Photography is a passion that drives many people. But making a living from your passion is a little different. It’s not just taking pictures anymore. Earning a living from photography means becoming an entrepreneur, which means spending a lot of time managing business processes (marketing, online communications and social media, service, financial accounting).
BUSINESS OR PASSION?
It is worth considering that making a living from your passion, photography, means that you will not have a fixed salary. Every business has its own seasonality and income varies from month to month. In professional photography, seasonality depends on the genre. For example, for wedding photographers, the peak season is summer. And in advertising photography, there is a decline in activity in the summer. If you want to make money with photography, you need to learn how to manage business processes. Otherwise, you will have to save money (for example, on photographic equipment) instead of earning money. Yes, photography is a creative profession. But to be a satisfied artist, you also need to learn entrepreneurship.
What you need to know about photography equipment
Many people believe that photography is a talent, but technique is no less important. Becoming a professional photographer means selling your photos. And sales are very much dependent on the quality of your photos.
Those photographers who can provide consistent quality have a steady stream of clients. Not those who periodically shoot masterpieces but sometimes miss. More orders and money for those who deliver consistent quality. Stability is an essential attribute of a photographer’s professionalism.
The camera
To get the expected result, you need to know your equipment. Your camera has three groups of settings: brightness, sharpness, and color.
ISO, shutter speed, and aperture are responsible for brightness. The color is controlled by the white balance. Focus and shutter speed control sharpness.
Lighting helps to emphasize the mood of the shot. When shooting in the studio, in addition to your camera, you need to know the lighting equipment. Even if you don’t use additional lighting, you still need to understand the properties of light.
What properties of light do professional photographers need to understand?
- Brightness and contrast;
- Light hardness (shadow shading);
- Direction of the light source;
- The angle of the light source;
- Color (spectrum) of the light source;
- Pulse length of the light source;
- Reflectivity of the surfaces of objects in the frame.
You can get to know your camera and gain basic knowledge of working with light in our beginner’s course.
When you take a picture, the camera applies its own settings for contrast, color saturation, and sharpening to the image. It is advisable to at least control this. And even better, do it yourself. That’s why you need to learn how to process photos.