This is Art

Confidence comes with acceptance

The seemingly never-ending insecurity we photographers experience is born from our stubborn, fearful refusal to accept where we are in our journey up the mountain of success.

We don't accept that to get where we want to be as artists and as business owners, we have to start here, where we are today - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that our art, prices, marketing, web site, business cards, client rapport, social skills, Photoshop skills, selling skills are not as good as they're going to be in the future, but are more than good enough to give our very best effort starting today - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that our photographer heroes are human beings who climbed the same mountain that lies ahead of us. Every path may be different, some may have been blessed by exceptional talent or opportunity, but every successful artist has had to climb the same mountain - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that right now, sitting in front of this computer or this tablet or phone, we have everything we need to be part time professional photographers. Our present talent, experience, skill set, camera gear, is more than good enough to bless clients with our art and be blessed by their investment in us - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that our clientele will grow with us - that we are at the startup end of the industry and for now will gratefully serve the startup end of our market. Our clientele will grow with us as we grow as artists, marketers, and business owners - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that our fears are unfounded, and what we fear and stress and worry and suffer anxiety over rarely if ever comes to pass. If we spent as much time taking action to move the needle in our art and business as we spend wondering, wishing, rationalizing, making excuses and justifying our fear-driven procrastination (tomorrow's going to be the day!), we wouldn't even recognize ourselves three months, a year, five years down the road - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that taking action is a choice, that luck is made, that we're in complete control, that we are solely responsible for our future, that change isn't a bus that's going to come pick us up while we wait for life, and that life isn't waiting for us - there is no stagnation, no standing still. You're either getting ahead or getting behind, and while yesterday was the best time to get started, today is second best, and today is in your control - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that what we're going to accomplish tomorrow and ever is a result of what we choose today. Do you have a shoot booked for this weekend? Get on the phone or social today and get booked. Do you want to study and take action on that latest book / blog post / video / e-mail / course / e-book you discovered? Get on your calendar, schedule the time, add half as much again as you think you'll need (for Pete's sake give yourself margin so you can succeed), and commit to it with the resolve of a hugely important date with your SO or meeting with your boss. Do you want to practice shooting tomorrow? Get a friend (read: guinea pig) booked, get your camera gear cleaned and charged and bagged, get gas in your tank, get some sleep tonight, plan an energizing healthy meal and light workout for the morning, figure out what encouraging podcast or audiobook chapter you want to listen to, and schedule the time you need and add half as much again. You have to get yourself set up for success tomorrow by prepping for that success today - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

We don't accept that the hurdles, roadblocks, walls and fears we encounter are not negatives, they are positives - they are opportunities, the chance to persist and strive onward where others would lose heart for their dreams and quit - and that's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be.

Get real with me. Aren't you tired of feeling mousy and scared and disappointed?

Take a deep breath and really imagine with me: What would it feel like to let go of all this negativity in your chest and just accept the truth that you're doing your best and your best is more than good enough?

What would it feel like to feel good, proud, at ease, peaceful, encouraged and driven about your art and business?

This Resistance, this insecurity we suffer, is stress - stress that discourages, disables, and distances us from success.

The drive we feel in our most inspired moments is eustress - a positive pressure, a motivating discontent that pushes us to climb out of our ruts, shrug off our chains, overcome our weakest selves, and strive to do and be better, to become our best selves and create success with our own two hands.

Hold your hands palm up and look at them.

You are looking at limitless potential. Limitless possibility. Limitless power.

You absolutely, positively hold power and dominion over your choices, your actions, your success.

And in equal measure you hold undeniable power over your indecision, your inaction, your failure - which by my life philosophy is to quit without quitting, to let the dream die, not by proactive and willful choice, but by slow, insidious, quiet, distracted, disappointed, depressing, allowed idleness of heart, spirit, and thought.

True failure is when you numbly let go without choosing to, wanting to, or admitting to.

You bring yourself one step closer to peace and confidence with every freeing truth you accept about the journey ahead - about your climb up the mountain of success, about where you are today and where you can be in the future if you accept yourself and your art and your business and these truths.

Accept success, not failure.

Flip the polarity on your thinking and use the newfound energy and capacity you've been wasting on worry to fuel your journey up the mountain.

