Fingerstyle78 Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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glort wrote:
If you are even thinking of gear at this point, you are already on the road to failure.
What you should be considering is how you are going to write your business and marketing plans, what your target market is going to be, how you are going to get clients in the door, who you are going to appraoach for referals, what your advertisng budget is and where are you going to spend it, what the competition is like in your area, what your price point is going to be, What your USP will be, how much it's going to cost to set up your business and register it, what your first quarterly budgets look like, how long is it going to take you to edit the images, are you going to do albums, digital files or both? how many packages are you going to offer? what sort of research have you done into the local market and what do the numbers and demographics tell you, have you got an area at home to see people, do you need to set it up, what furniture or equipment do you need there?..... and so it goes.
Most of all you should consider the most important question of all......
Why would someone book you over the competition?
If you think any of this is unessacary or boring or you are going to worry about that stuff once you get on your feet, forget the idea of going into any business for yourself and start looking for a job to utilise the no doubt valueable skills you already have.
Worrying about gear at this point is just crazy. There is so much more you ought to be concerned with.
If I had to go shoot a wedding tomorrow with what you have, I wouldn't be worried even though I'm totaly unfamilliar with it being a canon shooter. You would well know, you adapt and overcome and use what you have at your disposal. You have enough gear to do a wedding already and when you book your first one, the deposit will pay for you to get the backup body you need. OR will it?
Therefore, the problem is not gear but rather getting the work in.
You would well know there is a lot more to a milatary operation than what weapons the personell are carrying and it's the same with being a photographer, Plumber, Chimminey sweep or any other business you can think of.
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What I am asking for is the minimum gear that I need to get a start. I don't want to have holes in my kit and at this point I know my camera and my gear and I have a couple weddings booked over the next few months. I just want to be sure that I am adequately prepared so that I can deliver a product that I can be proud of and add to my portfolio. These are very important days for the clients and I need to know that I have all my bases covered.
My main concern is poor lighting at venues in Alaska. Shooting outdoors is no problem and the weddings are all outdoors at this point. What I'd like to do is be a second shooter but there are so few photographers here that it's very hard to find those opportunities. I have no problem with working hard or post processing, this is a new aspect of photography for me and I am just looking for tips from people that are doing it now as pros, things I may have not considered. My price point is very low at this point as I am new to this and I'm looking to build a wedding portfolio. I know I can take great photos given adequate lighting and create a product that clients will love. I'm just a bit apprehensive about charging $1K if there are things that I am not considering.
At this point I am offering a very basic package of digital images delivered at a low price point ($500) as I have a full time job for the time being and I am really just looking for experience. As I grow into the business I intend to expand that as well as the price points. This is also a concern. Being in Alaska for now I feel that this is ok starting out as there is a dearth of capable wedding photographers in the area and a ton of weddings.
Any insight into starting a full time business is appreciated, be it gear/kit related or accounting advice etc. I don't plan on spending much more on gear at this time unless it's absolutely needed. Currently I do portraits, senior pictures, wildlife and a lot of landscape/aurora shooting. My hope is to open a studio and expand into weddings in NY. Thanks for the response, I take all advice very seriously as I want my business to be successful and learning from other people's experiences is very important to me as I hope to avoid mistakes made by others if at all possible.
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