management software and a portable studio and Profoto strobes and PocketWizards and HD behind the scenes videos and a professional logo and all the other endless BS that gets shoved down photographer’s throats (by vendors and by other grognard photogs)… My friends, by the time you “need” any or all of that, you’ll be making more than enough money with your art to invest in anything you want.

The basics, the fundamentals, the stuff that gets out there and does real work at getting clients in the door…it costs next to nothing.

Hustle. And don’t spend a dime on anything that won’t hustle on your behalf.

Next Steps

• Put away the B&H catalog, quit staring anxiously at your Amazon.com shopping cart, and go talk to people about photography. Volunteer to do photos for a local charity, hit the town and be seen with your camera, get your Facebook Fan Page up and tell your family and friends, write something fresh for your blog, or any of the many, many other simple acts of marketing that will make the real difference in your business.
• This is one of the shortest posts I may ever write for this blog, but I truly believe the insatiable “gotta have more stuff” mentality is a disease killing off the momentum and motivation of so many potentially great artists as they try to break into this industry. It’s a disservice to both the artist’s muse and the potential clients who may never get to benefit from that artist’s talents because he or she just can’t get past the starting line. If PartTimePhoto.com never does anything more, I hope it vaccinates new-to-the-fold professionals from the debilitating effects of this disease. Want to take action? Read this post again, and take it to heart. You are all you need to be successful.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to click the free “Subscribe” link at the top of any page of this site.
• How can you apply Occam’s Razor to your part time professional photography business? Leave a comment below, e-mail me, or call or text me at 830-688-1564.

Similar Posts:

• How to make money as a part time portrait photographer – Startup Series, Part 1
• How to lose weight the simple, sustainable way
• Your pre-photo-shoot checklist in four easy steps – Your First Customer Series, Part 6
• Vision: as a photographer, as a business owner
• The Top 16 marketing opportunities for photographers in November 2010

Here you go, mates – a complete list of all 10 posts in my Your First Customer Series:

Part 1: How can I find time to be a part time photographer?

Part 2: Top 10 money-making outdoor photos of people

Part 3: What should I charge for my part time photography?

Part 4: How do I get my first photography client?

Part 5: How to prepare for your first photography client’s call

Part 6: Your pre-photo-shoot checklist in four easy steps

Part 7: Your first photo shoot: expectations and results

Part 8: Culling and post-processing your first photo shoot

Part 9: Your first photo proofing and sales session

Part 10: How to earn lifetime photography customers with the perfect follow-up

There are three major steps to starting your new photography business: making the decision to become a part time professional photographer, doing the legwork and prep work to set your new business up right, and landing your first customers.

The Your First Customer Series offers 10 in-depth articles covering all the minute details you rarely hear about elsewhere – where to find the time to be a part time professional photographer, the top 10 money-making portraits (easily the most popular post on the site), and much, much more. This series has more content than you’ll find in most high-priced eBooks, with no filler – it’s the best advice I can give having been there, done it, and come out happy and paid on the other side.

Next Steps

• It’s a long journey, from making that life-changing decision to become a part time professional photographer, to landing your first customer and first sales. As they say, the longest journey begins with the first step. Start with Part 1 and work your way through each part in this series, and you’ll be better prepared than you ever imagined for taking on your first clients.
• Brainstorm session: What is your greatest fear about your first client photo shoot? What’s the worst that could happen? What potential rewards exist if things go exceptionally well? How can you prepare to give yourself the best odds of a great experience for you and your first client? File this in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to click the free “Subscribe” link at the top of any page of this site.
• What’s the story behind your first paid client photo shoot? Were you nervous? Did they buy? Was it as fearful as you thought it would be? Leave a comment below, e-mail me, or call or text me at 830-688-1564.

Similar Posts:

• How to make money as a part time portrait photographer – Startup Series, Part 1
• How to earn lifetime photography customers with the perfect follow-up – Your First Customer Series, Part 10
• Want to make money as a part time photographer?
• How do I get my first photography client? – Your First Customer Series, Part 4
• Your source for making money as a part time photographer

The Part Time Photographer Startup Series:

Part 4: What does a successful part time photographer look like?

