The best time to start your part time photography business was yesterday – the second best is today. Go for it, and enjoy the ride it takes you on. It is nowhere near as scary, risky, convoluted, frustrating, or gargantuan a feat as others make it out to be. Let me be clear: this business is fun, profitable, and a blessing to both photographer and clientele. I love it, and I hope this web site helps others enjoy the same experience I’ve had.

Please do keep in touch and keep me posted on your successes and adventures this year!

I agree entirely, photographers especially seem to have a talent for coming up with outrageous and convoluted prices and anti-customer policies. But that just shows you the breadth of opportunity in this market – people will pay those prices, and suffer that treatment, under the right circumstances. Maybe I’m just a softie, but I’m really fond of providing a great product at a great price and treating my clients like great people, and I think this is where new-to-the-profession photographers are best able to work their way into the paying market.

Start slowly, earn one client at a time, let your art speak for itself, charge a more-than-fair price to start with as you build your portfolio and your business. You never have to lie, cheat, steal, pretend, or try to game anyone – show off what you can do, then allow folks the blessing of being able to hire you to do it for them and their families. As you gain experience and confidence in your business, you can raise and adjust prices, change your policies if you feel the need, etc. You will grow with your art, with your business, and with your client base.

Don’t fear failure, welcome it when it comes as the required stepping stones you must traverse to earn experience, practice your art, and reach your own definition of success. Failure will come, but failure is neither fatal nor particularly painful if you maintain focus and purpose. A spark of inspiration, of artistic and career passion has lit within you for a reason – trust that if you do the work and invest the heart and time, that you will earn your place in your market as both an artist and businesswoman.

Thank you for your readership! Please do keep me posted on your successes and adventures.

I only have a personal Facebook at the moment, but do feel free to add me there and say hello! I hope to pop up a PTP-specific Facebook page in the near future.

Thank you again, and please do keep me posted on your successes and adventures in professional photography! I’d love to hear your stories.

The grognards love to hate on us part time photographers, many going so far as to say we “can’t” call ourselves professionals if we don’t derive the majority of our income from our photography. Absolutely absurd.

Part time professionals have every bit the same ability to provide professional experiences and art for our clients as full-timers. The latter may enjoy an accelerated growth curve because they can dedicate 40+ hours a week to their business, but that doesn’t devalue the work that we part-timers are capable of producing.

Rock on! Please do keep me posted on your adventures in professional photography, I’d love to hear how your business develops! If there’s anything I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

I’m looking forward to reading through all you have to offer! Thanks so much for sharing such helpful, specific advice. It certainly helps a lot to hear from someone who has done what I’m trying to do. It’s especially nice to hear from someone that “gets it” about this not being my full-time job but I still want to be successful.

Thanks again!

Tammy

Read Seth Godin’s “The Dip,” or better yet, pick up the audiobook and let the author read it to you. The lessons in that book will ingrain upon you a newfound ability to not just overcome but embrace every challenge you face as a small business owner.

Thank you again for your readership!

The person who inspired me to take up photography as a source of income? My first wedding client, Michelle. At first, it was a favor for a friend. But after I shot the wedding, it gave me a sense of accomplishment that I hadn’t felt in quite some time. It was sort of a natural adrenaline rush… and I liked it.

-J