Challenges for beginners

Novice photographers without experience are often at a loss when they touch the world of photography. For many, the thorny path of the profession begins with reading the instructions to the camera. On the one hand, this is correct, but the reference information usually contains descriptions of the functions that the selected technique supports. But it doesn’t make every camera mode any clearer, and making settings blindly is hardly a good result.

Another problem for a beginner photographer is an automatic camera mode, where the settings are adapted to the current environmental conditions. It is impossible to learn anything by shooting with “automatics”. Under these conditions, the camera controls the host, imposing its own settings.

Photography as the basis of creativity

A photographer’s creative journey always starts with inspiration. You can get beauty in a picture by watching a dripping drop of water or children playing in the playground. Many people are inspired by nature and greenery. But in each individual case, you need to see a special “core,” the core of the shot. It’s something that catches the eye of the casual person and keeps them looking at the picture for a long time, letting them admire the picture.

Professional Literature

Studying professional literature will be a good start for someone who once thought and asked himself the question, “I want to learn photography, where to start?” So it is quite acceptable to start with lessons, which should then be worked out in practice.

Choice of technique and training

The novice photographer does not need to immediately buy a very expensive machine. At first, you can even practice with a smartphone with a good camera.

Deciding on a genre

Developing your own style and choosing a priority direction are quite burning issues for someone who wants to learn photography from scratch. Most famous photographers have become popular because they work in a particular genre: there are talented portrait, landscape, sports photographers-reporters and those who specialize in wedding photography or animal photography. And some have made successful careers in urban and abstract photography.

Try photographing different things; it can be a photo in motion, static or staged. Be sure to listen to yourself. This is the only way to understand personal preferences for genre and style.

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The more money your client has, the more likely he travels and therefore sees beautiful architecture, walks through museums in Berlin and Paris. Keep up, nowadays you can study painting and art history from the comfort of your own home. It will take time, but it’s a worthwhile investment.

What shapes a photographer’s style

• Tone.
• Preferred contrast.
• Preferred color scheme.
• Variety of angles and close-ups.
• Style of photo processing.
• A set of creative tricks.

There is no need to try to limit yourself to a style. Rather the opposite, the style will be developed on the basis of your experience, observation, technical knowledge. It is interesting to go beyond the style, but it is not always possible. Keep in mind that portfolios with a pronounced style sell better. But as you grow, your portfolio will gradually change.

What kind of photos to publish in a portfolio

Only the ones you like. If you’re not sure, then it’s not a photo for the portfolio. Maybe you should re-shoot something for the portfolio. If you’re a perfectionist and you don’t like all your shots you have to be realistic and look at your pictures through the eyes of a client. It’s hard for a perfectionist, but we have no other recipe.

How many photos should be in a portfolio

You should judge by the number of shots you take, not by the number of images. If a client only sees one shoot, he can’t say by looking at it how stable your work is. But 25 shoots in a portfolio is good enough. Start with 25, or better yet, try to be empathic, putting yourself in the client’s shoes and assess for yourself whether what you have is enough.

Marketing for the photographer

An important part of marketing for a photographer is advertising. If you run advertising, where will it lead the client? That’s right, to the photographer’s portfolio.

You can build a portfolio in social networks as well, but the level of trust will be higher if you have your own website. In addition, the website allows you to use such a tool as remarketing.

When looking for a professional photographer, the client will look at your portfolio and ten others. Yours may even appeal to him, but he will postpone his decision for a day. And tomorrow he just won’t remember how to find you. Remarketing allows you to show ads to those who have opened your portfolio. This only works if you have your own website. If your portfolio is on instagram, you can’t run remarketing.

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Those photographers who can provide consistent quality have a constant flow of clients. Not those who periodically shoot masterpieces, but sometimes misses. More orders and money from those who deliver consistent quality. Stability is an essential attribute of a photographer’s professionalism.

To get the results you expect, you need to know your equipment. Your camera has three groups of settings: brightness, sharpness and color.

ISO, shutter speed and aperture are responsible for brightness. Color is white balance. Sharpness is the focus setting and shutter speed.

Lighting helps emphasize the mood of the shot. When shooting in a studio, in addition to your camera, you need to know the lighting equipment. Even if you don’t use additional lighting, you still need to understand the properties of light.

What properties of light a professional photographer needs to understand

• Brightness and contrast
• Hardness of the light (shadow shading)
• The direction of the light source
• Angle of dispersion of the light source
• Color (spectrum) of light source
• Length of pulse of the light source
• Reflectance of surfaces of objects in the frame

At our course for beginner photographers you can get a thorough understanding of your camera and basic knowledge about working with light.

When you take a picture, your camera applies its own settings for contrast, color saturation, and sharpening to the image. It is preferable to at least control this. Better yet, do it yourself. So you have to learn how to process photos.

Professional photographers have only three programs they use to retouch photos. The most common are Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.

If the photographer has all of these – the client from shoot to shoot gets the expected result and comes back with more orders.

This is the foundation. The profession of a photographer is interesting because it allows you to develop with each shoot, regardless of your level. Your style becomes more sophisticated. Your workflow becomes faster and more consistent. Your skill allows you to introduce new creative techniques, increasing your price for your services and attracting new clients.

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Photography is a passion that drives many people. But making a living from your passion is a little different. It’s not just taking pictures anymore. Making a living from photography means becoming an entrepreneur, which means spending a lot of time managing business processes (marketing, Internet and social media communications, service, financial accounting).

It’s worth considering that making a living from your passion, photography, means that you won’t have a fixed salary. Every business has its own seasonality and income varies from month to month. In professional photography, seasonality depends on the genre. For example, wedding photographers have a peak season in summer. And in advertising photography, there is a decline in activity in the summer. If you want to make money with photography, you have to learn how to manage business processes. Otherwise you will have to save money (for example, on photographic equipment) instead of earning money. Yes, a photographer is a creative profession. But to be a well-fed artist, you also have to learn how to be an entrepreneur.

Customer centricity of the photographer

Customer centricity affects not only whether they choose you for their first order, but also whether they come back to you again.

Think of your level of service as a creative challenge. Give the customer a little more than you promised, and they will come back to you. Here are some thoughts:

• Print some of your best photos, even if you didn’t promise it.
• Find a convenient service that allows you to transfer the photos beautifully.
• Choose the most comfortable location for the shoot, not the one that’s cheaper. You would be surprised, but the evaluation of the result of your work, though subconsciously, is largely influenced by how comfortable the client was during the shooting.
• After the client looks at the result – find out the impression not only of the result, but also of the process.
• Congratulate your clients on the holidays.
• Include empathy and creativity in the service.
• Don’t skimp on customers. You have a business to make money, not save money. Is a comfortable studio expensive? – Raise the price.

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