Advice for photography business

[deana]

Hi,

I am somewhat new to photography and plan on starting a business so I need any advice. It seems as if every photographer knows much about computers. I was looking into starting my own web page with dreamweaver but then I get so confused with php ftp mysql and all this stuff. Can someone please tell me what I need to learn and what I need. Also interested in knowing how everyone learned so much. Did you all take classes or just figure things out on your own? I am also looking for advice for setting up a computer and printing on site at events. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Much,

Deana

[Vegas Poboy]

I learned about computers by reading and building my own during the big dot.com explosion. Don't have time or the $$$ to learn or put together my own website So I paid someone to put it together for me. $500.00 wasa great deal plus $20.00 a month hosting.
The photography & learning the business I go to school & it's help greatly. Good luck photography is cheap to get into but if you don't leearn your market it can break you.

[Jon]

Knowing about a computer for processing your photos and knowing about a computer to prepare a web page are two entirely different things. Image processing is one of the essential tools of the trade - you can contract it out, but you'll need to find a top-notch specialist and work with them for quite a while before they'll be able to deliver exactly what you were going for without a lot of back-and-forth. Developing a web site is basically setting up an advertisement. A skilled professional should be able to quickly find out what you want to accomplish and what image you want to project. It's more like accounting in that sense - a necessary task, but not something that you personally need to do.