starting your career as a portrait photographer

starting your career as a portrait photographer, how did you market yourself to get business?

By practicing with friends and family.

James Crockett wrote in post #18989673
starting your career as a portrait photographer, how did you market yourself to get business?

I'd strongly recommend joining Professional Photographers of America, which is all about the business and marketing of retail consumer photography. What they make available is unsurpassed anywhere, both in targeted information and networking for mentoring and peer contacts.

You can take a look at their magazine on ppmag.com

I'm in the process now of opening a studio in a new area, and I'll start with a technique I've used in the past. I've been checking out some upper-scale locally owned beauty salons and spas. Those are businesses that cater to my primary target market: Women with disposable income. Moreover, those are locations where those women will spend a lot of casual time.

I will arrange with the owners to display semi-glamor portraits of their favorite customers in their salons, free to both the salon owner and those particular customers. I will also mix in some "branding" type portraits because businesswomen frequent those locations as well.

This has worked very well for me in the past.

James Crockett wrote in post #18989673
starting your career as a portrait photographer, how did you market yourself to get business?

My first question is, are you an experienced portrait photographer?

If not, then you are placing the cart in front of the horse.

Classically portrait photography is about 'lighting' (which is not the same as 'illumination', and for individuals also about posing to not reveal physical limitations of the subject. For groups, it is also about how everyone stands and presents their hands to the lens, because there are some ugly body parts in the average person, that they wouldnprefer to not be accentuated in a portrait.
The business of portrait photography is about a lot of non-photographic things

• getting sample work that represents your style and craftmanship
  
• promoting your business
  
• determining your total costs associated with any portrait job
  
• pricing so that your costs are covered, you make a reasonalble return for your time, but not priced so high as to scare away the local clientele
  
• getting a business licence
  
• setting yourself up for collecting and submitting sales tax for your locale
  
• setting up a system of bookkeeping to track expenses and income, for your income tax preparation
  
• setting up necessary formalities if you have any paid help to conduct your business
  
• a business plan that can be used to prove your expectations for generation of profit, not merely a money losing hooby or tax write-off against other ordinary income.
  

IMO, two absolutely essential resources for a new photography marketer are:

1. A video blog called PhotoVision. It used to be distributed to its subscribers on DVDs, then digitally, and now they are a part of the PPA. For this resource alone, PPA is worth the price.

2. A marketing course from C.J.Lewis. He's one of the dinosaurs of the trade, he's ridiculously low-tech, his website is a crime against humanity… But his "Vault" course is absolutely timeless and can be adapted to any studio or technology.

Wilt wrote in post #19278719
The business of portrait photography is about a lot of non-photographic things

• getting sample work that represents your style and craftmanship
  
• promoting your business
  
• determining your total costs associated with any portrait job
  
• pricing so that your costs are covered, you make a reasonalble return for your time, but not priced so high as to scare away the local clientele
  
• getting a business licence
  
• setting yourself up for collecting and submitting sales tax for your locale
  
• setting up a system of bookkeeping to track expenses and income, for your income tax preparation
  
• setting up necessary formalities if you have any paid help to conduct your business
  
• a business plan that can be used to prove your expectations for generation of profit, not merely a money losing hooby or tax write-off against other ordinary income.
  

Good information,too many well intentioned people get into a business failing to understand what it takes to actually make a profit, having run and killed a few business's I can testify the best things a person who has never built a successful business can do is talk to a attorney who specializes in business law and a good accountant.

I have run into too many new people who think if the cost of my product is $10 and I sell it for $20, I'm making lots of money only to find out it doesn't work that way in the real world once major things things like overhead and tax's are factored in.

ttalbot wrote in post #19280176
2. A marketing course from C.J.Lewis. He's one of the dinosaurs of the trade, he's ridiculously low-tech, his website is a crime against humanity… But his "Vault" course is absolutely timeless and can be adapted to any studio or technology.

If one has decades of time to get to it through that disaster of a web page.

PPA education is outdated and so far behind with their technology. Hard to learn social media from a 10 year old video. You're better off finding workshops on your own, there are some good Facebook groups that teach social media marketing and have workshops to learn and continue to work with.

ShotByTom wrote in post #19307557
PPA education is outdated and so far behind with their technology. Hard to learn social media from a 10 year old video. You're better off finding workshops on your own, there are some good Facebook groups that teach social media marketing and have workshops to learn and continue to work with.

If the only way you're trying to learn is from YouTube videos, that might be true. But there are PPA webinars (both on Facebook and on the website for members) and in-person workshops going on all the time. There's also room for plenty of person-to-person networking and conversation, with common PPA membership being the door-opener.