Photo Buisness???

[Nanogeek815]

Hello,
I'm a student in a local high school, have taken photography, and advanced photography, and currently I am in advanced placement photography and love film photography. I had sold some of my digital photos and had a small buisness with that but what to do film as well as a little digital. My teacher lately told me that I should look into selling my work. I was wondering a few things about starting a photography buisness,

1) What should I look at for pricing? film? digital?

2) Website, what is the cheapest, best bet???

3) should I do matted only, matted and framed only, prints only, combination?? any ideas?

Thanks guys I apriciated all the help I can get.

 

[CSR Studio]

You should go and get a degree in business or at least work for a photographer first. It is tough to start a business but it is even tougher without any work contacts and networks and coming right out of high school. You need to set that as a goal and persue it but opening it right away would be a mistake. Get as much education and training in photography and business as you can. Do you know how to make a business model? If you want it to be successful take it slow. Go to college or assist while you network.

 

[KmH]

Hello,
I'm a student in a local high school, have taken photography, and advanced photography, and currently I am in advanced placement photography and love film photography. I had sold some of my digital photos and had a small buisness with that but what to do film as well as a little digital. My teacher lately told me that I should look into selling my work. I was wondering a few things about starting a photography buisness,

1) What should I look at for pricing? film? digital?

2) Website, what is the cheapest, best bet???

3) should I do matted only, matted and framed only, prints only, combination?? any ideas?

Thanks guys I apriciated all the help I can get.

You should be asking your teacher these questions.

There are 3 main types of sellable photography:

• Commercial, which is images for advertising and business promotion like annual reports, brochures and employeed headshots.
• Editorial, which is non-advertising/promotion images used in magazines, books, newspapers, etc.
• Retail, which includes individual, family, child, pet, senior portraiture, art images, landscapes, abstracts, etc.

The type of images you make will have a lot to do with pricing, method of presentation, type of web site and what type of customer you will want to market to.

So, what do you make images of?

 

[Nanogeek815]

I want to do art photography like landscapes and such and would obviously be open to shooting portraits and animals aqnd such. I'm a junior in high school so I would just be attending craft / art fairs and a website.

 

[KmH]

I want to do art photography like landscapes and such and would obviously be open to shooting portraits and animals aqnd such. I'm a junior in high school so I would just be attending craft / art fairs and a website.

Ok, Craft and Art fairs. Mat and bag most of what you're selling. Have your on the walls display pieces matted and framed. Your sellable mat and bagged stock will be in print racks for people to look through and you should offer different sizes.

Your investment in a quality basic display setup will be about $1500, not counting the print/mat/bag and framing costs of your sellable and display images and a way to haul it all around.

Zenfolio is a good website that is only $100 a year for a pro account. You can set your own prices and offer a range of products including framing. You can choose to have Zenfolio and it's B2B partner Mpix.com do the fullfilment for a 12% cut or do the fullfilment yourself for a smaller 4% per sale fee to Zenfolio.

 

[HikinMike]

I want to do art photography like landscapes and such and would obviously be open to shooting portraits and animals aqnd such. I'm a junior in high school so I would just be attending craft / art fairs and a website.

I only do nature/landscape and I've done some Arts and Craft shows. I've posted this on other forums:

Here's my list of my vendors:
Prints - Mpix
Greeting Cards - Photograper's Edge
Card Display - Card Display
Mats, Frames, Clear Bags - Documounts
Print Racks - Jerry's Artarama
Canopy (10 x 10) - Caravan
Mesh Walls (pricey, but worth it) - Flourish

Here's my booth:

 

[jubb]

Some business classes and reading a few books on designing business plans would probably be very helpful. Since your young and can probably pick stuff up relatively quickly, I would recommend getting into webdesign and graphic design as much as possible as these are very nice adjuncts to a working photographer and save you money on having to hire others. I would recommend not taking any loans or anything for your business. Just reinvest every penny you make back into your business.

 

[CSR Studio]

Some business classes and reading a few books on designing business plans would probably be very helpful. Since your young and can probably pick stuff up relatively quickly, I would recommend getting into webdesign and graphic design as much as possible as these are very nice adjuncts to a working photographer and save you money on having to hire others. I would recommend not taking any loans or anything for your business. Just reinvest every penny you make back into your business.

Jubb, I tried as well. It seems that Nanogeek wants to take a few pictures and get paid for it and not really open a business. So, it looks like HikinMike has them all taken care of. Good luck Nanogeek.

 

[STOFFEL]

However you envision your future in photography, if you're going to make money at it, you're likely to start your own business, there is a few on the market, try going through Shutterbug or one of those types of publications they have Vendors advertising all the time. I use Quickbooks Pro, then downloaded templates of the net for photographers and tweaked them to my own specs its a great program and very worth the money if you are trying to run a business, even a small one. I dont use half of what it can do, but just the client database, invoicing and price quoting are worth the price, all the other stuff is just gravy.