Cameras

Photography: Grace Chon

Sometimes, the secret of building a successful photography business ? even a part-time gig squeezed around a full-time job ? isn?t hard to figure out.

Take good pictures. Treat your clients well. Understand that nothing is more important than making your buyers happy? and they?ll do the rest.

?I?m quite fortunate that I don?t look for clients ? my clients find me!? Grace Chon, an art director and part-time photographer told us. ?[I]f they?re really happy with you and their photos they?ll naturally tell their friends about their experience. And there?s nothing as valuable as great word-of-mouth referrals.?

For Grace, that?s true even though she does her photography work in one of the most competitive of fields ? one that every camera-owner thinks they can do themselves.

Dogs that Tell Stories

She takes pictures of pets. Putting in around 30 hours a week in addition to her job with a Los Angeles advertising agency, Grace shoots what she calls ?modern pet photography,? advertising her services through her site ShinePetPhotos.com. Rather than photographing pets in a studio with artificial lights and blank backgrounds, Grace shoots them in their own environment, surrounded by their own toys and in a context which, she says, tells their story.

?Shooting in a studio seems a bit sterile ? it strips away so much of this story-telling opportunity.?

The result is great images that capture the pet?s personality, portray character and, most importantly, satisfy the client. Grace has had an image appear on a magazine cover, was invited to be a juror at LA County Fair?s dog photography competition ? and has been shooting professionally for less than a year.

Some of that swift success may be due to Grace?s background. It might be easier to develop a photographic eye and understand the need to please buyers when you spend all day as an art director, putting together designs for clients like Wendy?s, Chandon, and yes, Pets Unlimited too. But there are a couple of other ingredients that have contributed to Grace?s success at turning what began as a hobby with a point-and-shoot camera aimed at a roommate?s two pets into a profitable passion.

The first, of course, is technical ability. Grace says that the best advice she can offer anyone thinking becoming a pet photographer is to ?practice, practice and then practice some more.? Learning the basics will help you to understand the rules before you break them, and focusing, she says, is essential for good portraiture.

Animals are Incredible ?Energy Readers?

But no less important is the fact that Grace loves what she does and the subjects she shoots, something that?s clearly essential when you?re doing it before starting work in the morning, after knocking off in the evening and instead of playing with friends at the weekends. Even before she took up pet photography, Grace had worked at the Philadelphia Zoo, interned at the University of Pennsylvania?s Emergency Animal Hospital, and had studied biology with the aim of going to veterinary school.

?I absolutely believe you have to love animals to be a successful pet photographer,? she says. ?Animals are incredible ?energy readers? and know immediately when people like (or dislike) them.?

Her understanding of animals helps too. Unlike human subjects, pets can?t tell the photographer when they?re nervous, tired or just having a bad day. A pet photographer has to be able to read their emotions and know when to give a dog a break, she warns.

But even for an animal-lover with an understanding of both pets and what it takes to please their owners, taking pictures of furry friends can be difficult. When Grace started shooting professionally, she was shocked at how tiring it was to run after a dog, change positions quickly and spend time building trust. She often felt sore for days after a shoot.

And then there are the jobs that break your heart. Asked about the toughest shoot she had to do, Grace described a client who had called her in tears after discovering that her dog, Ella, had a terminal illness and had to be put to sleep.

?I normally book about two months in advance, but my client asked me to come over the next day,? Grace recalled. ?Ella couldn?t move, so she was laid out on a blanket in the backyard. The family members were in tears throughout the shoot and it was really hard for me to remain composed while I photographed this beautiful dog. I was successful at not crying in front of the family ? but the minute the shoot was over and I left their yard I kind of lost it.?

Ella was put to sleep the next day. Her pictures, shot by Grace, are still available for viewing here.

Photography: Roger Smith

You might be the greatest photographer in the world. You could have a hard drive stuffed with images that Bill Gates wants on Corbis and Spielberg wants on his office walls. You could have the potential to go down in photographic history alongside Man Ray, Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

But if no one but you, your family and your cat ever see your photos, how are we going to know?

Taking photos might be the fun side of photography but if you want the applause ? and the income ? you have to put them in front of people too.

Everyone?s on Flickr
Flickr has certainly made that a lot easier. Anyone can upload images and as long as you keep them public, anyone can see them too.

But that doesn?t mean they will.

Flickr isn?t just a photo-sharing site, it?s also a networking site. If you want people to see the photos you?ve uploaded, you have to network. Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, probably Flickr?s most successful member, told us in a recent interview:

You can?t just put your pictures up and leave them there. You have to drag people back to your photostream.

That means joining ? and being active in ? groups. It means leaving comments on other people?s photos. And it means building up a list of contacts so that your images will appear on their home page when they log in. It means giving to Flickr more than your Pro membership fee and copies of your photo files.

You have to give your time, your advice and your friendship too.

Give Your Images Away
Networking will give you a base of people who enjoy seeing ? and commenting on ? your images. Making a few of your photos available for free will get them seen by the photo users who search Flickr every day looking for photos for their blogs, websites and other publications.

Those with consciences, such as The Economist, only search for photos published under Creative Commons licenses. (You don?t really want your photos seen by the other type of users.) If you don?t have any photos available for free use then, they?ll receive much less exposure in search results.

You should keep your best photos copyrighted so that you can earn from the licenses, but lower quality images should be available as bait to bring people looking for the subjects you?ve photographed into your photostream.