Next Steps

• Every time you feel disappointed in yourself or discouraged by your progress, lift your hands, look at them palm-up, and really study them. Let this action be a totem, a touchstone that gives you the opportunity to pause, recognize that you are empowered, and that the Next Step is always your choice.
• Get out your sticky notes. Tear off five, and on each, write: Acceptance. Peace. Power. Stick these where you will run into them every day, over and over again, including at the start of your day. Every time one catches your eye, pause a breath, absorb and accept your freeing truths, and carry on empowered.
• Brainstorm session: List five actions (or inactions) that you feel you're sabotaging your own progress with - could be the inaction of not shooting more, could be the action / inaction of hours of study with zero hours of practice, could be the worry you allow yourself to indulge in, and so on. Now choose from that list The One Thing that would make the biggest difference in your progress as a part time professional photographer if you could just focus on and overcome it. As of this moment, it is your mission in life to flip the switch on that problem and overcome it. It may take a week, it may take a month of daily purposeful, proactive attention and choice. It may be something you will have to remind yourself of every day for the rest of your life. But as of right now, you are claiming dominion over this problem, instead of the problem claiming dominion over you. It's power, it's influence, is null and void. You are in absolute control. Get out five sticky notes and write down just one or two words that will remind you of this focused effort, and stick these where you will see them every day, over and over again, including at the start of your day. The rest, file 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.
• What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
• 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 these ideas to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

14 ways you're NOT ruining the photography industry

If you're tired of being spoken down to, degraded, discouraged and treated like a cancer on the photography industry - this one's for you.

PTP exists because of posts like this:

"Dear cheap-but-good photographer: you are ruining my life and this industry", by the talented and tenacious photographer Jamie Pflughoeft of Cowbelly Pet Photography up in Seattle.

Jamie is a wonderfully talented artist, a leader in the pet photography niche. She is worth every penny she asks and her art is a true blessing to her clients, a value we should all strive to give. Let me be clear: I absolutely respect Jamie and the work she does, for her clients and fellow photographers.

But in her post, and in much of the established photography industry, there is a frustration that is violently misdirected toward startup and low-end photographers like you and me.

That discouraging voice greatly slowed my growth as a professional photographer throughout my career, and is why for five years now I've been writing PTP, to give startup photographers a voice of encouragement and realistic guidance as they embark on the amazing journey of becoming a working artist.

Folks, Jamie is frustrated.

As most grognards are - nobody without a fear of scarcity reacts so strongly to aggressive competition, either manifest presently or the perceived potential.

With lower barriers to entry in the portraiture industry (the digital revolution), there has been a flood of newcomers offering, as Jamie frames it, "cheap-but-good" options in every market.

Jamie, with intense frustration, contends that those cheap-but-good photographers are ruining her life and the photography industry.

Whoops...let me slip my hand up. Duly convicted.

At least by the numbers she shares in her post, which would put me easily in her classification of "what is not a profitable business for anyone, regardless of what your monthly expenses, costs-of-goods-sold or initial investment are."

Well...

Horsesh*t.

I've been a part time photographer for 15 years, and I've only had three years that weren't bottom-line profitable: my first two, and a third in 2009 when I made a go at a retail studio space.

Every year I wasn't profitable was because I made huge investments in equipment. If you spread that expense out over the years I've used it, or if you count the value of those assets, I have never had an unprofitable year.

And not just a small margin of profit. Jamie quotes a PPA benchmark of a 40.7% high-end margin. On an average year, my margins are closer to 75% conservatively - including Cost of Goods Sold, insurance, equipment repair, self-employment taxes, and additional tax preparation. All this in mind, I put in my pocket close to $60 per hour I invest in every aspect of my business from marketing to booking, shooting, sales, and follow-up.

This factually, completely invalidates the scarcity arguments the grognards make when they say if you don't charge $X, you're working for peanuts or at a loss.

You don't know my expenses. You don't know my margins. You don't know my market. You don't know my clientele.

So don't tell me, or anyone else, what we should or shouldn't charge.

Let's bust some myths

Myth: You don't make profit off of session fees, you make profit from selling products.

Fact: I've made a profit every which way, with and without session fees, with and without product sales. I've made a profit with all-digital flat-rate packages, I've made a profit with session fees and upselling in the sales session. So long as you are honestly and compassionately serving your client, there is absolutely no wrong way to do this business.

Myth: Every 'professional photographer' should have read the Professional Photographers of America benchmark study to know what a real photography business looks like.

