Stories about photography gear, finding a photographic specialty, developing a style, negotiating a contract, licensing pictures, balancing family and career, planning for the future, and staying ahead of the competition.
Nearly every successful photographer I know has selected at least one shooter from which to borrow, steal, sample, appropriate, or use as inspiration the lessons someone else has learned. And to be clear, it’s not their pictures that should be appropriated, it’s their wisdom. Modeling is the compass that anyone trying to navigate the business of photography will wisely use to reach their destination with as few detours as possible.
The reluctance for photographers to place emphasis on their value is often the exact thing that prevents them from having a sustainable career doing something they love. It’s a mindset that leads to photographers competing solely on price rather than competing on the superior value of their work. Negotiating value requires deliberate practice and strength, but nothing is more rewarding than hearing the client to commit to a figure that was higher than you were willing to take.
Probably the most frequent conversation I have with photographers is about how to make a consistent living in photography. In those conversations, the subject of working for free to gain exposure or experience is definitely a hot topic. Few people are able to go from just starting out to landing an assignment for Coca-Cola or […]
Everyone becomes a photographer for a different reason. We each see something different when we raise a camera to our eye and we each want something different from the resulting picture. The deeper you go into a photography career, the more apparent these differences are. Photography can be whatever you want it to be. And […]
