Starting Out!

[WesleyHatfieldPhotography]

Okay, So I have recently decided to put my photography as my main career. I'm also a student at a photography school in Tennessee. I have teachers that work currently in this field! But I wanted a to get some advice from people outside of the school.

I have several questions for all photographers, amateurs or not. This is something i'm very curious about and need some critiques!

1. My website, if you could do anything to make it work for a photography page, as in do I need to move this link here, or do I need to make this a different color, ect ect?Wesley Hatfield Photography

2. Studio lighting, What is your setup for strobes and equipment?

3. Where to find jobs online, or even just the average newspaper?

4. My biggest question, in only personal opinion, Is this work enough for me to start going into the business. "No Harm no foul"

This is just a critique. I really need to know what I need to do to progress my business further.


Excuse the front page of the website, its still in a working state atm.

Thanks guys!
-Wesley

 

[tirediron]

1. (a) Your processing needs consistency. Your exposures are all over, you have a wide variety of white balances (are you working on a calibrated monitor?), and your images, especially the "location" gallery desperately need fill light.
(b) your prices don't make sense; what is the difference between a prom shoot, a personal shoot, and a senior portrait?
(c) what kind of wedding can you shoot for $450?

2. Speedotron pack head system;

3. Everywhere. I find jobs on Craig's List, I get referrals, I cold-call...

4. Depends on how much you need to live on? Do you know what the difference is between a professional photographer and a large pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four!

 

[WesleyHatfieldPhotography]

True! Yea I defiantly need help on location, I just recently have been able to get me a strobe kit and a vega pack so I should be getting some better fill light. See A Lot of my location shots are done on a PC uncalibrated monitor. I have a Macbook Pro now which all my Studio shots are calibrated images.

Thanks for the Critque!

 

[vfotog]

Okay, So I have recently decided to put my photography as my main career. I'm also a student at a photography school in Tennessee. I have teachers that work currently in this field! But I wanted a to get some advice from people outside of the school.

I have several questions for all photographers, amateurs or not. This is something i'm very curious about and need some critiques!

1. My website, if you could do anything to make it work for a photography page, as in do I need to move this link here, or do I need to make this a different color, ect ect?Wesley Hatfield Photography

2. Studio lighting, What is your setup for strobes and equipment?

3. Where to find jobs online, or even just the average newspaper?

4. My biggest question, in only personal opinion, Is this work enough for me to start going into the business. "No Harm no foul"

This is just a critique. I really need to know what I need to do to progress my business further.


Excuse the front page of the website, its still in a working state atm.

Thanks guys!
-Wesley

1. (a) Your processing needs consistency. Your exposures are all over, you have a wide variety of white balances (are you working on a calibrated monitor?), and your images, especially the "location" gallery desperately need fill light.
(b) your prices don't make sense; what is the difference between a prom shoot, a personal shoot, and a senior portrait?
(c) what kind of wedding can you shoot for $450?

2. Speedotron pack head system;

3. Everywhere. I find jobs on Craig's List, I get referrals, I cold-call...

4. Depends on how much you need to live on? Do you know what the difference is between a professional photographer and a large pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four!

tirediron had some good comments. in addition to your pricing and exposures... really LOOK at your images for the details. where are the shadows falling? look at the wrinkles in some of the clothing. It's not flattering. If the exposures are off, some of these could be improved in post. Learn to do that. Also, your cropping is too similar from image to image. There isn't one true portrait/headshot in the bunch. Variety keeps things interesting. Also, reread and have someone proofread your copy. There are spelling and punctuation issues on the "about" page that need to be corrected. You're not ready yet to set up shop. Photography is a challenging field to make a living in. If your school has some business classes, take them. If not, a community college nearby may have something useful.

 

[rexbobcat]

1. I agree that there is a lack of consistency in your photos. Although it's not necessary to have a cookie cutter template for your photos, and you can use different processing/photo-taking techniques, it's important that your photos look like they could have been taken by one person. Clients like some degree of predictability. What can help this is by settling on what types of photography you want to market. Looking at your portfolio, there seem t be fine art shots, modeling photos, seniors, and lifestyle photos. It would be difficult to reconcile a consistent look among all those genres, so it might be helpful to narrow it down a bit.

