For Photographers

We get a fair amount of questions from new or aspiring photographers. Here’s a list of some of the most important considerations a pro photographer should take into account as they get started…

Professional membership with PPA (Professional Photographers of America) for insurance, best practices, indemnity fund, liability, training, conferences, etc.

Carbon Copy Cloner (or other HDD cloning app) for when the inevitable happens and one of your working hard drives dies. Just pop in the clone and you’re good to go. I clone my main working drive every night.

BackBlaze or other redundant off-site, automatic backup system. Again, preparing for the inevitable hard disk failures, and the unimaginable failures, too. I prefer BackBlaze as of the writing of this list, because they do not limit your space on their servers, nor to they throttle back your backup speed. CrashPlan is another alternative that’s even more thorough in that they keep every past iteration of every file, not just the most recent backup.

Keep your image files! Sometimes I’ll hear of photographers who only keep their images for 6 months before purging them to free up disk space. Hard drives are cheap, keep your work. You never know when a client will pass away and the family will need a print for the funeral or the newspaper. It’s happened to us twice already, and it sure felt good to be able to help them in their time of need.

Insurance is a must, for your equipment as well as your business. Be honest with your insurance agent and let them know it’s for a business, not just personal camera gear at home. Most home insurance will not cover equipment being used for a business, and they’ll do their research to get out of paying a claim if they can.

Quality gear is important if you’re a professional. Just because it’s ungodly cold and raining and blowing, that’s not a good enough excuse as to why you put your camera gear away and didn’t get some professional photos for your clients. We unexpectedly shot an entire wedding in the rain once. Good thing we had top-of-the-line gear, or we’d have been in big trouble!

Backup gear is a must-have, too, if you’re going to be a pro. And keep it handy, especially during those once-in-a-lifetime moments, like when the minister says, “You may kiss the bride.” There’s not a lot of room for telling them to wait or for redoing the moment.

Think Tank is one of our favorite gear companies. Lifetime guaranteed rolling bags, and super functional memory card wallets that won’t break the bank. I’ve told so many people about Think Tank, they’ve set me up with an *affiliate link which you can use to get an even better deal than normal on their website, if you *click here, or on the company name or logo above. Or enter the affiliate code 1033834.aaf246 at checkout. The deal changes every so often, so check back if you like, and see how the offer changes. As I type this now, it’s free ground shipping on orders over $50, plus your choice of a free gift. I recommend the battery and memory card wallet! =) 

Sales taxes are required on photography services and products sold in Oklahoma. Collect it and pay it in or bad things can happen.

Get a good accountant or tax professional. They will save you more than they cost you over the course of your business. If not, then they may not be the one for you.

Make mistakes to get better. Everything mentioned above is to avoid those really costly mistakes that can ruin a reputation, career or business. However, it’s important to try new things to keep developing and stretching yourself. I’ve found that experimenting and not being afraid to make mistakes has been the quickest route to really dramatically improving in the craft over the years.

Be responsible and dependable. This should probably be the first one, but I didn’t want it to get forgotten by the time you reach the end of the list. We’ve all heard horror stories of lost pictures, photographers who never showed up to weddings, etc. Don’t be that guy/gal. Do whatever it takes to honor your clients and the industry as a whole. Even when you don’t feel like it.

Finally, there are the universally known five simple rules for photographers. I have no idea who to credit for these, as they were most likely a collaborative effort that evolved over the years, but it’s largely remained unchanged for the last 30 years as far as I can tell:

1) To be a better photographer shut up, put your head down and work hard.
2) Find a mentor who will take his/her time and help you grow.
3) Awards and honors are nice, but you’re only as good your last picture, so get back to work.
4) When you truly have learned your craft, pay back to your profession and become a mentor to others.
5) Be humble. Always. 

~

Any others I’m forgetting here? I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of good ones. Feel free to let us know, so we can consider adding it to the list and credit you!

 

*Affiliate codes benefit us, too, with a little financial “thank you” from the companies who provide affiliate codes to us. At least they do theoretically as we’ve not yet received any payments. Haha!  It doesn’t really amount to anything substantial, but we want to be up front about it. Still, if you know me, you know we would never recommend a company here that we’re not really thrilled to evangelize about. =) 

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