Fact: But for investment years when I put 100% of my business income into equipment (most of which later I learned I never really needed), my expenses have never looked anything like what the PPA says is the average. From the beginning, what the PPA defines as the 'ideal' business model (high-end, boutique, luxury portraiture) has had no relevance to my boots-on-the-ground experience.

Myth: You have to work 60-80 hours a week to earn a $30,000 take-home income working full time. 'Cheap-but-good' photographers are most likely making $0.00 after expenses.

Fact: Even at 60 hours a week, these numbers come to $9.62 an hour pay. My take-home is $60 an hour charging what Jamie contends are unprofitable prices. I know PTP readers who are making more than I do per hour, and I know readers who are making much less - but that $10 an hour, or $20 an hour is a huge blessing for their families. Never let anyone tell you you're doing anything wrong by earning a humble wage that betters your life. [Not to cloud the issue with facts, but The Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the median hourly income of a professional photographer between $13.70 per hour and $14.08 per hour. This may be skewed toward photographers as employees and not as entrepreneurs, but recognize, there's nothing magical about photography that makes you entitled to multiples of real, honest wages.]

Myth: If you teach the market your work is only worth $X, you have ruined that market for every other photographer charging more.

Fact: I have a lot of local competition, and most of my fellow photographers are very good - several are far better artists than I am. Some charge more, some charge less. None have ever affected my bookings. Some of my lower-end clients found a better fit with a less expensive option, some of my higher-end clients had a better fit with more expensive offerings, but I have never struggled to book clients I love who are happy to pay what I'm worth. Your people, the clients who perfectly fit with your personality and art and prices, are out there - great, targeted marketing makes that win-win connection over and over again.

Myth: A client won't pay $1,000 for what they can get for $175, all things being equal (art, quality, service, experience).

Fact: Well, okay, I'll give you that one. As a consumer, I'd be an idiot to pay five times as much for the exact same product. But art is subjective, and so is the experience we create for our clients - we differentiate our value in our markets through our unique art, message, and personality. Your people are out there, and if they can afford you, they will hire you for what you uniquely mean to them - but if you aren't out hustling, shaking hands, telling your story, finding your people and getting your art and message in front of them, that's not my fault or anyone else's fault - that's on you.

Myth: Cheap-but-good photographers are destroying the industry, which may already be ruined.

Fact: The cheap-but-good photographers in my area (cheaper than me, to be clear) haven't hurt my business. Nor has Apple, Samsung, HTC, LG, who all make fantastic camera phones. Nor has Canon or Nikon, who make powerful consumer and prosumer cameras. Again, the blame is misplaced here: viable, competitive, 'good enough for me!' alternatives to a talented, expensive, worthwhile professional photographer will have no affect on that photographer so long as he or she knows their market and how to communicate their value in the ever-growing landscape of options every potential client has.

Myth: If you aren't running a profitable business, you're destroying an industry many photographers who came before worked hard to build.

Fact: The vast majority of my new clients have never had professional portraits made - those who have were typically photographed as children at a chain studio. My very customer-friendly pricing and policies aren't hurting anyone - but they are enabling an entire segment of the market to afford professional photography. Nobody used to paying a super-talented boutique photographer is knocking on my door, and that's okay - I'm not that guy. In my area, I know that guy, and I refer out to him often - like Jamie, he charges multiples what I ask, and he's worth every penny.

Myth: If you can't do X, Y, and Z, then you have no business being in business.

Fact: Welcome to the Free World (America, specifically, in my case). Welcome to capitalism. I can run my business any way I see fit, with or without a profit, with or without insurance, with or without a dSLR, with or without a web site or Facebook page or business cards or even an ounce of experience or professionalism. My art can suck and I can still get paid. My personality can be abrasive and I can still get paid. Within the law, I can do anything I damn well please - the onus is not on me as a rights-bearing business owner to conform to your vision of the ideal; the onus is on you to run your business so well that there's nothing I could ever do to affect it.

Myth: To make $30,000 charging $175 session fee which includes images on CD, you have to work 12-14 hours a day.

Fact: With my margins and at that price, I'd have to work right at 16 hours per week to earn $30,000 in-pocket - that includes everything from marketing to delivery and follow-up. Fair enough: this is after 15 years of streamlining my workflow. But the numbers Jamie is using are based on models with extremely high expenses and time-intensive workflow, which may be reality for her business - but they are by no means realistic or necessary for the rest of us.

