Don't be afraid of being "that photographer" if your circumstances allow it. It is how I got to where I am today.
Could you have not made it as a photographer if you weren't that photographer? You probably would have still made it if you went about it another way. Just like I took another path and probably could have still made it.
Thomas Campbell, I am afraid you are making some very broad assumptions of my product, knowledge and service.
I am not. I am responding to your statements and common business sense.
I came here for advice, not to be told I should give up my business.
And if you would get over yourself, you would see the advice. You are not running a sustainable business. What you are doing is hurting yourself in the short term and in the long term. You need to adjust your business practices.
I am increasing my prices because I am becoming more and more popular so your argument is irrelevant.
That made no sense at all.
However, In my first year of official business, I will not charge $400+ regardless of talent or results like I said above.
That is a poor business decision. What year of business you are in is completely irrelevant to the quality of work you can produce. I know people that could put us all to shame that shoot for fun and not for money. If they wanted to make money at it, they would be making well over a thousand for a shoot.
It seems that those willing to embrace the digital era are succeeding while many others spend too often complaining about it.
I fully embrace the digital era. But I also know how to run a business and you clearly don't.
Snubbing those who offer images on disc is not helping you gain any more business.
I'm telling you how to run a profitable business. If you aren't interested in that, it is no skin off my back. But you are the one that came here to ask that. But apparently, you just came on here to seek validation on the decisions you already made.
If that threatens other professionals then I think they need to rethink their business model, not mine.
When you start running a profitable business (as I do) you can start lecturing people on how to run a business. When you are giving away dozens of pics on disc for a couple hundred dollars and think you are the ****, you arejust another photographer with their hands over their ears while getting solid business advice.
You are never going to have a profitable, well run business by doing what you are doing. If you are willing to ignore the people that have made it as a professional photographer and talking down to them when it is clear you don't know what you are doing, I have a lot of confidence that you won't be in business in 5 years.
If you want to be successful, it is all about attitude and business saavy. From your comments here, it appears you are poor in each. You aren't threatening anyone. There are thousands more just like you.