Market Your Website
Flickr, of course, is just one place to display images. You can also put photos on your website but the marketing is a little harder. Everyone knows about Flickr. No one will know about your site unless you tell them.

But the same principles apply to marketing a website that apply to promoting your Flickr stream. Although there are all sorts of ways to bring traffic to a site, photographers are a pretty curious bunch and they?re always keen to look at each other?s work. Joining forums and discussion boards, leaving comments on other people?s sites and especially focusing on conversations related to your photography niche will help to build you connections and get you eyes on your images.

Here?s Mud in Your Eye
And what happens next?

Of course, you won?t get anywhere without good photos. And you won?t get anywhere if no one sees those photos. But you won?t earn a dime if you can?t turn those views into income.

There are all sorts of ways to create those conversions, and that?s the sort of thing we like to talk about here. They might include photography books, licenses, wallpaper, advertising and cards to name just a few. (You can find a much longer list here.)

But to be a successful photographer who earns from their hobby, all of those things have to work together: good photos, an efficient monetization system and plenty of views too.

Check out our post on creating niche websites and tell us how you put your photos in front of viewers.

Moving from hobby photography to professional photography is a big jump. It?s a jump not just because your ability to pay your mortgage and feed your family will now depend entirely on your talent with a camera and your skills at marketing those talents. It?s a giant leap because you?ll also have to consider the true costs that go into creating those photographs.

That?s something that amateurs don?t usually have to think about when they sell an image.

Shoot a picture of a landscape for fun and the amount that you paid for your camera and lenses, the time you took over your shot and the gas you paid to get there aren?t usually considered expenses. They?re the price of your hobby, the fee you pay for the pleasure of taking good pictures. While photography is an expensive pastime, few amateur photographers consider those expenses as recoverable.

Nor do they attempt to recover them ? even when they make a sale.

As you move towards professional photography however, those costs become more important. They have to be factored into the price of an image. That?s particularly true when you?re working on commission or when you?re shooting for the specific goal of selling the photo once it?s been produced.

There?s little point in creating a picture for the sole purpose of selling it if the image costs more to create than the amount you eventually receive.

When you?re not shooting for fun, the sales price has to be measured against expenses.

So what costs should you factor into the price of a photo? and what can you leave out?

Props and Models
Certainly, anything that you have to buy or rent to create the image should be included in the price of the photograph. If you have to rent special clothes, hire a model or charter a boat, then clearly that?s a price the buyer or the client should pay, not you.

If you want to buy a bowl of mangoes for the sole purpose of practicing your still-life photography, for example, that?s just the fee you?re paying to expand your skill range.

If you want to buy a bowl of mangoes to shoot them for a stock site however, then you have to consider whether or not you?ll see the money you paid for those mangoes again ? and whether you wouldn?t make the same income by laying out less money for a bowl of lemons.

Time
Time is always a tough element to factor into the expenses of amateur photographers. Hobbyists who don?t shoot professionally shoot in their own time. They?ve turned off their commercial stopwatch and the shooting isn?t replacing other income.

Take pictures to sell though and you do have to factor in the time. You have to consider how much that time is worth, and you have to remember to include the time spent on editing, uploading and archiving too.

All of those are expenses that you have to calculate and attempt to recover.

Travel
Travel too can feel free ? even in the days of high gas prices. You?ll fill your tank anyway whether you?re driving to a location for a shoot or to the office for work. Because gas is just part of the regular monthly outgoings, it?s easy to dismiss a few extra miles as making little difference.

When you?re shooting for money though, those miles do make a difference. If you?re using the family SUV, you might still be able to dismiss the cost of the car as something you?d have to pay anyway ? and take those expenses off your taxes instead ? but count the miles and multiply them by your car?s mileage to include the gas price.

Insurance
For hobbyists, insurance is also something that they don?t often consider a great deal. Their camera equipment, which might have cost thousands of dollars, might be included in their household insurance. That?s useful if the house burns down, but it?s not going to protect them if they bring in a model to shoot and she trips over a lighting cable, bumps her head and talks to a lawyer.

Nor will it be helpful if you sell an image to a client without a model release and forget to tell him.

Professional photography associations such as the Professional Photographers of America offer targeted insurance schemes among other benefits of membership ? but again, membership fees are another expense that has to be recovered over the course of your sales.

Equipment
Although photography equipment might be your biggest expense, it?s also one of the hardest expenses to calculate, especially if you?re only shooting for money occasionally.

A professional photographer will price his images so that over time he recovers the costs of new camera bodies, lenses and lighting equipment. He?ll calculate how much he spends each year on new gear, and factor those expenses into his prices. He has to do that because he won?t have bought those tools if he wasn?t hoping to make money out of them.

Because a hobbyist bought his equipment for fun though, the temptation is to write them off. The pleasure they brought paid for them.

In fact, that?s not just a temptation, it?s a positive market advantage, and it?s one that amateurs can use ? together with write-offs of any other expense that aren?t directly related to one particular photo.

One of the biggest criticisms aimed at hobby photographers who sell their images is that they don?t understand the true costs of photography. That?s often true. But it?s also true that the costs for amateur photography often appear different than those for professional photography. They?re expenses for fun not just for business ? and that means they won?t necessarily show up in the invoice.

On the other hand, nothing tells a buyer that he?s dealing with an amateur faster than a price that?s lower than costs.