I have been doing photography for about 4 years now. I have spent the time working on it full time as if doing a degree. The great thing about photography is it's 20% knowledge and 80% practice.
I have always had a passion for photography. I have the worst memory ever and my photos are all that remain of the lost fragments of my life. My blurb is "Your photos are the memories that make you smile."
Camera phones were the best invention to come into my life as I am able to snap pics wherever I am and store them on Facebook so they don't get lost. I realised at the beginning of the year that I don't actually have printed photos of the children for the past few years and decided to put a photo book together but couldn't find the old photos! Thank you Facebook! lol
When my daughter was born (after 3 boys!) I was obsessed with documenting every stage of her life, especially all the gorgeous outfits! I took her to Boots every 2 months or so to get that special offer of £5 for a head and shoulder shot and an 8x10 print. It was so heart breaking to me to have to pass up all the lovely pictures as they were just so ridiculously expensive! I eventually broke down at her 9 month shoot and bought some prints, which set me back £180! My friend, who is a professional photographer, suggested I get a decent camera and learn how to do photography 'properly' and so the journey began!
I spent a lot of time watching CreativeLive, an amazing on line tutorial resource and even went so far as to send in an audition to go on one of their courses, a baby photography course with Sandy Puc. It was an amazing experience, I even squeezed in a trip to San Francisco on my way! One of the best tutorials I watched was by Zack Arias Foundations and then studio lighting, he really has a brilliant way of explaining things and I learned so much.
I started off advertising on Facebook and did shoots for £20 with all the images on a disc and slowly built my way up from there. There is a school of thought that says if you undersell yourself and start off cheaply you will never get people willing to pay good money for your work and I guess there is some truth to this. The problem is that it's a catch 22 situation, you don't have experience or quality to offer and people aren't going to spend a lot of money on prints of pictures taken in their own home or at a park. I would say start off like this to build up a portfolio but don't start branding yourself. Make it clear that you are a student and you are building your portfolio.
Do different types of photography to find out where your passion lies. The biggest difference between a good and bad photographer is the passion you put in to your work. Fist and foremost you should be doing it for the love of it, not the money. View this as a paid hobby to earn some money to improve your equipment and expect to work like that for 2-3 years before you start to seriously consider doing it as a business.
The big draw is always wedding photography but be careful, it is a very stressful job! It's a long day with a lot more hours that need to be invested before you can hand over the finished product and, if you make a pig's ear of it, you can't go back and do a re-shoot!
Once you have done quite a few of each different kind of shoot you will get a feel for what you enjoy and what is worth your time, what packages you should offer and what to charge.
Photography is a wonderful career but, with the stiff competition out there, with camera phones becoming more sophisticated and every other person with a good camera offering 'professional' photo shoots, you really have to put all your passion into your work, establish your style and offer something different.
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