2. I use Alienbees. They're monolights, meaning they don't require a battery pack and can run off of a regular wall outlet, but they're a great value for the money. Now, if you really want to get serious, there's a more heavy-duty version, Einstein, that is more versatile and reliable. You should also look into cheap speedlights. Yongnuo makes good little flashes that are relatively cheap and are comparable to name brand flashes. While these flashes don't pack the punch of monolights or power pack flashes, they are very durable and portable. You can pack them easily and they run off of AA batteries, so now need to drag a bunch of cords around. The downsides, however, are that, in order to use them on location you might need multiple flashes to equal the power of a studio flash, an you'll need to buy adapters to use different flash modifiers (softboxes, octoboxes, beauty dishes, etc...)

3. This really depends on your area and the market you're looking in. For editorial work, it can be as easy as emailing the photography editor of a magazine, or it can be as tedious as getting on an email list and waiting for the magazine to send out what are essentially calls for images, so you can contact them and hopefully have what they're looking for. Newspapers are a little tricky since many already have go-to photographers that they like to use because they know they can trust them to get the images they need. If you're just looking for general portrait work, it pays to have a good trail of referrals. Word-of-mouth is one of the most important tools for many photographers. People trust other people more than they trust advertisements. You might give incentives for it. Like, for every referral, the person doing the referring gets a shoot half-off...or something.

4. Um...it depends on what work you're speaking of. Your on location photos really need work. Mid-day sun is awful for portraits unless you have the right modifiers/location, and some of the compositions are very stiff and awkward. Watch your backgrounds, lighting and posing, so that they become so seamless that people only see a wonderful portrait and not all the parts that are trying to come together to make it work. Several of your studio portraits are actually pretty nice. I don't know if you've studied lighting techniques/theory, but you've got some nice setups. If all the photos in your portfolio were like the ones of the skateboarder, I would say you were almost there. Once again, however, there are still some issues with posing. The first portrait of the woman from April 29 (the one throwing the tape in the air), for example, really says to me "I don't feel comfortable and I don't know what to do with my arms." Even if she was perfectly fine during the shoot, that's what is communicated to me through her pose and expression. Some people are natural "posers," and when I do find those people it's a sigh of relief, but most people don't know how they look without a mirror, so they require extensive coaching to get them there.

This is just my opinions on the issues you brought up. I'm more semi-pro than anything, so I wouldn't take what I have to say as the end-all-be-all of advice. Just some things to maybe think about.

 

[dennybeall]

Some very good information shared in a useable way, it's nice to see.
My comment would be that just about every new photographer has trouble with light, because photography is about light. You've made a good start, just need to ramp it up a bit.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I would suggest you get out with your camera and practice just getting photos with proper exposures so when you get out there with subjects you'll know how to set your camera properly for the existing light. You seem to have some good ideas for photos (like the one of the woman in B&W striped dress against the comics background), but need to check before you take a picture to make sure the hair is arranged, wrinkles in clothing are smoothed or other clothing options are available, etc.

It seems like you need to work on the technical aspects of photography. Since you're in school you might want to ask there for resources along with your classes to help you improve. I saw the school mentioned on your site and most technical or career schools offer 2 yr. associate degrees or 1 year certificates for various types of technical work. I'm not sure that there are all that many existing photography jobs out there, and if anything requires a Bachelor's degree it would need to be from a university accredited as higher learning not a career/tech school. The university near me has photography as one of their few mandatory dual majors with business as the other recommended major (so graduates can be more likely to find jobs).

Seems like for this to be successful you'll need to develop good consistent quality that is competitive with other photographers in your area, and learn marketing and other business skills. Try American Society of Media Photographers or PPA to get some idea what's involved in being a professional photographer.

 

[WesleyHatfieldPhotography]

Thank you guys so much for the advice! My school im going for is a 4 year Bachelors degree in photography and will not let us have dual majors sadly! So I would probably have to go after I finished my 4 year. Ill tell you, the biggest 2 challenges I have faced. Now being in the studio with professional grade lights, then going outside with no strobes "Cause im broke" And being able to work with natural lighting. Then posing my models, I'm a nervous person and it is something i've tried to get over, but just can not jump over that hill just yet I guess. Thank you guys!

