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On the Goals To Become a Professional Photographer

Chris Gampat
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02/03/2015
3 Mins read

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Fujifilm 23mm f1.4 product images for review (3 of 8)ISO 4001-50 sec at f - 4.0

Quit your job. Right now. Go ahead, open up an email to your boss and tell them you quit. Go ahead, I dare you.

No, I don’t really dare you.

Every artist or person that identifies themselves as a photographer has at one point or another aspired to become a pro–shooting photos and developing creative ideas for clients that you get paid for. Yes, that’s the romanticised part of the job that you probably talk about in the profile you have on a dating website or when telling folks about your job, but the truth is that for the most part, photography is largely a desk job unless you hire a team.

And with that, you should start thinking a bit more logically and carefully.

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If you want to quit your day job, you need to understand that you and your business will probably not make a major profit for the first year or two. Businesses in the US are allowed to take losses (according to the IRS) for the first three years until they need to file for bankruptcy or restructure in some way or another. So before you give in your two weeks notice, your career to become a professional photographer should begin with the goal of saving up a whole load of money and conservatively spending it.

Then when you actually quit, incorporate, and are ready to start marketing your portrait shooting skills, event shooting skills, concert photography skills, wedding photography skills, etc you’ll need a network. Of course, it should go without saying that you need a website with specific branding and a look that you want to exude when clients come to your site.

So stop right there.

Those are already a couple of goals to meet. To recap, let’s list them:

– Save up a bunch of money to ideally let you live comfortably for over a year without needing to really work.

– Incorporate

– Build a website with branding

Now, each of these should be broken down to have their own miniature goals. The big one being how you’re going to save up enough money. Will you work extra gigs? Will you make sacrifices?

Will your website really show off who you are and what your business can do for a client?

Keep going. Let’s say you’ve gotten yourself up and running.

Now how are you going to get clients? Word of mouth? Social media? Google Adwords and Adsense? Networking? A mixture of all of them? Okay, cool. But now what are you going to do differently to make yourself stand out amongst a heavily saturated market? Will you apply to be featured on sites this like one? What’s your marketing ploy going to be?

Did you think about that? Did it occur to you that in order to actually make money it will requires hours and hours of marketing on your part?

Now we’ve got another set of goals. They are:

– Securing word of mouth advertising

– Google Adwords (hack your way to the top of NYC Wedding Photographer’s search terms)

– Networking (connecting with people in the industry that can help you and that you can help. This is best done over drinks or dinners.)

– Social media marketing

– Blog and content development marketing

– Social and online networking

Let’s stop right here before we even begin to talk about a work life balance and getting time to shoot and edit.

marketing networking photographer professional photographer social media social networking
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.