Myth: I need my income, therefore you should charge more than I do.

Fact: What I do as a photographer should have absolutely no effect on your business, unless your business model is unsustainable in the face of aggressive competition... Which is not my fault, nor is it my responsibility. A competitive market doesn't negate a successful boutique offering: Apple, the most valuable brand in the world, proves this. Here's the truth: if Apple didn't curate a customer experience, a brand loyalty, a culture that uplifts it to this status, it would be just another manufacturer. If Apple didn't establish and maintain its market position, that's Apple's fault: not IBM, not Microsoft, not Nokia or Samsung or Motorola or Dell or Gateway or any other player in the industries it touches.

Myth: Photography is the only industry where inexperienced people try to sell professional services.

Fact: Every year there are fewer and fewer barriers to entry into almost every industry, which is naturally going to cause an influx of lower-end offerings. Notice I say lower-end, not cheap: there is plentiful room in the market for startup photographers, who have less developed skill and less experience and charge less because of this. Just like a model may trade for images early in her career then fetch hundreds of dollars an hour years down the road; just like a good mechanic with a great reputation can charge more than the guy fresh out of vocational school; just like every other industry with a low-end, a middle, and a high-end segment of clientele.

Myth: If you charge $100 and hand over a DVD of images, you're a glorified non-profit.

Fact: What if I charge $100 and hand over a DVD of images on a 15-minute headshot shoot? What if I'm a school photographer and shoot 90 kids an hour at only $25 per kid? What if I'm already doing that with high school graduation ceremonies with an average sale of $65 per graduate? What if I run a lean business and streamline my workflow? What if my chosen lifestyle means I need less income than you? What if I live in a one-bedroom studio apartment and you live in a 3/2 home? What if there is absolutely no way you can make a factual statement about the profitability of my business without knowing my numbers?

Myth: If you're a cheapo photographer, you'll get cheapo clients who will be a paint in the butt and make you miserable.

Fact: Hey, you can talk trash about me all you want, but don't dog my clients. I can't tell you how many of my now good friends started as photography clients, and they came from all walks of life and income levels. There are good photographers and good clients at all levels of wealth and affordability.

Myth: If all these 'facts' have you freaked out, you need to go back to being a hobbyist.

Fact: This is the exact kind of sick discouragement I have fought against for years.

Grognards are frustrated. They're pissed. They're scared because that they don't know how to maintain their market position in the face of aggressive, low-priced competition.

Welcome to reality: there are no guarantees.

Ask IBM, ask Lehman Brothers, ask Pan Am, ask Kodak, ask Atari, Ask Blockbuster, ask Woolworth's, ask Circuit City, ask RadioShack, ask Borders - ask any business of any size that ever got it's butt handed to it by innovative competition or changes in the market or industry.

Then go ask Apple, ask Southwest Airlines, ask Nintendo, ask Netflix, ask Amazon - ask any business of any size that ever toppled its bigger, more established competition through innovation or recognizing and adapting to changes in the market or industry.

Never forget: you're 100% in charge of your business - you're the boss.

Nobody can tell you what to charge: that's price fixing.

Nobody can tell you how to run your business: that's restraint of trade.

In 1711, Lord Smith LC said:

"It is the privilege of a trader in a free country, in all matters not contrary to law, to regulate his own mode of carrying it on according to his own discretion and choice. If the law has regulated or restrained his mode of doing this, the law must be obeyed. But no power short of the general law ought to restrain his free discretion."

Don't let any grognard put the onus of responsibility for the whole photography industry on your back - it's unrealistic, unwarranted, and unreasonable.

You have every right to conduct your business as you see fit.

Don't buy into the scarcity-minded horsesh*t the grognards promote - they are speaking from a position of fear, not of innovative creativity.

And while I definitely promote knowing your numbers and earning a humble-but-worthwhile wage that leaves you walking away from each sales session with a cheshire grin, I am at the same time a huge advocate that those numbers - and that humble wage of your choosing - are yours to define.

Again, I absolutely respect Jamie's work as an artist and teacher in the photography industry, but I have to vehemently disagree with her position - it's the same "blame the new guys!" mentality that I have seen over and over again in my 15 years as a professional photographer.