 

[WesleyHatfieldPhotography]

1. I agree that there is a lack of consistency in your photos. Although it's not necessary to have a cookie cutter template for your photos, and you can use different processing/photo-taking techniques, it's important that your photos look like they could have been taken by one person. Clients like some degree of predictability. What can help this is by settling on what types of photography you want to market. Looking at your portfolio, there seem t be fine art shots, modeling photos, seniors, and lifestyle photos. It would be difficult to reconcile a consistent look among all those genres, so it might be helpful to narrow it down a bit.

2. I use Alienbees. They're monolights, meaning they don't require a battery pack and can run off of a regular wall outlet, but they're a great value for the money. Now, if you really want to get serious, there's a more heavy-duty version, Einstein, that is more versatile and reliable. You should also look into cheap speedlights. Yongnuo makes good little flashes that are relatively cheap and are comparable to name brand flashes. While these flashes don't pack the punch of monolights or power pack flashes, they are very durable and portable. You can pack them easily and they run off of AA batteries, so now need to drag a bunch of cords around. The downsides, however, are that, in order to use them on location you might need multiple flashes to equal the power of a studio flash, an you'll need to buy adapters to use different flash modifiers (softboxes, octoboxes, beauty dishes, etc...)

3. This really depends on your area and the market you're looking in. For editorial work, it can be as easy as emailing the photography editor of a magazine, or it can be as tedious as getting on an email list and waiting for the magazine to send out what are essentially calls for images, so you can contact them and hopefully have what they're looking for. Newspapers are a little tricky since many already have go-to photographers that they like to use because they know they can trust them to get the images they need. If you're just looking for general portrait work, it pays to have a good trail of referrals. Word-of-mouth is one of the most important tools for many photographers. People trust other people more than they trust advertisements. You might give incentives for it. Like, for every referral, the person doing the referring gets a shoot half-off...or something.

4. Um...it depends on what work you're speaking of. Your on location photos really need work. Mid-day sun is awful for portraits unless you have the right modifiers/location, and some of the compositions are very stiff and awkward. Watch your backgrounds, lighting and posing, so that they become so seamless that people only see a wonderful portrait and not all the parts that are trying to come together to make it work. Several of your studio portraits are actually pretty nice. I don't know if you've studied lighting techniques/theory, but you've got some nice setups. If all the photos in your portfolio were like the ones of the skateboarder, I would say you were almost there. Once again, however, there are still some issues with posing. The first portrait of the woman from April 29 (the one throwing the tape in the air), for example, really says to me "I don't feel comfortable and I don't know what to do with my arms." Even if she was perfectly fine during the shoot, that's what is communicated to me through her pose and expression. Some people are natural "posers," and when I do find those people it's a sigh of relief, but most people don't know how they look without a mirror, so they require extensive coaching to get them there.

This is just my opinions on the issues you brought up. I'm more semi-pro than anything, so I wouldn't take what I have to say as the end-all-be-all of advice. Just some things to maybe think about.

Sorry to double post but I accidentally skipped over a post. Thank you so much for the good advice. I have taken a basic studio lighting class! That was a big issue with me is posing. Thats the hardest subject for me. But the skateboarder was the newest one. I haven't really got out for about a year now, since i'm in school, so those are some pretty old shots! The redhead, the very first ones on the on location page is really the only ones that I have done recently. Honestly, most of those shots from on location, Were before I got in school. But! if i could go back, they would have been done WAY differently. I would have probably used a pop-up reflector, or rented Alien bees with a shoot-through umbrella outside.

Thanks!

 

[Raven18]

I am just going to discuss the wedding pricing...
Trying to look at it from a customers POV.

Wedding $700, 50 images, two CDs, access to the photos online, 30 prints.
You don't have any wedding photos. The photo displayed for the wedding price is not a wedding photo. I would suggest to not offer weddings for pay yet.
50 images is nothing for a wedding.
Why two CDs for 50 images? Are you delivering raw files? You should just get 4gb flash drives to deliver the files if you want that.

I also am not going to offer to do weddings yet, I am shadowing and second shooting weddings with some pros in my city until I gain more experience. I would suggest the same for you.
Weddings are huge and you don't want to disappoint, especially if you are going to be paid a decent amount.

 

[WesleyHatfieldPhotography]

Raven you are completely right! But I always have had a 4 shooters with me with every wedding ive ever done. But I honestly had no idea where to even start with my pricing for weddings!