—

Different people wear success in different ways.

My definition of success is probably a lot different from Work At Home Mom, Creative Outlet Corporate Executive, or Hobbyist Turned Pro. Depending on your goals (a subject we’ll look at in depth in a future article), the lifestyle and business you aim to create through part time photography, your version of success, will be wholly unique.

You may be a stay at home mom, married to military, with a couple of young kids that deserve as much attention as you can give. Success to you may be to work only a few hours every week photographing babies and toddlers in your home studio. Maybe you want to have the flexibility of setting your own schedule, making photos of your favorite subject – babies – while earning enough money to pay for a great summer vacation for your family. Disney Cruise, anyone?

You may have a good, decent day job, but you have the entrepreneurial itch and you enjoy photography. You would like to stretch your legs during your recreational time each week to see what kind of business you can build on your own. It’s not so much about the money as building a business with your own art and your own two hands.

You may certainly be an enthusiast photographer who loves the art and experience of your hobby and you want to make your hobby pay for itself. You want a bunch of cool photo gear to make awesome photos. You’ve got the inspiration – you just need the funds to buy the tools needed to make your visions reality.

You may be a regular joe like me. You have a normal day job that pays the bills, you’ve gone about as high as you can go with your current company, and because of wife-and-kid responsibilities, you can’t just quit and eat beans for a few months while you chase your dreams. You want to take on a second job to make money and save up until you’re in a financial position to pursue the career you really want. You need a flexible way to earn enough money to make these dreams happen.

Where I stray from the norm is in being a serial entrepreneur. Whereas many people work to afford play, work is my play. I am a Godinfan the way most people are Potterfans. I spend more on marketing and business books every year than I spend on food. Given the choice of a day at Seaworld or a day blogging about part time photography, well…you won’t find me smelling like whale at the end of the day.

Build your own lifestyle

The beauty of being a part time professional photographer is you can create any business or lifestyle you want – and best of all, you only get better as you go along. Your business knowledge grows alongside your artistic skill; your income grows with your customer base, which increases commensurate with your business and artistic abilities.

• Want to shoot one client a week and work only four hours? Can do.
• Want to only work Tuesday evenings? Can do.
• Want to make five times as much money? Shoot five times as many clients. Can do.

Like I said, I’m an unusual example – I work 30-40 hours a week on my second job. A) I love what I do, B) I’m wired to be a workaholic, and C) my wife and kids are greatly involved in almost all of the shoots I do, so very little family time is lost because of my second career as a part time professional photographer.

The system I’ll share with you through PartTimePhoto.com is very scalable and nigh risk-free. The minimum time investment I suggest sits around four hours per week, which includes marketing, shooting, processing, and selling at least one client. You can work more or less – aim at one client a month, or one every day, whatever aligns with your goals.

More clients means accelerated development as a part time photographer and accelerated income. You can set your own pace to both grow and earn.

My version of success

What’s success look like for me, personally?

I get up every day at 8 a.m., I get in a good workout at the gym, then I’m at work by 9 a.m. I let myself sleep in on Sundays. Gym’s closed anyway.

I’ll work on a mix of newspaper and photography work for the next 12-16 hours; day job + second job.

Wednesdays are family day – no worky worky of any kind, although you’ll catch me reading e-mails and blogs on my iPhone during downtime throughout the day.

I’ll photograph 2-5 clients in a week, and spend whatever time I need to ensure they’re given the best and most attentive experience possible. I’ll spend around one hour culling and post-processing each client’s shoot, and another hour doing a viewing / sales session with them within a few days of their shoot.

Any time I am not doing active income-generating work (shooting, processing, selling), I am marketing – and this is a big part of why my system works so well.

