The business of wedding photography is extremely hard work.

Simply being talented is no guarantee for success. 

Many hours and dollars go into the development of establishing  wedding photography business.

Not the Easy Life

If it was easy many more people could claim correctly to be professional full-time photographers. 

The fact that our line of work is difficult to succeed in makes it all the worthwhile.

Takes Time to Succeed

Clients and business referrals take years to cultivate.  First comes the business planning, the marketing, hopefully client enquiries, followed by wedding planning and consultation, managing bookings and balancing accounts, shooting weddings, backups, editing, book designing, up-selling, dealing with print orders, encouraging referrals and promotion.

Being Multi Skilled is a Must

Unless we have help from partners, family or hired help then photographers must excel at more than just the art of point and shoot.

We must be skilled at handling people, networking, social media, selling, account keeping, editing, IT skills, graphic design, administrating, organising, web designing, print handling and many more areas.

So many skills to master, yet one single mistake could prove devastating to your career’s future.

Failing in keeping your paperwork in order may result in a double booking or missing a wedding.

Failing stringent backup procedures and you may  lose irreplaceable image files.

Any of these nightmare scenarios may result in you being sued or your reputation all but completely destroyed.

Keep on Trying

Along the way small failures, a little doubt, various degrees of depressing moments, low cashflow will hit you at various times.

You will need to accept these times and learn from the experience on the whole.

Keep motivated and passionate, and above all else remain confident about what you do.

The trick is to turn all the failures into lessons and grow stronger, leaner and smarter.

Reality is What you Believe

Confidence will bring you everything. If you believe in yourself your clients will too.

If you love photography and the people and moments you capture you are likely to remain passionate and confident and you’ll learn to turn out even fresher and more beautiful wedding images.

 The confidence will jump to the subject you shoot and rub off on the prospective new clients you will most likely book.

Growing and Constantly Changing

Dedicate time weekly to sit back and surf for new ideas and inspiration.

When I look back on my weddings from the past I am amazed at my evolution both in shooting styles and editing technique.

Constant change is the only certainty in this industry. Don’t get left behind, in fact try to experiment and set some trends for others to follow!

You are not a Professional if you…

Don’t turn a profit

Don’t backup your images

Don’t have backup gear

Don’t have liability insurance

Setting Goals

Success is only measurable against the goals we set for ourselves.

So it is possible be a mum-at-home or hold a fulltime “day” job and still do 10 fantastic weddings a year.

If and when you change your goals to being a fulltime professional them the risks and rewards become much greater.

 

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