You find yourself admiring photographs, thinking to yourself that you would like to create imagery as well. Maybe you’ve moved beyond this stage and you’ve even invested in a camera and a lens or two. Maybe you are even ahead of this stage and you’ve already photographed a few friends and/or their families and you are ready to start a photography business because it’s been fun photographing people and you love the idea of being your own boss. Whatever stage you’re at, we’ve all been there. For me, this started in high school. I bought my first actual 35mm SLR, I believe it was a Minolta. This was before the days of cameras built into phones, so, unfortunately, I do not have proof of this. As the saying goes, “pics or it didn’t happen.” Well, I at least have pictures from the camera I once owned. My dream was to photograph sports, action sports specifically. The thrill of having a split second to capture the trick performed drove me. I desired it like crazy! After high school, I took some photography courses in college. Surprisingly, they actually helped with my photoshopping abilities. After a year of college, I realized my dream of becoming either an NBA player or a photographer at the X Games was a long shot and I moved on to other things. After Natasha and I got married, it was then that I realized people actually made a living doing photography outside of magazines like Sports Illustrated and National Geographic. I could do weddings. I mean, they were sort of similar to action sports in that you have just a split second to photograph a moment and then that moment is gone forever. Yes, I just compared action sports to weddings, I feel like I just blacklisted myself from both of those categories doing so.
This leads me to today. Looking back on the last nine years of photography, I realized it took me eight of those nine to finally figure out why I do what I do. Let me tell you, the feeling is not only freeing, but it’s so exciting and I have a newfound burst of energy to go after photography because I finally feel like I have vision and direction with where it’s going. This led me to think about all the educational resources I’ve taken part in throughout the years. I’ve done conferences, workshops, 1 on 1 sit-downs with some of the best in the industry, and online resources. Thousands of dollars poured into educational resources all hoping to answer one single question, even if I didn’t know I wanted to ask it… “Why?” Why do I want to do photography?
WHY?
I’m not going to go into my why in this post because this post is not about MY why, but rather encouraging you to answer your why. Why do you want to be a photographer? Why do you want to run a photography business? This is the most important question you can ask yourself because if you cannot answer this question, you’ll be roaming around the wilderness of photography, swinging from limb to limb, never really knowing where you’re going. You might find some success here and there, but chances are, you’ll just keep swinging and swinging until you get so tired that you quit. And it’s not because you weren’t good enough. It’s not that you didn’t know what you were doing. It’s because you never answer the simple question of why.
Answering this question won’t give you all the answers, nor will it ensure a successful business, but let me tell you from experience of swinging from limb to limb (to keep the analogy going). I did not know where I was truly going with my photography business until last year (2017). I shot my first wedding back in 2009! Eight years I wandered. I had a business plan (sort of). I had the education, the know-how, the tools, and the grind. However, I never answered my why. Again, I encourage you, answer this question, and you’ll make things so much easier on yourself moving forward with your photography business (or any business for that matter). I’m not going to go into how important this answer is, but one thing I will caution is that if your why is to make money, I fear that you will only be disappointed. Look at any highly successful entrepreneur, I would bet that very few or none of them started what made them wealthy for the purpose of becoming wealthy. Your why must have value, if it doesn’t, you’re going to have a hard time finding customers that find value in what you do.
If you read this entire thing, thank you! I’m going to try and do more business related blog posts and I thought this would be an appropriate one to start with. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’m happy to help others whenever I can. I believe that we, as photographers and business owners, are a community and the quickest way to grow is by helping one another out!