I like to stay booked about a month in advance, and I book as many clients as I am feeling the desire to shoot. Sometimes I’ll book light weeks, one or two clients, when I have other projects I want to concentrate on. I’ll book heavier weeks in busy seasons like Christmas and high school graduation when I have a lot of clients who need timely service – it can be a busy time, but the money made then allows me flexibility elsewhere in the year.

Marketing is just a combination of exposing potential clients to my business and my work, and showing existing clients lots of love to ensure they come back. From eating at the Old Spanish Trail restaurant and handing out business cards to potential clients to making connections with people on MySpace, from advertising on Craigslist to sending out a monthly e-mail newsletter, there are myriad ways to keep yourself busy with ensuring you have clients lined up to shoot with you.

What do I get out of being a part time photographer?

• I get to meet amazing people every single day, many of whom become good friends.
• I get to make cherished photos for those amazing people; a good sign of success is when clients are sincerely thanking you from their hearts…while handing you a check.
• I get a ton of satisfaction from running a successful small business, providing clients with a great service and great experience while contributing to my community and staying profitable.
• …and the money doesn’t hurt, either. I earn as much or more in my pocket from part time photography as I do from my day job as a community journalist. This enables me to enjoy financial security, job security, and freedom security – part time photography is a business you can take anywhere you go.

Your mileage will vary. It took me 10 years to achieve such a balance in my work and life. But I hope you will benefit from my knowledge and experience and enjoy exactly the success you want far faster than I did.

Does this sound like something you want to do? If so, let’s get it done!

Today is the day

This article concludes our four-part Startup Series for part time photographers. These blog posts are only the beginning of what will become a vast resource for living and working as a part time professional photographer. I hope you’ll stay tuned for the goodness to come.

The next series of articles here on PartTimePhoto.com will help you prepare for and photograph your first client. Then your second. Then your third, and so on. I’ll help you get set up with a simple system for marketing to, photographing, post-processing, and selling to as many clients as you want.

Next Steps

• Brainstorm: Write down your ideal situation as a part time photographer. How many hours per week will you work? When can you set aside time for marketing, shooting, processing, and selling? Do you want to do it all in one or two days a week, or a little bit each day? What kinds of clients will you work with? What’s your vision of a dream-come-true, successful situation? File this in your Brainstorms folder.
• Growing as a photographer and as a one-person photography business will take some time and some work, but by following along here at PartTimePhoto.com daily, at least you will know that the steps you’re taking are in the right direction. If you have learned a thing or two from this blog, you’re invited to click on the “Subscribe” link at the top of any page of this blog.
• Does the life and work of a part time photographer appeal to you? How would being a successful part time photographer benefit your life? Leave a comment below, e-mail me, or call or text me at 830-688-1564.

Similar Posts:

• How can I find time to be a part time photographer? – Your First Customer Series, Part 1
• Response time and turnaround – how to beat the competition for free
• How to make money as a part time portrait photographer – Startup Series, Part 1
• Want to make money as a part time photographer?
• Your source for making money as a part time photographer

So who am I to give you advice on how to make money as a part time photographer?

My name is James Taylor.

I own Outlaw Photography of Bandera, Texas.

I shoot almost entirely portraits; seniors, children, brides, couples, families. My wife shoots maternity and baby photos.

I fell bass ackwards into professional photography over 12 years ago. I landed a job as a photojournalist with my hometown newspaper, and as people saw my photos in the paper, they began asking if I also did family portraits. One good paid photo shoot led to the next, and I continued to do off-and-on professional work until I launched Outlaw Photography ‘officially’ in 2005. Since then, I’ve worked hard to improve my art and my business acumen while learning to balance a full time day job, part time photography job, and life.

Life for me includes my better half Jacklen and three young kiddos, McCayla (7), Canon (4), and the newest addition, Athena Corinna (celebrating one year in November 2011). Yes, Canon, as in my son is named after my preferred camera manufacturer. But that’s a story for another day.

I have been blessed with a great deal of success as a part time professional photographer over the years, and after a decade, I’ve hit a stride which now allows me the chance to share this success with others. Success to me is happy clients, happy family, happy self. A big part of the latter for me is giving back, which is what I hope to do here at PartTimePhoto.com.