We photographers aren't special, despite our stamping of feet and crying woe - business is business, and while no doubt it's frustrating as hell when we get underbid or undercut or can't hit our numbers or can't feed our families from our art alone, it's not the fault of the tens of thousands of photographers entering the market over the last 15 years.

If we can't create and communicate our value, it doesn't matter what we think we're worth - the market will decide for us.

That is nobody's fault but our own - not as an industry, but as individual, empowered business owners with agency over our destinies.

A lot less blame and a little more #hustle goes a long, long way.

Author Christopher McDougall, quoting Roger Bannister:

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

Next Steps

• Take a deep breath; take 10 minutes to meditate and clear your mind. This is heavy stuff, and it's easy to bear a lot of weight when someone points the finger of blame at you for their fear and frustration. Center yourself, and let it go - recognize that someone else's crisis is not your own.
• Brainstorm session: get out your pen and paper. Play with some numbers: how much have you spent on your business so far? How much have you earned? Are you profitable? (If you haven't done your first paid shoot yet, project how many shoots at $100 per, then $200 per, you have to do to get profitable.) If not, why? Are you producing a Minimum Viable Product, the least complex and expensive art and experience that your initial clients will pay for? Are you spending excessively on equipment you don't need yet? This is a very, very easy trap to fall into with so much outside pressure to buy this, buy that, go boutique or go home. Focus on what you truly need, then iterate and invest as the money is earned by your business. 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.
• What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
• 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 these ideas to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

What is success?

Many start-up photographers have an unrealistic vision of what success is for a professional.

This unrealistic vision is created, maintained, and promoted by professional organizations, photography vendors, and the 'gurus' of the photography industry who are all too happy to charge you $499, $999, or more to teach you how you can have a million dollar business just like theirs.

There is nothing the grognards enjoy more than telling aspiring photographers every way in which they're not 'real professionals.'

You don't have enough megapixels.

You don't have enough prime lenses.

You don't have enough years as an unpaid apprentice.

You don't derive 100-percent of your independent, full-time income from your photography.

And the vendors that serve the professional (and consumer, and prosumer) markets promote the same mentality - you never have enough pixels, dynamic range, ISO, frames per second, sharpness, clarity, power.

The gurus do it too - you never have enough talent, enough experience, enough resources, enough Photoshop actions, enough good ideas, enough professional training.

You are endlessly inadequate.

That's the not-so-secret secret of most marketing: create a need, then fill it. Individuals and companies have been making fortunes this way since the dawn of commerce.

If you listen to the photography industry and those who make money from it, I can guarantee you will never be adequate. What you have will never be good enough. There will always be someone or something better that you have to have if you're ever going to be successful.

Success.

What's their definition of success?

Better, what's yours?

And one better: what would your definition of success be if it weren't influenced by all these voices telling you how inadequate you are?

There is nothing wrong with boutique photography; it's the high-end of professional portraiture, not unlike Ferrari and Bugatti are at the high end of the auto industry.

How many folks do you know who drive a Veyron?

How many folks do you know who spend thousands of dollars a year on portraits for their home?

Of course this market exists - but to hear it told by the grognards and vendors and professional associations, there is only one vision of success: high-end, boutique photography. It's luxury or nothing, as they tell it.

Aspiring to be the Kia, Ford, Toyota, or Honda of your market? That won't do.

Your immediate goal is just to get started as the Zero Skateboard, Trek Bicycle, or Vespa Scooter of photography in your area? You're ruining the industry!

Here you are trying to better learn your camera and land your first paying client, and they're already convincing you you need more: more training, more apprenticeship, more DVDs, more webinars, more camera, more experience.

Striving to become the kind of photographer who books those $1,500-a-shoot clients on the regular is a great goal to have - but is it the only goal to have?

What do you want to do with your art? What do you want to do with your business? What purpose does your photography business serve in your life?

A creative outlet?

An opportunity to make money doing something you love?

An exit strategy to get you out of a day job you deplore?

A way to stay home with your kids but still contribute to your household income?

As Stephen Covey would, let's step back, get some perspective, and start with the end in mind: what's your vision of success? How do you want your photography business to change your life?

What do you want it to be tomorrow? What about in five years? Ten years?

What's your vision of success? Stripped of all the outside influence, all the marketing hype - what do you really want your business to do for you?

"Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like." - Y-Combinator founder Paul Graham, How To Do What You Love

If you want more megapixels, big strobes, and a retail studio on Main Street - that's a great vision! If you want to book one shoot a week and make enough money to take your kids and family on an amazing vacation every year - that's a great vision, too. If you want to make art, make money, make better art, and make better money for it - that's just as great.

There is no wrong answer. I just want you to look at your art, your business, and your vision of success with it, and define it with clarity and purity - away from the biased influence of vendors and gurus who make their money by making you feel never-good-enough.

And how you define success today may be completely different from how you define it next year, or even next month. Nothing is ever set in stone - that's part of the beauty of owning your own business. No matter what anyone else thinks or says, you're the boss. You are in charge.

What is success to me?

Being profitable.

Having zero debt.

Earning enough in-pocket money from each shoot to leave a big grin on my face.

Having fun working with clients I love.

Getting better, a little each day - as an artist, and as a business owner.

Blessing my clients with my best work for a fair price.

Being blessed by my clients for the work I do.

Making enough profit from my business to have a tangible effect on the comfort and happiness of my wife and children.

Earning enough to reinvest in my community - through donations, fundraisers, and volunteering.

Earning enough to ensure my overhead (including taxes and repairs) is covered without stress.

Employing the expertise of others to ensure my business is legal and stress-free, so I can focus on my photography and my clients.

Being in control of my time, my bookings, and with whom I work.

It's a big picture. And, at least for me, it has nothing to do with glorious levels of fame or fortune. Success isn't big cameras, big lenses, big billboards, or a big studio - unless you want it to be.

Because of the constant distractions of chasing dreams that weren't mine, it took me over a decade to define what I truly wanted out of my art and my business. And since I gained that clarity, I've been able to focus and make incredible progress down the path that's right for me.

My path isn't your path, nor is yours mine. Nor is Vincent Laforet's or Anne Geddes' or James Nachtwey's.

Said far better than I could, philosopher Alain de Botton: "One of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. A lot of the time our ideas about what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They’re sucked in from other people. And we also suck in messages from everything from the television to advertising to marketing, etcetera. These are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves. What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we’re truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it’s bad enough not getting what you want, but it’s even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn’t, in fact, what you wanted all along." (from his 2009 TED talk; hat tip to BrainPickings)

It's equal parts freeing and terrifying - to know that your success can be anything you want it to be, and you are solely in control of and responsible for that success.

But what a beautiful stress, no? It's like seeing the prettiest girl in the park, knowing you just have to talk to her - and then doing it.

What happens next?

That's up to you, my friends.

Next Steps

• Click here: James@banderaoutlaw.com. Tell me what your (new?) vision of success is. Is it different than it was 15 minutes ago? What do you really want to do with your art and your business?
• Brainstorm session: You just did it! Cut and paste your e-mail to me into your notepad, and file it away in your Brainstorms folder.
• With your vision of success more purely defined, make a quick brainstorm checklist of steps you need to take to improve in each arena - your art, your business acumen, your marketing skills. Break these steps down as small and simple as you can; you're drawing a road map to reach your vision of success. You're going to take detours, have wrecks, and go off road both purposefully and accidentally on this journey, but give yourself a map to navigate by.
• Look at your check list. What step can you take today? Lace up, and lean into it!
• 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 these ideas to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

Your competition can only kill you if you let them

"You have a choice. You can grasp that stone of 'best, better, good, not good enough' and let it sink you. Or you can put it down beside you and keep [shooting]. Only you can allow yourself to feel small next to someone you believe is bigger. And only you can choose to see in someone 'higher up' than you the beacon of possibility for your own [photography] life." - Sage Cohen, paraphrased from The Productive Writer

There is one way and one way alone that your competition can kill your business - and it's entirely your fault.

It's time to make a choice: you're either going to obsess or observe from this day forward.

Are you going to obsess over your competition - what they're charging, how nice their art is, which of your potential clients they're shooting - and place your mental focus and energy outside of what you can control?

Or are you going observe your competition as another of many resources to learn from, and focus your energies on your betterment and what you can control?

Some of the most discouraged part time professional photographers I visit with are facing the challenge of two major struggles:

- Landing their first paying clients or establishing a consistent client base;

- and learning to disconnect their art and success from the art and success of other photographers.

Especially here in the digital age, we artists do not exist in a vacuum - both blessing to our muse and curse to our lizard brains, we are exposed to an unlimited amount of inspiration. This can serve to motivate us, and it can serve to dishearten us, when we see how much potential exists - and how long the road is for us to realize it within ourselves.

