Starting Your Own Home Photography Business

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Lara Blair, and I own Lara Blair Images Portrait Studio in Camas, Washington, and today I'm going to talk to you about creating your own home photography business. The first thing you need to do is to learn how to work your camera, read your manual from front to back so that you're completely comfortable with all the operations with your camera. I highly suggest going to a class that you have locally, like at a community college, or even a work shop, in the United States, there are lots of wonderful photographers who charge roughly five hundred to a thousand dollars for a really intense course that you would go to for three, or four days where you can learn all the basics of how to start a business. That's a great way to go. Online, there are tons of sites that teach you the basics. You need to understand F stops, shutter speeds. I think a lot of people just expect to go right in to the business with out really knowing the basics of photography, and honestly, people want to buy portraits that are accurate in terms of exposure and composition. Learning all those things from a photography teacher, like I said, at a community college, would be a great way to start. And then from there, when you really, really have it under your belt, and you feel like you're comfortable with your camera, and you're comfortable with photography in general, then you start going out in to your community and you offer to take pictures of people for free. That's a great way to start. Say, I'm starting a business, I need to build a portfolio, that's a really nice term to use, because it's professional sounding, and you bring the people in to your home, if, if you do not have lights, because that's something you're going to have to learn as well, you can shoot by window light. Set up a piece of fabric, or something that you're comfortable with for a back drop, sit next to it, put your subject next to a window, and reflect a little bit light with a white sheet, or even a piece of tin foil, you can start really basic in the beginning, and take pictures, and practice. Play with the light, practice interacting with children. Children can be difficult at different times of the day, learn what times of day are good to shoot, like don't shoot near nap time, don't shoot when they're hungry. Talk to the parents, get a word of mouth going, so when you start to get better and better, and your pictures start to get better and better, women will talk, moms talk to each other. It's a really great way to start. And from there, you start your marketing of your business. You'd have to decide, is it going to be something you want to do in your home, or do you want to take it out of your house. A lot of photographers do both, and they both work, but you have to understand, when people come in to your home, it has to be clean, you have to look the part for what you're charging. Deciding on prices is something that you can really learn about on ilovephotography.com, and other websites. I swear, if you just plunk in portrait photography, a million sites will pop up. There are a lot of moms becoming photographers these days, that's a great place to start. And then after you've gotten your marketing going, and you're really starting to get some momentum, understand that you can't do it all by yourself, and this is a big mistake that a lot of photographers make. You just get burned out. You're editing the images in Photo Shop, that's another thing that you really have to have down pretty well. There's some great Photo Shop classes you can take at community colleges in the area, where ever you are, it's a huge thing right now. There are a lot of great books on the market, you can go on Amazon.com, plunk in Photo Shop skills, a million books will pop up, and that's a great way to start. From there, talk to the people that you might want to help you out, you know, a little assistant to come in and help you. Even if it's just doing errands and delivering packages, or packaging things, because the last thing you want to do at night, after you're been shooting and editing all day, is package your portraits. Great way to start, some people will work just for the experience to be working with you, as you get better and better in your photography career, they want to learn from you. Some basic equipment that you're going to want to have to start this new career that you've got going on, obviously is a camera. You want to figure out which, which camera you want to go with. Nikon is obviously one a lot of people know about, Canon, Pentax. There are lots of cameras right now in the thousand dollar range that would be just fine, or even the six hundred, seven hundred dollar range. Don't go hog wild, because a lot of times, the camera's get better and better, and you will want to upgrade as you go. A tripod is really important, especially if you're shooting inside with window light, because it's low light, you're going to have a low shutter speed, you don't want your camera to shake, so a really good tripod. You can get all of these things online. B and H is a great place to order stuff, you can get stuff at local camera shops. I recommend getting to know someone in your area who sells camera equipment, and befriending them, and talking about what's, what's new, what works for other photographers, and that way you can, you know, kind of build your equipment as you go. If you want to do lights, that's another whole can of worms. You need to do some research first about lighting. You can use one light, and one reflector to really do a lot of great pictures. And make sure that it's not over the top expensive, because again, you're going to want to upgrade later on. So, the main thing is, you've got to understand that camera, really be comfortable with shooting, look at other photographer's websites that appeal to you, what kind of style. Find your own style, it's really important to not imitate others. Imitating others in the beginning, when you're playing around is fine, but when you're really selling your stuff, have your own style. And then from there, market yourself like crazy, word of mouth is the best way to go. And then from that, decide where you wan to do it, either out of your home, or in your home, and you're, you're on your way."