After years and years of studying the art, business, and industry of photography online and here in the real world, I’ve learned that the people making the transition from unpaid amateurs to part time professionals is a massive, confused, underserved, underappreciated community.

That’s about to change. Drastically.

You generally have three levels of photographers:

• Amateurs and enthusiasts who shoot for fun and don’t care about making money off their work (Hi Uncle Joe!)
• Amateurs interested in making money with their photography (that’s you!)
• Professionals actively earning good pay for their time

Certainly there are, as the supermodels of ModelMayhem call them, “GWC’s” or “Guys With Cameras”; you have insanely talented amateurs and students all over Flickr; and you have a wide range of professionals from starvings artists to the Vincent Laforets and Anne Geddeses of the world.

This entire web site is targeted squarely at that Middle Category: amateurs, enthusiasts, students, part-timers, stay at home dads, unfulfilled day job moms, teenagers looking for summer work, etc.

I’m living that dream right now, and have been for many years. It is fun, it is stress-free, it is a perfect creative outlet, it’s a great way to meet interesting people, and it pays well. It took a lot of trial and a lot of error to learn how to achieve that sweet-spot balance between art, business, and life.

I hope that through sharing here on PartTimePhoto.com the whole of my experience in this journey, I will help others achieve the same success I have as a part time professional photographer.

Here’s some boring background bio info for you, just to show you how small-town I am and that it’s possible to be successful anywhere:

James Taylor’s “If I can do it…” Profile:

Me: Outlaw Photographer James Taylor.

Born in Tarpley, Texas, population: 30.

Graduated from, got a job in, and started part time photography business in Bandera, Texas, population: 957.

Still working for the same newspaper over a decade down the road.

Still a happy part time photographer.

Won gobs of big fish, small pond journalism awards, for sports photography, feature photography, news writing, page layout and design, etc. Voted “Best Photographer in Bandera County (population < 20,000) in 2007, 2008." Most recently picked up my biggest contest win yet, a first-place sports photography award from the Texas Press Association.

Everything I know about being a successful part time photographer, I look forward to sharing here on PartTimePhoto.com. It will take time and plenty of writing, but I truly believe you have the capability to better your life and the lives of those around you through the art and business of part time photography.

It’s benefited my life, and if you so desire, it can benefit yours.

Next Steps

• Surf over to Flickr and find three photographers whose portraiture work inspires you. Bookmark their photo streams. Contact each one: say by phone, e-mail, or picture comment, “I am an aspiring professional photographer and your work on Flickr is really inspirational. May I contact you once in a while to talk about photography?” You’ll learn that the most successful photographers are often the most open to helping you.
• Brainstorm session: make a list of all the people – famous, celebrity, or otherwise – with whom you would love to do a portrait session. From the President to a favorite comedian to Grandma. Save in your Brainstorms folder.
• If you’re down with the clown until you’re dead in the ground and would like to continue benefiting from the articles posted to this blog, please feel free to click the “Subscribe” button at the top of any page of this site.
• Who inspired you to take up photography, and then take it to the next level by doing paid work? Leave a comment below, e-mail me, or call or text me at 830-688-1564.

Similar Posts:

• Want to make money as a part time photographer?
• How to make money as a part time portrait photographer – Startup Series, Part 1
• Debate: Is longevity the selling point for photography studio prints (and their prices)?
• Top 10 money-making outdoor photos of people – Your First Customer Series, Part 2
• How do I get my first photography client? – Your First Customer Series, Part 4

If you’re here, you know you’re here, and that’s good enough for me.

If you have a few hours a week, access to a camera, and a hint of gumption, it’s my goal to help you make money as a part time photographer.

Perhaps:

• You have an unfulfilling day job and want to stretch your legs as a professional photographer
• You have a good day job that doesn’t pay enough, and you want some extra money to pay down debts, save up, or play with as fun money
• You’re a stay-at-home mom or dad and would like to earn some money working part-time with a set-your-own flexible schedule

Whatever drives your desire to explore the world of part-time professional or ProAm (professional-amateur) photography, it’s my own desire to help you be successful.

