More than any other pastime I know, the achievement or even hope of competence in
photography marks a desire to do it for money. Sometimes for a living; sometimes just to
earn a little something to offset the costs. I don't know why this is; there are plenty of
hobbies that can be as expensive. Sadly, I think the closest we get to a reason is that
anyone can make a photograph that a professional would be pleased to sell - that is
there's a big overlap between the "quality" of professional and amateur work.
This couples with the desirability of the lifestyle apparently enjoyed by certain types of
pro photographer, especially Landscape and Nature photographers, whose life seems like one
long paid vacation.
It is axiomatic that only a tiny percentage of those that want to flip their lives into
professional photography will make it. Fortunately, the biggest reason for failure to make
it is that they don't actually try. The ones that are most successful won't necessarily be
the best photographers, so then what are the arbiters of success and failure?
This being an article, not a book, I haven't attempted an all-embracing answer. Instead
I've explored my daily life as a "Landscape/ Urban Landscape" photographer, and
my past life as a Business Strategy Consultant to major corporates, to pull together half
a dozen key themes that I believe will have a strong influence on whether someone can make
a transition into professional photography successfully.
Now before I go any further I'd better set down some parameters here. I'm not talking
about those who decide on a career in photography at an early age, follow a vocational
college course or attach themselves to a professional. I am talking about the people who
happily (or otherwise) hold down a day job until the bolt hits them that they'd rather be
taking pictures for money than doing this, or as well as doing this. I'm talking about the
people who want to turn a hobby into an income stream, which is what I've been fortunate
enough to do myself.
Focus on the demand side
.The thing that makes you a professional photographer is having customers. You can have
the best equipment, studio, business systems or even the best photographs in the world,
but it's having customers that marks you as a pro. Far too many aspiring professionals
take refuge in the supply side - what items of equipment, facilities, software, etc are
needed? What are you going to do yourself and what will you have done by external
specialists? They are all essentially easy decisions because all of them are under your
control. Sure, you have to make all these supply-side decisions, but the really important
thing is to get to understand what market(s) you're going to sell into, and get to be
pretty sure that your chosen markets like what you do, might just buy from you, and are
capable of buying in sufficient volume and prices to create a satisfactory business.
There is more to this than producing a list of "might become customers",
though that's at least a start. It's also getting to expose your work to them and getting
some form of feedback on whether your work fits with their needs. It's learning about the
price structures that apply in your selected marketplaces so you understand how much
you're going to need to sell. It's about understanding your prospective customers' buying
processes and where you'll need to insert yourself into them. These aren't the first
things you should do after announcing yourself as a professional photographer- they are
things you need to do before committing yourself. It's staggering how many people want to
be stock photographers without understanding what is the average return per image held in
different libraries; how this is trending; and whether any meaningful library is going to
be interested in their work; whether there's any opportunity to be featured in their
physical or online catalogues etc. Until you know these sorts of thing there's little
point deciding to be a stock photographer. I do appreciate that this is much more
difficult than deciding what sort of scanner to buy, but then it's more important too.
Know why customers should choose you
Not every brand or business in the world has a competitive advantage but it helps. Not
least because prospects will surely ask you why they should work with you and it's best to
be able to give them an answer that isn't obviously just made up as you go along.
It's possible that your competitive advantage lies in your photography; that you have
an approach or a skill that differentiates what you do from others. It could equally be in
the service you deliver, in your "packaging " of your product, or in you. When
everything else is equal, the nice guy, or in reality the guy who comes across as easy to
do business with, gets the job. On the other hand sometimes your work has to speak for
itself. If you're planning to make a career or just money out of stock, editorial work,
calendars, greetings cards then your work is going to have to stand on its merits without
much intervention from you, and being able to differentiate your work from others is a
critical element.
On the other hand if you're majoring on commercial work, portraits, weddings, then the
customer is choosing you, the approach you bring to the task, and the service you promise
as well as voting for your photography. The scope for creating "advantage" in
the mind of the prospect is wider, and doesn't depend only on your photographs.
