Business Trends

While Uncle Ned might be bragging that he can take care of the photography at his niece’s wedding with his D-SLR with built-in flash, amusing and sometimes bitter experiences have taught prospective brides that there’s nothing like an experienced photographer to do the job right. But getting yourself and your work in front of that group of brides and wedding planners can be a challenge, and that’s what this month’s column is all about. We’ll take a look at changes in the business model, including portfolios, marketing materials, networking with wedding vendors, and bridal shows.

Tips To Make Your Site A More Powerful Marketing Tool
The marketing and business aspects of websites is an ongoing process. Unfortunately, many photographers fall behind in keeping their websites up-to-date with new images, cleaner navigation, search engine optimization, and getting clients to respond to the site. It may be due to the purchasing aspect...

For this month’s column, we look at how to turn your love for wildlife photography into a serious business. I interviewed the husband-and-wife team of David and Jennifer Hemmings who have been particularly successful in the wildlife photography field.

Beyond learning how to handle cameras and photo equipment, working as a photo assistant will teach you many lessons that will go a long way toward helping you build a successful career. Skills you’d most likely garner include learning about project management, studio protocols, location procedures, dealing with clients, preproduction and postproduction work, and more. These are all essential business skills and can often be learned only “on the job.” Indeed, talk to many established pros today and you’ll find that’s how they got their start.

For our annual discussion on the business of wedding photography, I spoke to three wedding photographers who are finding success in doing what they love. One of the keys to their success is that their marketing ideas and tips illustrate top-of-mind awareness, which helps keep them foremost in their clients’ minds.

Professional sports photography for the editorial market is an endangered species. Unfortunately, a lot of it has to do with editorial clients turning away from the professional photographer to sports enthusiasts who are willing to trade their photos for season tickets.

The photography of natural disasters and human tragedy—from earthquakes to suicide bombers—is an area of photojournalism filled with challenges. Photojournalists often face both physical and emotional obstacles but still need to keep a cool head and continue capturing the images. While their photos will tell the story of the event, photographers have their own personal stories to tell as well. The accounts told here are mostly about business but also touch on the heart of why someone takes on this area of photography and keeps going despite the emotional toll. We discuss issues of privacy and model releases, working at a disaster scene, what agencies to coordinate with, handling injury and trauma, and the pros and cons of pursuing this work.