We are at our most vulnerable when we've finally taken the leap and put ourselves out into the world as professionals - via web site, blog, portfolio, business cards, advertising, or other means - and the phone just isn't ringing (yet).

These yin-yang balance issues never go away - surely I face them as often as anyone - but with experience and temperament, we can learn to channel these energies into ever-forward progress as both artists and business owners.

Your Clients Are Not My Clients

Market share is your percentage of the total number of dollars getting spent every year on portrait photography in your community.

You're up against the cheap chains like Walmart and Sears Portrait Studios.

You're up against the more expensive mall chains like Kiddie Kandids, Portrait Innovations, and old-school shops like Olan Mills and Glamour Shots.

You're up against other start-up photographers like yourself, inspired by the opportunities for artistic and financial success in the digital age.

You're up against established professional photographers who haven't had to market themselves in decades because of their longevity and awareness in your community.

You're up against Canon and Nikon and Sony and Olympus, all trying distressingly hard to convince your clients that, with the right camera, Mommy and Daddy can make their own 'professional-quality portraits'.

And you're up against dozens of other consumer options serving every niche and income bracket in your area.

When your phone isn't ringing, it's easy to look at how busy your competition is and lose motivation - and hope.

So where's the opportunity?

Everywhere.

Everywhere you look - in every industry, not just photography - good folks paying good money are being underserved.

The indifference of the chain studios, almost entirely staffed by teenagers and twenty-somethings who have no interest in the art of photography; only the consistent repitition of what they were taught.

The arrogance of the established professionals, whose high prices, draconian rules and policies leave their clients feeling more like parolees than valued clients.

The bait-and-switch of those start-up photographers only interested in making money - and not creating art or serving clients.

The booked-solid schedules of the truly great photographers in your area, who only can accept a few new clients a year because they know how to always give more than they get.

And not to be discounted, the deep rut of the photography industry that has done nothing to invite the non-buying remainder of the market in the door.

The greatest portion of any market - but for staples like milk, bread, and iPhones - are the folks who buy nothing at all.

You're going to find your people, the folks who are ready to pay what you ask for the art you're able to create now, in this landscape of underserved folks deseperate for a breath of fresh air.

They're out there - and they want to work with you. They appreciate and value your style and art, their budgets line up with your humble pricing, and their personalities are a perfect fit for yours. They just have to get to know, like, and trust you.

You'll win business with your enthusiasm. You'll win it with your customer-friendly policies, with the consistent art and experiences you create for your clients, with the flexibility of your scheduling, and with your efforts to reach out to the overall market that has long been disenchanted.

Recognize that the success of your competitors is proof that the market is alive and vibrant - then study where your competitors leave your market underserved. This is where your best opportunities can be found.

Maybe they charge too much.

Maybe their art is old-school and repetitive.

Maybe they force clients to pay, through session fees or minimum orders, for art that hasn't even been created yet.

Maybe they're too busy for small shoots.

Maybe they don't specialize in your niche.

Maybe their web sites are ugly, hard to navigate, don't prominently feature their phone number, and don't even say what geographic area they serve.

Maybe they're marketing to the big 3A high schools, and ignoring the smaller market of the seniors in the two little 1A schools.

Maybe they're not marketing at all to the local day cares and private schools.

Maybe they're so established, they've stopped trying.

Maybe they don't sell hi-res digital files.

Maybe they only sell packages.

Maybe they don't market to high school seniors.

Maybe they don't market to mothers of newborns.

Maybe they don't market to pet owners.

Maybe they don't do volunteer photography for their favorite charities.

Maybe they're not helping cover local high school sports and theater for their community newspaper.

Maybe you're fiesty, and going head to head with another photographer in their niche would is just the motivation you need to do your best work.

Maybe there's a lot more opportunity to break open your market than you thought.

Don't let your competitors' success deter or deflate you - take aim at your dream, take stock of who you can study and learn from, then take your butt out of that chair and work daily to improve in art and business and marketing until you are the photographer your competitors envy.

Your Art Is Not My Art

What a strange reaction we have to seeing art far better than ours: first, we're in awe, inspired, motivated to grab our camera and go be brilliant.

Then, we're struck with the reality that we can't - yet - create such art. The lighting, the pose, the expression, the background, the location, the wardrobe, the colors, the moment - all the ingredients that make this feast for the eyes, we don't yet know how to put it all together.