Not all successful businesses have a true "competitive advantage". You've
heard the expression "f8 and be there". Well, to win business just be there. If
you can find out what triggers people's need for your services then you can work out a way
to be at their shoulder when the need arises, you'll get more business.
Commitment.
Is this what you really want? Unsurprisingly there's a link between commitment and
success. It isn't 100% - some people do seem to be fortunate enough to get a good living
without overtly trying too hard - but I think most people would accept that there is a
strong relationship here. The thing about commitment is that you'll only really deliver it
sustainably if you can see some satisfaction from what you're doing, and if it fits with
the other elements of your life.
I can't stress too highly the importance of really, really getting the buy -in of those
people to whom you owe responsibility. The life you're moving into may well take you away
from home more than you've been used to. It is likely to mean less income in the short
term and perhaps forever. It is likely to mean that your income fluctuates and if you have
a high level of regular expenditure, that is not going to help. It means an ongoing degree
of uncertainty - even if you're doing wonderfully well today it could all come to a halt
in a few months. Some people are just better at coping with that than others, and see it
as a spur not as a barrier. It isn't just whether you can cope with these things, it's
whether you and any dependants all can. It's unlikely that you'll be able to sustain high
levels of energy and commitment long term unless you have the positive support of those
that depend on you.
Equally you have to face up to the fact that a life as a photographer doesn't mean you
get to photograph every day. You'll spend at least as much time generating customers,
handling the logistics of your life, and managing a business as you do behind a camera.
Personally I'm lucky if I photograph 100 days a year and I only manage that because I
decide to outsource all printing and processing tasks rather than spend my life in a
darkroom or behind a computer. 100 days a year means little more than I could do if I
dedicated my vacations and most weekends to photography as an amateur.
In some ways photography as an amateur is grand. You get to photograph what you like
when you want; you get to stay in bed when it's raining. You get to throw away or suppress
every single image that doesn't represent your absolute best in the right conditions. In
most cases professional photography involves photographing what someone else wants and
working to a deadline they set or which they find acceptable. Clearly, you're responsible
for what you do and don't deliver, but sometimes you will find yourself handing over work
that isn't as good as it could have been because behind every quotation or contract there
is an amount of time that the photographer has budgeted to spend. In reality the client
gets the best that could be achieved in that time, which is not always the same as the
best that photographer could do. This in turn relates to the perception, raised at the
beginning of this article, that there often isn't a lot of difference between the
"quality" of amateur and professional work. The amateur has the luxury of
comparing their best work with professional work which may have been severely budget
constrained; produced under a tight deadline within which conditions were far from ideal;
and then the client may have chosen the wrong images anyway!
Books of photographs are another good example. Many of them, even those by
photographers of great ability, contain at least some images that are less than
imaginative or interesting. Why? Well unless you get very lucky indeed, producing books of
photographs is unlikely to lead to fame and fortune. Well, fame maybe, but not to fortune.
So the photographer has to budget time to accumulate the images, and this competes with
arguably better paid work on other things. As before, the result is that some of the work
in the book is not the best the photographer could do. He'd love to spend a few more days
or weeks on this but his schedule, or his bank balance, or the publisher's schedule just
don't allow it.
None of this means to paint a gloomy picture. It is meant to highlight a very few of
the realities of a professional's world in the context that if you enjoy it you'll
possibly remain committed and if you're committed you'll possibly make a success of it.
Manage for cash.
Everyone tells aspiring professionals that they have to acquire business management
skills, make a proper business plan and so on. Clearly that's just so right that there's
little point debating or re-stating it. "Managing for cash" is a philosophy I'd
commend within the generalised planning/ controlling/ analysing/ evaluating/ re-planning
cycle. What it really means is that you should try really hard to spend out of what you
get paid, rather than spending in order to get paid.
