Seven Key Steps to Becoming a Professional Photographer
A week days ago I came across a video on Youtube which I thought I should do a blog post about. I’ve been a follower of COOPH for the last few years. They recently uploaded a video about their key steps to becoming a professional photographer.
Step 1: Find Your Specialty
When starting out, the most important thing to consider is not what equipment you have or want. But instead what type of photographer you want to be. When your starting out a good way to find your chosen path is try everything. One day try street photography, next day still life. This is will help you discover what is best for you.
When you know your specialism you can learn detailed expertise within that particular field. So if you have a passion for studio, you can learn lighting techniques. Deeper skill sets can often be more beneficial than a wide skill set. Work as an assistant will accelerate our learning and build up contacts.
Step 2: Get The Right Tools
Now that you know what area of photography you want to do, you can stock up on the equipment. Theres no point buying a 400mm lens and then deciding to be a portrait photographer. We must meet the basic requirements for our field. So a tele lens for sports, a prime for portraits, a tilt-shift for Architecture. But the most expensive equipment doesn’t guarantee great images.
For all areas, you need to have a reliable storage solution, failure to back-up your work could hurt both your finances and your reputation.
Step 3: Build A Portfolio
You have the area, you have the equipment. Now go out and start shooting. A portfolio is the first thing that a potential client will see. Social medias like Instagram are a good way to get a brief insight, but a website looks more professional. Also try to have separate portfolios. Keep your commercial work away from your wedding work. Don’t neglect personal projects.
Step 4: Find The Right Clients
When your confident about your work, it’s time to search for some clients. We shouldn’t be afraid to aim big. Me emailing Charlton was a big aim for me and now I have unlimited access to my boy-hood team.
We should aim to identify businesses that we feel would benefit from us as photographers. A good way to start with companies is offer one day of free work. It’s better to show that your willing by doing a free-shoot, than jumping in and appearing cheap to hire. If they like your work, they’ll want you again and you can offer a price. It’s key to know your price in advance.
Step 5: Understand the Business
47% of UK creatives are self-employed. We need to keep track of our income and expenses. So get use to sending invoices and quotes. You need to keep receipts and records. Also get camera insurance. It’s a bit more money spent, but it’s much better than forking out for a new camera.
Step 6: Refine Your Workflow
Reputation is very important in the creative industry. You can take magnificent images but if you have a bad personality, your probably not gonna get employed. The little things like turning up spare batteries and memory cards can go a long way. it definitely saves valuable time and makes you look more organised. Get familiar with post-production and file management.
Establish an easy to understand folder system. It is very important to back-up, once again like insurance, it’s a bit more money spent, but it’s better than the alternative.
Step 7: Promote Your Work
There really is no excuse for not promoting your work. We’re in the age of social media. It is a great recourse, but my all means create something physical. Print out a small A4/A5 poster of 4/5 images and your name and put it up and send it to old and potential clients.
Bonus Step: Never Lose Sight Of Why You Started Shooting
Photography and the creative industry in general isn’t exactly a job that people enter to make a quick dollar. Most people enter the industry because it’s there hobby. It’s why I want to be a photographer. Most importantly have fun.
On Friday, I launched my website which I created with Squarespace.
It was recommended that we used Squarespace. Not only by our tutors it is also very popular amongst professional photographers. Matt said that Sqaurespace is “Nice and simple … drag & drop”.
There are the classic capturing the moment, capturing that goal, that pass, that tackle, that moment of celebration, that burst of emotion.
Another important part of a photographers website especially for press/sports is Tearsheets.
I’ve got my logo as a Favicon, however I’m not sure about putting it on the website. It seems to make the images smaller. I might put it on the contact page.
Anyone can be a photographer now, it can be pretty easy to take an image, Just buy a DSLR, stick it in Auto-Mode and come out with a very good image, we’re taking images on phones to a similar quality of a digital camera. This is the reason why this is the best time to be a photographer.
This is also the reason why it is also the worst time to be a photographer. There are so many, it is very competitive and incredibly tough to take an image with will stand out, especially if you have loads crammed into one place like the Olympics.
If I’m gonna be the club photographer I’m gonna have to give clear and confident instructions to subjects in a loud environment. I feel I did well for this attempt, but I can definitely do better. Which hopefully I will learn when I start shadowing Tony Mitchell when he is back at Charlton.
The first thing we discussed was potential work experience for the summer. We felt that an experience of picture desk or photo editing would be very beneficial considering the photographic environment I work in.
I followed this with if I was at a picture desk that uses an agency like Press Association of Getty. I will get a sense of how quickly images come in and the selection process that would go into selecting the front cover shot. Lets take tomorrows papers for example. Theres 1297 images for the Premier League, however the main article will be about Manchester City beating Manchester United. On PA there are 246 images of this one match. Imagine the thought process and how many different images and types they will experiment with to choose the cover of the sports section. I’d guess they would have 10 different covers but an experience of being on a picture desk would let me know for sure.
code for the organisation and you could get into direct contact. Another great way to get this opportunity is LinkedIn. It’s a social media where you don’t find photographers, but you find people who employ photographers. Matt also said that I “need to be generous with an email” write something like “this would be a valuable experience” or “I’ve been a fond follower of your paper/magazine“. I need to set up my LinkedIn account.
The next thing we discussed was website. I was recommended SquareSpace. I had my eyes on this and it seems like a good engine to build a “Nice and simple” website. It seems to be very popular amongst creatives. I was also told not to put to much on my website. Also “Website is a hub … easy way to hold and link everything” I’m in the process of making my site on SquareSpace.
We moved onto social medias next. We started with looking at my Twitter account. The first thing Matt said was about my choice in cover image. Matt said I had a good image of the Statue of Liberty but we agreed it gave out the wrong message about my photography. It makes me look NY based or a travel photographer. My profile picture did rescue my style but the cover image stands out. I have since changed it to a sports image. It was recommended that I use Twitter for not only my professional images but also some BTS shots. Use it as a blog. Matt did like how I used Twitter to retweet my work, just to give a quick overview of who is using my work. “Twitter is a community … ‘Like’ and ‘Retweet’ other peoples work”
We moved onto Instagram. Matt really liked some of the images but at the same time felt there were some images that were out of place. For example the pictures of the Santa Dash didn’t match the sports images. I was also told to save Instagram for just my professional work. Only show my best images, also keep the BTS shots for either Twitter or my personal Instagram.
The last thing we discussed was avenues of research into documentary photography. It was recommended that I visit shows and festivals like Visa Pour L’Image the International Festival of Photojournalism. It is held in Pergignan in Southern France. It was described as hard hitting and brutal exhibition. It showed images that wouldn’t even be shown beyond the watershed. That how tough the images are to look at imagine how hard they were to take.
It holds talks every morning which I could possibly get myself a press pass to all the talks.
I myself am aware of 
Matt recommended me to the Sony World Photography Awards. I was told “Even if your shortlisted, you have made it“. They have both Professional and an Open categories. To which pro categories need a series of 10 images. But open need just one image. I was told to look at the Sports category in professional and culture and motion in the open category. Also they are free, so I have absolutely nothing to lose by entering them. Even if I only get shortlisted my name is still getting noticed by someone.
We started by doing a spider diagram about potential ideas for our shoot. Here are a few of the stand out ideas
We also had a quick look through the books in the library and we found this image in a book that compared Donald Trump and Barack Obama. We felt this was the typical image of migrants and refugees. People looking down at them.
Ben Peters Digital Photography 