Photography has always been a passion of yours. You have considered for years to turn your hobby into a profession and decided that it is finally time. Turning a photography passion into a bill paying and income producing career requires planning, dedication, and knowledge. You have to understand the current market and have the ability to offer the desired photography services. If you want to be successful in the photography industry, you will need to have a working knowledge of the following areas of photography.
Photo culling services
Photo culling services involves the careful selection of your best photographs. Photo culling services is crucial to successful marketing of your photography skills. When you provide marketing materials to potential customers, such as flyers, social media postings, and postcards, your customers are going to judge your abilities by the specific photographs you chose to place on the materials. Ensure that they are photographs they speak to the general population and that showcase your photography skills.
Photo culling services may also be a service that is requested by a client. If you are in charge of the marketing for a local business, you will be tasked with selecting the best photographs for their marketing materials or their internet webpage. Online advertising alone is a $149 billion annual business. It is necessary to have the ability to speak with and market to these businesses.
Photo editing services
Customers not only expect you to take wonderful photographs, they also expect you to edit the ones that did not turn out so great. When customers pay a professional photographer, they expect the majority of their images to turn out beautiful. Although this may not be entirely realistic, the less than perfect images can be touched up with photo editing services. To succeed in photo editing, you will want to brush up on your knowledge of different photo editing programs and using tools like red eye corrector, filters, photo styling, and borders.
Photo cropping services
A part of successful photography includes creating impressions or lasting thoughts based on images. You can drastically change the story that a photograph tells by changing its background or the people in it. Photo cropping is a necessary skill in adjusting the story of your photographs. Perhaps a bride hired you to take photographs of their wedding. If you capture the perfect shot of the groom sharing a private moment, yet you notice a distant cousin doing shots in the background, the photo cropping services can save the image. Other services like color correction services can help with poor lighting and increment weather conditions.
Photo publishing services
Customers will also expect easy access to their images. In most cases, photographers will provide their customers with a variety of viewing options. They may send them a disc with every image and the ability to order direct prints. They may also upload all of the images to an online storage database that is password protected. Photo publishing skills are necessary in efficiently providing customers easy access to the images they have paid for.
Photographers may also find additional income from businesses who struggle with photo publishing skills. When you publish photographs as a business, you have to be aware of things like copyright and patent laws. Medium to larger sized businesses may contact you for consultation on legal publishing laws. They may also need knowledge on the best way to efficiently upload and share photographs into a website. The photographers that make the most are the professionals who have additional skills like this. There are approximately 41.44 million photographers in the U.S. that make about $18 an hour, on average.
While employment of photographers is projected to grow over the next few years, it is not expected to do so very rapidly (recent estimates put it around 3% from 2014 to 2024). If you are a current photographer with a passion for business, ensure that you have the necessary photography skills that will allow you to turn your hobby into a profit producing business. With the right amount of preparation and planning, you can make a successful career out of photography.