There really isn't much of a worse time than running a business that doesn't have
enough cash. Not being able to pay suppliers because the check won't clear. Explaining to
suppliers that even though you can't pay last month's invoice, you need continuity of
supply, please. Wondering whether this will be the month when the bank gets bored with
bailing you out. No cash is a nightmare; and it's by far the biggest reason why businesses
have to cease trading. Provided you have made profit historically you can in theory run a
business at a loss for as long as you want. If you run out of cash you have to stop. Short
term, cash is more important than profit.
Managing for cash comprises two elements. Influencing the speed with which money comes
in on the one hand, and controlling the speed with which it goes out is clearly the other.
Each of the businesses I've helped run has operated a very simple cash book in which every
day the money we've received and the checks/ debits issued have been entered. This
provides in essence a daily review of uncommitted funds in the business. And a clear limit
on the value of checks/debits that can be raised. Monthly this is reconciled to the bank
statement. It means that every day you know how much cash you've got and avoids the
possibility that you slip into negative cash without knowing.
This method measures but it doesn't fully control. Controlling receipts is something
you start by building into your paperwork from the outset. If I see a business that has
difficulty collecting its debts then I can bet that one or maybe all of the following
apply.
- There is no contract in existence that describes the services to be provided and states
when the photographer is going to get paid, including any advance deposits.
- There is no process for reminding customers of the obligations they've agreed to-chasing
the debt. Waiting for the mail each day is not chasing the debt.
- There is no sanction available to the photographer if the customer doesn't pay or
withholds part payment, because the customer has everything they need.
- If a large contract or job is available from a commercial organisation then enthusiasm
for the "win" means that nobody's checked their credit record.
- Perhaps most common of all, there's a dispute over the invoice amount or the services
provided. It is vitally important that changes to quotations, specifications etc are
confirmed in writing. Wherever there's an invoice dispute I bet I can show you an
important gap in the documentation.
Controlling your spend means not spending money you haven't been paid. If you haven't
got enough money it's much more likely you need extra customers than a Canon DS whatever.
It's so easy to spend money out of boredom when business is slack, and you've plenty of
time to persuade yourself that you'll be able to get so much more business, or fulfil
contracts so much more profitably, if only you had x or y. Very occasionally that will be
right. The vast majority of the time it's wishful thinking, and waiting until your
business can afford to buy or finance something will prove a better policy than gambling
your business on speculative acquisitions. You should view capital acquisitions as a
reward for bringing money in.
Be Flexible
If I look at the best known outdoor/nature photographers in the UK, pretty much all of
them earn their income from a mix of sources rather than on one thing or even one main
thing. Some combine paid photography with a part-time or even full time job. Those that
are fully dependent on photography combine income from stock sales, books, print sales and
exhibitions, calendars and greeting cards, magazine articles, and tuition/courses,
together with a little commercial photography or portraiture. The proportions may vary,
but the creation of income across a range of different business activities is ubiquitous.
I have little doubt that things are similar in the USA. What I guess all this means is
that few if any of these markets are big enough to sustain many specialists, and that for
most people it is necessary to have photographic and business skills across a range of
activities to thrive.
Similarly, if I look at most portrait studios, I see that they promote themselves a s
wedding, location and small-scale commercial photographers as well. Again it's a question
of how flexible you're able to be to fill your time, and your studio, to the maximum
degree. In large measure, specialisation in a single narrow field is available only to the
very successful, and then only in certain areas such as fashion, advertising,
photojournalism, where the route in is unlikely to be conversion from a hobby.
So there we are. There turned out to be five criteria not six but then I think this is
long enough. Oh, one more thing. The upside. Sometimes when I'm standing in a beautiful
place, just looking and absorbing it after a successful hour behind the camera, I can't
quite believe that someone is actually paying me to do this. There may be a lot of things
I do that I could live without, but that feeling makes up for them.
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, March 06, 2003; 05:46 A.M. 