Creating an amazing photograph is every bit an act of preparation, intention, and preternatural timing, as preparing a five-star meal.

There is a reason there are cooks, and then there are chefs.

Just as there are photographers, and then there are artists.

The beauty in this, is the opportunity - no one ever made head chef without burning a lot of pancakes along the way.

And to become the artist we dream of, on the level of those we admire most, we'll have to shoot a lot of horsesh*t along the way.

Poor exposures, ugly lighting, unflattering poses, distracting backgrounds, confused expressions, out-of-focus blurry messes - we're going to screw it all up before we get it right.

As Kanye would say, you gotta crawl before you ball.

Poet Sage Cohen writes in The Productive Writer that allowing yourself to indulge hierarchal thoughts - who's better or worse than you as an artist - causes your lizard brain to kick into self-protection mode and stop you cold where you stand.

You have to consciously engage this feeling of being a fake, a charlatan, a joke, a rank amateur - you have to recognize this feeling for the displaced protection mechanism that it is and reclaim control over your ego from the Resistance that's battling you. Pushing through these feelings is a purposeful act of will.

"All you need to worry about (or, rather, enjoy) is your own good, better, and best, because that's what belongs to you. Do you see yourself making progress toward your goals? Can you appreciate your own tenacious spirit that simply stays focused on where you're headed? Don't distract yourself with feeling bad about what someone else is doing when there is so much to feel good about that is right in front of you." - Sage Cohen, The Productive Writer

Allow yourself to observe and study the most successful photographers in your market, and in the world - learn from them, their marketing, their art, what you see as their best methods for bringing clients in the door.

But disconnect your success from theirs - every photographer walks their own path, establishes their own foothold, and earns the business of clients who uniquely and perfectly fit their art and personality.

There are people out there right now who are ready to pay you for your art and experience, at whatever level that may presently be. The professional portraiture market is a broad one serving all incomes and demographics - through ever-better marketing, and patience, you'll find your clients.

Your people are waiting.

While you seek them out, use this time to learn, practice, and grow.

Every day that you purposefully improve as an artist and business owner - no matter how small those improvements - you're opening wider the doors of possibility and success. You're making real, tangible progress toward your dreams.

Never lose sight of the fact that your success is equally your clients' success. The better you are at what you do, the greater value you give to those you serve. Your artistry is a blessing to those with whom you share it, and as a professional, your clients are happy to bless you and your family financially.

Being a paid professional photographer never was and never will be about getting what you can out of people - but, far better, giving all you've got, and reaping what you've sown through your practice, preparation, and perseverance.

You're all that's holding you back.

Let Go - and Go Hard.

Next Steps

• Do you have a favorite photographer? An artist whose work in your niche you absolutely love, that moves and inspires you, and you would one day love to be on the same level as? Go to their web site right now. Find their e-mail address. Write them - tell them you're an aspiring professional photographer, that you're a big fan of their work, and ask if they have any tips or resources to share that helped them get where they are today artistically. If they don't respond in a week, pick another favored photographer. Keep going until you find someone willing to share their experience with you. And then keep going farther - find lots of photographers you love, and ask every one for their best advice. Grow faster as a photographer by skipping the learning curve and engaging folks who’re already where you want to be as an artist.
• Pick the top three photographers in your market, specifically within your niche, whose clients you would love to court (realistically - don't aim at the most luxurious boutique in town). Drill down and study everything about them - marketing, web site, artistic style, pricing, call and check out their phone demeanor and response time, do a shoot with them as a client if it's affordable - and try to find their weakness. If you recognize people from their portfolio or blog posts, ask those folks how they liked working with that photographer - and what they would like to have seen different. This is reasonable and warranted market research - this is how you identify competitor weaknesses and learn how you can better serve your clients (and theirs).
• Brainstorm session: get out your pen and paper and write down all the ways you can better serve your clients than you have in the past, then how better you can serve them than your competitors. Odds are, you'll recognize many ways in which you may have been underserving your own clientele. File this away in your Brainstorms folder.
• This post's inspiration comes from poet Sage Cohen's book, The Productive Writer. While specific to authors of stories and books and poetry, Sage gives great advice that can be applied to the fears, production, publication, life-work balance, struggles and successes for artists of all walks.
• 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 these ideas to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor