When you are a kid and thinking about the many ways you can make a living when you grow up, what is the advice your elders always gave you?  It was, “Do what you love to do and you will always be happy.”  And that has to be true because if you can spend your work week doing what you love the most, it really won’t be work as much as it will be play that people pay you to do.

So if your passion is photography, it makes sense to start your own photography business.  But how to go about it?  You see so many small photography shops that seem to spring up from nowhere.  What is the best way for you to go about starting your own business like this?

Whilst you are doing photography, it isn’t rare to be considered for mystery shopper vacancies where you can take photos undercover. The first thing to think about when starting a photography business is how to do it in a legitimate way.  You want a business that will last a lifetime so you want to start it out right.  So don’t fall for the “get rich quick” internet schemes or books that claim they will spill the insider secrets of other successful photography business.  There are no insider secrets to this business other than what you need to know to run any business.  To succeed you have to…

* Pay your dues
* Get your education.
* Learn from the pros.
* Know your stuff.
* Network
* Value your customers.

You can accomplish the first five of these objectives by going to school and working part or full time in somebody else’s photography shop.  You may despair at the idea of more school.  But your photography business will be about more than just cameras, photo shoots and dark rooms.  You have accounting principles to comprehend and execute, taxes to be paid, a facility to rent, employees to pay, insurance to worry about, contracts to sign and all of that other “stuff” that goes with running a business.  So start early and get some basic business classes under your belt such as accounting and economics.  It will benefit you dozens of ways as you march toward success.

Many trades have an apprentice system where you tutor under a master of the craft.  But it might be a good thing for you to take this matter into your own hands.  Plan to work for a photography shop long enough to learn the ins and outs of running a small business and of running a photography business.  This gives you the chance to build your knowledge and exposure to equipment, learn technique and how to work with your subjects.

In fact, it might be a good idea to deliberately apprentice at a number of different types of photography studios before launching out on your own.  So you can learn the ins and outs of wedding photography, baby photography, fashion photography and others from specialists all before you spend a dime of your own money to start your own enterprise.  In this way, you build skills, you build knowledge, you build experience and you can watch and take notes of the great things others do and the mistakes to avoid.

Your employers will be thrilled to share their real world knowledge with you if you are open to them that you want to learn from the masters how to do this with the goal of becoming their competition in the future.  Above all, you can build a client base from the many customers you work with before you start your own business.  Buy taking care of someone else’s customers, they can become your customers when you hang out your shingle.  And that is good business.

Of course, running a business will not be for everyone. For those not suited for photography there are websites such as IT Technician Jobs to help your find your dream job in a sector of your dreams.

These were not photographers and while those pictures will no doubt get a few chuckles, these are not the kind of professional quality pictures people want for their long-term memories.

If you are looking for professional quality photos, then you will need to purchase the correct camera equipment. When shopping, look out for Jessops discount codes as the chances are you will be able to get yourself a great deal. All major brands are sold and will be perfect for any occasion.

You know the drill.  The ceremony is exciting and fun and full of joy, some tears and plenty of meaning as the bride and groom kiss and become one family.  Then it’s all over and everybody files out to go to the reception to dance, have cake and celebrate this union.  But wait, the whole proceeding has to grind to a halt while the photographer stages the wedding party for as long as an hour or more to “recreate” the ceremony and make those perfect wedding photos.  Meanwhile the reception may be getting underway and many of the guests that the bride or the groom or others in the family want to hug and share the joy with may have to go because they just can’t wait out a fussy photographer.

Somehow this complete disruption to the day has become accepted as just part of what the wedding day is all about.  And the worst part about it is that the photographs, while nice and well staged, look like a bunch of mannequins being arranged for a store window.  The joy and fun of the ceremony is over.  For decades to come everybody will say they are beautiful and meaningful but if you look closely the wedding party looks nervous, uncomfortable, bored and like they wish they were somewhere else.

Well maybe its time to throw that tradition out and put some creativity into how the wedding photos and the wedding photographer works in your wedding.  By finding a photographer who will put together some wedding pictures that have some style, some creativity and some sense of inventiveness, you will have that wedding album that really is full of memories worth remembering.

To get that kind of photographer, you are going to have to start early.  You have to find that maverick photographer that “gets it” that the wedding is about the people, not the gowns and the hall and that his photographs must shout out “this was a wonderful day and we celebrated this union.” 

You may have to look outside of the conventional “wedding photographers” listing in the phone book.  An artistic photographer may be more appropriate.  But be patient and find one that is just as professional as any photographer in that yellow pages but can bring some creativity and investment of getting to know this wedding party to the job of taking your important wedding pictures.

That wedding photographer should become as much a part of the wedding party as the groomsmen.  After all, if he is going to capture the personality of this couple, he will have to get to know you.  Spend some informal time with him and share those fun memories of when you met, those special times while you dated and certainly those very special places where important moments in your relationship took place. 

Armed with that kind of creative individual in charge of your wedding photographs, you will look forward with great anticipation to what he comes up with.  Many of the best shots will be created before the wedding, at some of those special places and he can Photoshop them to blend them with wedding day moments. 

Above all that wedding photographer will understand that he is there to serve this wedding and capture those special moments as they occur.  Sure, you may “pose” for a picture from time to time but this whole business of bringing the wedding day to a grinding halt to take stilted pictures of bored wedding party members will go out with the trash.  The outcome will be wedding pictures with style, with life and a lot of love in them to reflect the love that was exchanged in those vows and the love of family and friends as they enjoyed this magical day with you.

Most cameras have a 35- 80 mm lens, even the point and shoot type.  Often when you purchase a camera casing they will sell you the standard lens with it.  All lenses are interchangeable.  You do have to stick with the same brand of lenses as your camera and make sure the diameter is the same.  The diameter of most lenses is the same as long as you keep to the same brand.  The 35- 80 mm lens tells you the extent of reach.  While you can take photographs several miles away with a standard lens you will not have the distinction of features in the print that you need.  The standard lens is great for close up shots, such as flowers, spider webs, people, and pets.  To gain more defined picture miles away you need a larger lens.

There are many telephoto lenses in photography.  One is the 75- 300 mm lens.  While this is not as massive as other telephoto lenses you may see a professional walking around with it is a great step up for mountain and wildlife photography when your quarry is some distance away.  When you begin to move from the 35mm into something larger it is best to have a stabilizer with the lens.  A stabilizer will help you hold the camera steady for clear shots even if your hand moves a little bit.  When you move into the world of the telephoto lens you can by accessories to help with angles and light.

Photography in the world of panorama is another way to take spectacular landscape photos.  The panoramic lens allows you to widen the photograph, especially with a digital camera.  If there is a mountain range or glacier that you wish to get the whole picture without pasting them together in Photoshop the panoramic lens is the best way to go.  I’m sure you have seen landscapes with a panoramic view and wished you could have that option.  Even with film cameras you could have a panoramic lens to widen the photograph. 

All three lenses are just the icebergs on the use of lenses in photography.  Whether you are an amateur photographer or a budding professional you will want to maximize your photo taking skills.  The next equipment you may want to purchase to help you with the larger lenses would be a tripod to stabilize the camera even more.  Tripods are pretty simple and lightweight pieces of equipment and work great for portrait photography.  All mediums in photography require moderate to top of the line camera equipment to produce a photograph with quality.  Photography also relies on the photographer’s skill and eye.  Lenses are just a small part of the photography world when you start to study the art.  If you have any questions on lenses the best places to find answers are your local photography shop.

Still life expresses the photographers self while using in animate objects such as pottery, flowers, candles, leaves, and fruit.  The first step in still life photography is the lighting.  You will want the object to have light from a single direction, so that you can cast shadows as well as light on the object.  This will give it a depth of field, and dimension.  You will need to choose whether you want a soft or harsh light.  The more harsh the light the more shadow you will have.  Often in still life reflectors are used to tone the light down.  The best type of lighting for still life photography is side- lighting because you will attain more contrast between the object. 

With still life photography, you have color control.  You can choose the colors of the objects you use.  When choosing the colors say with leaves and fruits you will want a contrast in colors, but retain a natural look.  Harmony is the best word to use when attaining color control.  The color will attract the viewer’s eye, so if it is displeasing to you the chances are your viewers will find it just as displeasing.

With still life, you can choose an abstract motif.  You may choose to put two objects together that do not make sense, but create a moving picture.  You might have an interesting cut on fruit, such as a melon to reveal the inside core.  The angle of the cut and the meaning of the picture will require thought from the viewer. Some viewers see different from what another viewer might see. This happens in the art world daily. What one thinks represents art another finds unappealing. Never let these influence your dreams and stop you from becoming even better in your work as a photographer. 

You can also have control of variations.  You can use the same subject repeatedly with different backgrounds, arrangements, and other objects.  The key is to avoid clutter while creating contrast.  The rule of thirds of composition is a great way to utilize still life objects.  You can create a pattern based on the rule of thirds.  Setting up the arrangements and trying several shots will lead you to finding the harmony between the objects. 

You may think still life photography lacks the depth of other mediums; however, it can be used as a stepping-stone to greater photography.  Still life can include an arranged garden to please the eye or a natural look.  You can use natural light to offset the shadows and find the contrast.  Still life inside or outside creating the arrangements is just one way to find pictures you will wish to display or give to friends.  Remember lighting, color, and variations on arrangements will provide you will tons of subjects. 

Applications for still life photography can include taking photographs for magazines.  Often magazines have still life photos to show flower arrangements or decorating ideas for the home.  With the many choices in photography, still life takes a special eye for arranging objects and understanding lighting techniques.  With all of photography being art you need to pick the subjects that will speak most to you and make them speak to others. These types of pictures go well when deciding to sell your photos or display them for the public. All pictures whether you think it or not may be just what someone wants to display and may offer to buy it. This helps you start a real goldmine of a business if you feel confident with your work.

But that was certainly not the case.  Over the years we have seen black and white take on a new artistic value in both genres.  In fact, it is not at all unusual any more to see a very modern movie filmed entirely in black and white.  It is also common to visit a fine art museum and find a photographic art display that uses black and white extensively.  Black and white has some artistic and emotional qualities that are just not possible to achieve in color photography.

Probably the strongest quality that grabs the viewer with a black and white photo is its emotional power.  Even if the photo is just of an old barn or an antique car, there is an emotional appeal that is difficult to analyze in words but universal to all of us as we look at a black and white shot.  That is why black and white photos almost instantly take on an artistic look.  So if you are evolving your artistic photography style and portfolio, including some experimentation with black and white will do a lot to improve your work.

Black and white also focuses the eye on the emotional center of the piece.  Probably the best subject for black and white photography is the human face.  In even a tranquil expression, the viewer can see such a vast range of expression in the eyes, the tilt of the head, the subtle wrinkles or peculiarities of the face and the focus of the gaze. 

Black and white almost always invites the viewer to want to know about the story behind the picture.  If it’s a landscape, “What happened here?” is the question that often springs to the mind of the viewer and the longer they gaze at the photo, the more their imagination fills in the details.  If you are viewing the face of a serene or melancholy girl, it is almost impossible not to wonder what she is dreaming about or what of life’s issues is weighing on her mind.

Along with the emotional power and the way black and white compels the viewer to search for meaning, black and white carries with it a tremendous romantic power that touches the heart in a powerful way.  That romance can easily translate over to the sensual or even the erotic without having to become pornographic to achieve that effect.  Shots that are trying to evoke the power of sensuality and romance do well when they involve moisture or a water scene such as the beach.  Despite the lack of color, these colors appeal to the five senses in ways that color can never hope to achieve.

You can experiment with black and white and gather the responses of friends and family to learn how to utilize the subtle but powerful artistic nuances that seem to come with black and white photography almost unconsciously.  The digital camera has ushered in a whole new era of black and white photography.  You see the form used even in otherwise non artistic settings like wedding portfolios or anniversary pictures.  That is because of that emotional and romantic power that black and white conveys. 

If you have not started to experiment with black and white shots, it’s worth the time to learn how to capture the powerful images this type of photography can make possible.  Along with the creative use of light and framing, black and white gives itself well to editing that you can do with Photoshop to bring out the emotional center of each shot.  Before long, you may actually find your self seeing black and white shots in a color world.  Your awareness of what will make a great moment in this format will become acute and you will be ready to capture those moments spontaneously, which is always the best kind of photography.

Of course, art is a subjective thing.  Many people would look at a Jackson Pollack “splatter” artwork and determine most definitely that modern art is not art because it “doesn’t look like anything.”  And if you spend any time in the modern art world, you will definitely see something at some time along the way occupying space in a perfectly respectable art museum that, to you, could never be considered art.

So is it just a matter of opinion?  To some extent, yes.  But there is an art world and an industry behind it that depend on there being some standards upon which art is judged.  One such standard is the intent of the artist.  If you produce a photograph or an art work derived from a photograph that is intended to be viewed as art, then the viewer is obligated to try to see the artistic merit in it.  Whether the viewer sees that merit or not may depend on the viewer’s abilities, how good you are at getting your artistic message across or many other factors.

But just wanting something to be art doesn’t make it art does it?  As a layman in the art world, I sometimes go with the “I don’t know art but I know what I like” system of evaluating pieces I see.  Art, after all, has a tendency to touch us in another place that is above and beyond the image.  It is an emotional place, a place of reflection and understanding.  Maybe we would say it touches our “soul”.  For a work to be art, there should be a message, a feeling, a reason the artist made the work because he or she wanted to say something, even if how I interpret the statement is different than what the artist meant. 

So that might also be an evaluation of a photograph as to its artistic merit or not.  Now the primary objection to whether photography is art sometimes is that a photograph is often a realistic depiction of a moment taken with a machine and some would say that “anybody can take a picture.”  The implication is that the same mechanical skill it might take to paint a picture of sculpt a statue is not needed for photographic art.

It’s true that the mechanical skill that the guy at Wal-Mart might need to take baby pictures may be the same as a great photographic artist might need.  But the objection doesn’t hold up because the same human language is used to create great poetry as it takes yell out obscenities at a baseball game.  So it isn’t the skill that makes it art. 

Good evidence comes from the credit some great art experts have given to photographic exhibitions in the fine museums in the world.  The very fact that photography is considered art by those who know may be evidence enough.  So the conclusion must be that because the arguments against the artistic value of photographs are weak and people who know consider photography to be art, then we are safe in viewing what we do artistically too.  And that opens up that side of your soul to express yourself through the medium you love the most – photography.

So how do you know if the work you are doing in your photography business requires such releases?  After all, you would rather be safe than sorry and get releases from everybody you use as a subject than face a problem down the road.  But there is a downside to securing them if you are not sure.  That is the impression you create in the mind of your customer. 

If you primarily do portraits, weddings or other events where the intent of your work is to sell the photographs to the people being photographed, there is certainly no need for releases.   So long as you have no intention of ever using any of those photographs in a sale that will profit your business other than the original way, then you should be fine.

It is when you step over into that realm of photography in which you may be working with models to provide photographs for advertising, magazines, newspapers or any other purpose in which you are selling the images you have photographed for a profit, that is when a release is needed.  This area of professional photography is tremendously profitable because you are working at a higher tier of professionalism than photographing the public to provide them with portrait level pictures.  And because it is such a lucrative arena of professional photography, the competition to make those sales is stiff to be sure.

When you are working with professional models, securing their releases is pretty much part of the program and never a problem.  They are working for you and they know the photographs are for sale so their agents and lawyers do all the legwork so the releases are routine and understood.  But from your perspective, don’t let this detail go unattended to.  Your customers, those magazines or ad agencies who look to you for professional photography work, are assuming you have this covered and that they can count on you to deliver not only quality work but work that has been legally released to be used for promotion.

The complications come if you do your shoots in a public place such as a park, a mall or anywhere that there may be traffic that becomes part of the shot.  If you complete the shoot and discover that the perfect shot that fits your customers needs just right happens to have miscellaneous members of the public in the background, you have to have releases from them or you cannot sell that photograph.

You could think ahead and try to secure those releases on the spot.  But if the people you are trying to convince to sign such releases know you are going to use their images for profit, and you pretty much have to tell them, you get into another whole level of negotiation.  But you sure don’t want to have to blur their faces out on the shot.  You could Photoshop them out but that may lose the spontaneity of the shot.

It’s best to stage the shot from start to finish.  If you want traffic to be occurring around your model, bring in models who can do the job for you.  Any good modeling agency to provide you with “average looking” models to use for this purpose.  You will have to pay them but at least you know that the shot is clean.  Plus when you sell the shot, you are going to get questions about whether those models were paid and if you have releases on them too. 

You can find a standard release form on the web or your lawyer can help you develop one that covers the legalities you need handled but also reflects how you want to handle this issue.  But don’t let this issue slide through the cracks.  By protecting yourself, you can do good business and profitable business but above all, legal business in perusing your professional photography career.