For as long as I could remember, I always had a camera with me. When I was six years old on a family vacation in Louisiana, I was taking pictures of the alligators that I saw in the swamp we were touring. Once the pictures were developed, I remember my grandfather, who was a photographer in his younger years, saying “a six-year-old should not be able to take pictures this well”. On our many trips around the world, I was the one who was always behind the camera, never in front of it. At a cowboy museum in Wyoming, I got down on the ground, under a statue of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco, to take a picture from an angle that people wouldn’t think about. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, I laid on my stomach to take a picture of an anchor on the waterfront that was covered in rust.
Somewhere in my Sophomore year of college, I decided that I wanted to start doing photography to help pay some of my tuition. I did all the things you were supposed to when starting a business. I had already taken photography classes and technically become a professional and certified photographer. Heck, I had won an award in an international photography competition. I was ready to start!
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I got my name out there. My best friend whom I had taken senior pictures for in high school, showcased her photos on her Facebook wall, and I got my first booking! I was so excited! We made the necessary arrangements to meet at the local park. The day came and I was ready! The photoshoot went perfectly! The client was so happy with the way everything turned out. She chose her print package, I sent the pictures off to be printed, and she was ecstatic! I ended up getting two more bookings off her sharing the pictures.
Soon, I had two or three photoshoots a day for two weeks straight, and Saturdays I sometimes had five. The clients were so happy with the work, but some started asking if they could have edited pictures, well of course, I thought. So I started putting editing time into my schedule.
I was almost completely new to the kind of editing that the clients wanted, but I vowed to learn and do my best. I joined some Facebook groups for photographers. I quickly realized that I was nowhere near the level that these photographers were, but I wanted to do better, so I would learn.
I must disclaim this next part with the motto on my Facebook page I had set up to showcase my work was “just because something is usually expensive, doesn’t mean it always has to be”.
A question about taxes came up in the group. I mentioned my sitting fee, the travelling I do, and any other fees that might apply, and how I paid my taxes. My comment blew up with replies of angry photographers. Did you pay taxes? Um, well, yeah, of course I did. Who do you use to print your pictures? I use a private printer. Do you have insurance? Yeah…? I didn’t understand where these questions were coming from. Within minutes, it went from my comment having fifty replies, to my business page being bombarded with hateful comments about my prices, and even a few comments about my clients who didn’t deserve to even have pictures taken of them because they were so ugly. Or why I took pictures of the child with Down Syndrome, or why I put a bid into to take pictures of a wedding of a same-sex couple.
I was told that I was undercharging my clients by several of the “professional photographers” that were bombarding my business page. No, I was not undercharging them. I was charging them what I thought would be affordable to them. The reason that some of these people had not had any professional pictures of their children was because they couldn’t afford the $500 sitting fee that most photographers charge in my area, but my fee they could afford, and they would get the pictures they always wanted. The Christmas cards they wanted. The wallet size prints to show off their grandkids. They got those because of me, not because of the $500 sitting fee that would take them months to pay off, and that isn’t even including the prints they would want.
I took the issue to my support group the next week, as it was laying heavy on my heart. “The world needs more people like you”. “Keep doing what you’re doing and bringing joy to those people”. I felt confident that I knew what I was doing, and I was helping the people in my community.
I was not accepted into “the world of professional photographers”. Who cares? I was making people happy with the high quality pictures that they were getting of their children.
So what did I learn when I started doing photography for a profit? My “profit” wasn’t of monetary value, it was of emotional value. I was giving people something they had wanted for years that they could never afford. But then someone came along and could give them what they wanted. I did that.
