This poll is not really intended to find how you sold your first picture. Selling an image or two is a pretty easy thing. For those of you that make your living with a camera, how did you get your start?
I had always been tooling around with a camera and my wife was going to a fitness related conference (along with about 20 other instructors from our local gym) and she called the marketing director of the conference to see if I could shoot her and the other women taking certification classes... the director said "sure..oh and btw...would he shoot the entire conference?"
It was unpaid..and when I arrived, I discovered they already had an event photographer on site...but they had not been pleased with that photog's work..it was a very uncomfortable situation but I made the best of it.
Now I have a paid annual contract with that company.
I joined the Navy, because the Naval Schools of Photography (back in the 1980s) was considered second only to Brooks for photography. I spent twenty years in the Navy as a combat camera photojournalist: working in stills and video.
I started my own sports photography company 6 years ago.
I have a BFA in illustration and a minor in advertising and worked as a designer/illustrator for 25 years. I always used photography in my business but eventually decided to turn in my paints, brushes, pencils, markers and airbrushes
and make a lateral move as a full-time professional photographer/designer.
I have more work now than I can handle and the business keeps growing with daily requests for school photography, events, senior/family portraits and sports coverage....team, individuals and action...in addition to commercial assignments.
There's tons of work out there...with just too many educated and talented photographers waiting around for the phone to ring or to be discovered or are just uninspired to go out and hustle.
