Having a photography career isn’t as easy as picking up camera one day and deciding that it’s going to be how you make your living. Only the extremely well connected have the ability to walk into a particular field and automatically be on a level where they can support themselves.
If this is going to be your job, you have to work at it.
Continue training and learning.
Practice your photography skills.
Learn the business side of things. This is one of the areas where photographers most often fail.
Don’t expect that a career in photography is just going to land in your lap with minimal effort. You need to make the commitment if you want to succeed. Otherwise, you won’t continue to book the jobs that will pay your bills year in and year out.
Sure, you can probably make it for a few years on minimal effort with some luck. Long term success, however, is determined by how much you put into your photography business.
And I certainly don’t think that I have always given the correct amount of effort. Earlier in my photography career, there were several instances that I can think of where I engaged in some ‘magical thinking’ that nearly ENDED my career.
Oh, I booked a recurring corporate job? No need to worry about that job ever going away. Don’t try to leverage this into more gigs. Just relax and enjoy the security of set commercial photography jobs every couple of months that will pay all your bills for the year.
Until the company decides not to pay you for the first round of photos…
And then I was left scrambling to try to pay bills because I wasn’t out hustling to secure other jobs.
Even when you do get those sort of repeating gigs, you have to maintain the relationship. It all takes work.
Are you willing to put in the effort it takes to maintain a career in photography?
Be sure to check out our other articles on running a photography business and follow along on Twitter and Instagram for more helpful tips (and funny stuff).
