One thing I never expected to happen was to have people coming to me for advice on photography.
Let me put this out there first, I still consider myself new to the business and in the learning process ... so having people interested in asking me for advice is extremely flattering. Recently, I have had a number of inquiries from people beginning their experience in the photography business and/or from people interested in starting a photography business.
So although I feel I am not experienced enough to be giving this advice, I'm going to give you a run down of the things I do know, some advice on what I think will help and some suggestions that I hope will be beneficial to those beginning this journey.
First off, it takes a LOT of hard work and dedication to be in the photography business. If you just purchased an DSLR and are thinking "Hey I can do that." Think again. A common misconception is that if you have a nicer camera you'll be able to produce images like the pros. In fact, if you do not know how to use your camera you have the potential to actually produce images similar to any high end point & shoot.
The type of DSLR you have is really irrelevant if you do not know how it works, so my first suggestion is to figure that baby out. & if you don't know how it works, don't start charging people like you've been doing this a while. Start with low introductory rates, or better yet - offer out freebies to your friends and relatives to help build your portfolio and give you some experience.
While I personally feel that low grade DSLR's aren't cut out for every circumstance, it is true that what matters more is a good lens. Good lenses cost a lot of money, but your lenses will hopefully be in your arsenal throughout your career. I always suggest buying lenses sold by your camera's manufacturer. There are a number of off-brand lenses offered out that will be compatible for your camera body, but these lenses aren't built the same and will likely eventually need replaced. Many people will say that your kit lens is not ideal, this is also something I feel is an inaccurate statement - I do just fine with both of my camera's kit lens. However, these lenses are NOT ideal for indoor photography - such as wedding ceremonies and studio photography. So in 2012 I am actually upgrading to a $2,000 lens {Oi!!}. You really have to understand how light works with your camera in order to achieve decent photographs in poor lighting conditions.
Which leads me to the next subject - For me, the hardest part of being a photographer is learning how your camera works. I am still learning new things and I have been working with DSLR's for 3 years. One thing I do not recommend is shooting paid sessions without basic knowledge on how your camera works... if you don't know how your camera works with light, etc - you have the potential to produce many photographs in the wrong exposure. If you have over exposed images, the contrast will be too high to work with - there will be pure white places in your photograph and ideally these images are the "throw away images" so if your whole session consists of this - you've just botched an ENTIRE session. Underexposed photographs, I find are a little bit easier to "fix" - however personally I do not like a lot of grain and sometimes if you have the settings wrong and you produce an underexposed photograph the chance of grain is much higher. If you shoot in jpeg, the chances of you being able to fix the exposure is much lower. But, I've only just began shooting RAW - so don't ask me about all that, I'm in the learning process myself. Regardless, you may as well learn how to achieve optimum exposure in several lighting conditions. Especially if you want to shoot wedding ceremonies where ideally flash is a "no no".
Flash is another thing, and this all depends on what you "like" ... my personal preference is to avoid direct flash unless necessary, but this is because I do not like harsh shadows on my subjects. I would use a diffuser of some sort and learn how to bounce light if you are using a flash. With that being said, there are circumstances when direct flash is actually the more desirable setting to have .. so knowing what to set your flash on in these situations is important. Ideally, if you can afford a speedlight... that's probably your best option but again, when you're new to the business it's not easy to just go drop a couple hundred dollars on a speedlight. I like to use a remote flash when I'm shooting it directly on a subject, and you can find these for pretty inexpensive prices - obviously I recommend getting something that will work in every condition - so spend the extra money if you can. If not, wait til' tax time - like me. :) In any case, it takes a little bit of practice and it's something, that I personally think takes a while to master {because I haven't mastered it yet ...and I've owned professional equipment for 3 years}.
Before I talk about editing, I want to briefly stress the importance of composition. It's really easy to become caught up in the moment and lose focus on composition, make sure when you a looking at the subject that you're focusing on the composition of the photograph and not just taking pictures. Know the lines of cut off, and pay attention to the background, figure out depth of field and use it if you can, etc.
Once you have a basic understanding of how your camera operates... there comes post. There's an anonymous quote out there that says "The worst enemy of all good photographers, is bad editing." When I first started, the best piece of information given to me was to not over edit. Now, personally I enjoy the vintage look ... and in some cases, the layers and so on may be considered over editing. However, for every vintage edit I have, there is a more traditional counterpart. But you can have a vintage photograph and not have an over edit.
Subtle editing will produce much more appealing images. You can even do a LOT of editing... but if it's a lot of subtle editing, the image won't look too over done. This is a difficult thing to achieve sometimes, there are times I too will struggle editing an image. One thing I can recommend is to avoid making images where your subjects look unrealistic... the point of a photograph, is to have an image that looks like the person you photographed.
Another thing I recommend is to know your 'throw away' images. If the subject is intended to be in focus and they're not - it's a throw away. Sorry, if it's the only one or they look darn good in it - the image is going to look 'bad' because it is out of focus, toss it!
Along with editing is the programs to edit with ... do your research. I definitely would recommend not using an online editor, especially if you are charging people. Those editors online have minimal editing and usually there's only one setting for every edit. They're really just not ideal for professional images. Obviously Photoshop will be the ideal choice, but if you've never used Photoshop - practice practice practice, it's one thing to assume that simply because you have Photoshop you are going to be able to edit like a pro, but if you're not familiar with it and you don't learn it, you may as well just stick with the online editor... you'll produce the same results.
The last thing I would like to mention is that it's important that you do understand all of this in order to begin charging based on your experience. You must have the experience to charge higher prices - if you are charging over what you are qualified, you will get less business. New photographers always think it's going to be easy and are overwhelmed with the onslaught of interested clients. However, when you start out charging low ball amounts that won't produce any income for you {like $50.00 - $60.00 sessions w/a free CD}, people will flock to what is cheap... Especially in difficult economic times. So it's important to be able to produce quality work, after all the saying is true that you 'get what you pay for' and you want to give yourself the experience to value your worth because if you narrow it down, say you do a two hour session for $50.00 and then spend 6 hrs editing it... you've just made $6.25 an hour... and you're not charging for a CD, so you're actually losing money every session you do.
I hope this helps, I know I have had a lot of questions lately - and I find myself repeating the same advice. So I really hope this will give you a little insight. Remember - go big or go home! ;]
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