There are metric tons of information online about starting your own business and becoming a better photographer. Where I saw a need was while surfing photography forums and seeing so many men and women asking best-guess questions about how to get started. You don’t know what you don’t know, right?

In the same threads, I saw a lot of full time professional photographers give half-hearted advice and plenty of negative feedback.

“It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“Your photos are horrible; perhaps you should find another job.”

“The market is saturated with amateurs like you killing the industry.”

“If you’re not doing it full time, and you don’t have my expenses, and you don’t charge what I do, you’re not a real professional and you’re taking food out of the mouths of my babies.”

To which I indelicately respond, “BS.”

Anyone who has studied business will tell you there are many, many markets and demographics for any given product range. Professional photography is no different from car sales or widget sales or interior decorating.

From “budget” to “luxury,” there’s a lengthy scale of customers seeking different levels of service at different prices.

Everybody has to start somewhere, every journey begins with the first step, and it’s my goal through PartTimePhoto.com to help you transition and grow into the ProAm or Part Time Professional Photography business. I want to help you make money with photography.

I have no love for overcomplication, hidden agendas, withholding information, snobbery, and bait and switch games. I like simple instructions, “do this this way” clarity, and obvious next steps. Reading this blog and learning to make money with your photography shouldn’t be an exercise in existential thinking.

On a daily basis, you’ll find within these pixelated walls my best advice in developing your artistic and business skills to make good money for your time. I’ll give you concrete examples, walkthroughs, visual examples, step-by-step tutorials, equipment buying advice, marketing pieces and projects, a hell of a lot of encouragement, and a holistic approach to doing good business that serves your own life as much as your customers.

Who am I to give such advice? Tune in tomorrow for my self-indulgent bio, but all you really need to know is that my name is James Taylor, I own Outlaw Photography in the rural town of Bandera, Texas, and I’ve enjoyed the life benefits of part time professional photography for over 10 years now.

Next Steps

You’ll find that I am very big on clear, specific Next Steps. David Allen’s system of Getting Things Done is a brilliant one, and one of the biggest things I got out of his book was the practice of establishing Next Steps.

I think the two biggest things missing from most instructional-type web sites are real world examples and well-defined Next Steps, so you’ll find plenty of both here on PartTimePhoto.com. At the end of every article, I’ll provide one or several Next Steps to give you an exact idea of what you can do at that point to better your part time photography business.

Here are today’s Next Steps:

• Take a deep breath and let go of any preconceived fears or doubts you have about becoming a part time professional photographer. Shake them haters off.
• Get a sticky note or piece of paper and tape – write down the three biggest ways being a successful part time photographer would improve your life. Put this piece of paper on your monitor or somewhere you will look at it on a daily basis.
• Grab a piece of paper or open up your computer’s note pad and brainstorm – this will be a Next Step for nearly every article I post to PartTimePhoto.com. I cannot overemphasize the value of a good brain dump, pouring your ideas out on paper or to a text file. Today’s topic: Envision how your life would be different if you could earn some money through part time photography. No idea is too stupid or simple – write everything down. Spend several minutes on this. Try to build off every item you write down. Don’t do it any specific order, just get it out on the page. Grab a folder for your paper or create folder on your desktop in which to place these brainstorm sessions.
• If this all sounds like a good thing for your life, please feel free to click on the “Subscribe” link at the top of any page on this site.
• What experiences have you had in your search for information and inspiration in becoming a part time photographer? Leave a comment below, e-mail me, or call or text me at 830-688-1564.

Congratulations – you have taken the first steps toward enjoying the lifestyle of a part time photographer!Similar Posts:

• Your source for making money as a part time photographer
• How to make money as a part time portrait photographer – Startup Series, Part 1
• The legalities of starting a part time photography business – Startup Series, Part 3
• Vision: as a photographer, as a business owner
• 36 ways to better your photography business today