What will poor McNally do if the young Jarvis takes everything over from him?

I found the video on John Harrington’s blog. Check it out for an other one.

I know that many people start blogging just about anything like I did with photography almost two and a half year ago: without much of experience and knowledge. And when lack of knowledge goes hand-in-hand with rock solid confidence and, I wouldn’t question that part, really hard work and enthusiasm, that very rarely results lasting quality.

Learning about the business aspects of photography has never been as easy as it is today and, due to the just explained reasons, never has required as much cautious pre-selection as today.

I am pretty sure that pieces of advice like make a great logo, have you business card printed and network, network, network is not the way to go and build a photography business. And I think that “hating your job intensely, is not a business plan” and also that “Hope is Not a Method“.

However, I believe – not proven yet though – that in some part of the world a method that scares the shit out of the artistic souls, namely cold calls done for hunting clients is way more efficient than networking and marketing and, uh, writing a blog. And I am absolutely certain too that a photography business owner must be aware of her/his Cost of Doing Business (CODB for short).

And if you are still with me let your patience and tenancy pay off now: I recommend a book that was written by a photographer being in business for more than ten years. It’s about best business practices in photography written by John Harrington.
The cornerstone mantra of the book is:
“I am a profitable business and must remain so. If I am not, I’ll be waiting tables soon.”
This mantra has not been written with disrespect to wait staff anywhere. It is rather an extremely important basis of business strategy that should be supported by each and every tactical decision.

John kind of starts in the Chapter 2 of the book why pro photographers must use pro gear from camera bodies, through computers to lighting equipment. That was the point I started to like the book.

He writes about the differences between and advantages and disadvantages of working with employees and contractors. Hey, this might not be something you’d expect to read in the third chapter of a book about photography, right? But it is about photography business. So, pricing your work is also discussed and this is where the Cost of Doing Business calculator is mentioned. Just like whether the creative and usage fees of photographs should appear as a single item on the estimate or offer, or as two separate items. A few other points are also talked about in the pricing section, like: “Never be the cheapest”, when to work for free and why work-made-for-hire is bad.

Still in the context of the financial part of doing photography business retirement plans are brought up. Most people hiring photographers to provide photography services are having retirement plans. Why shouldn’t we have?
Insurances are related to the sustainability of you as an individual and a business as well. Health, life and disability insurance is about the individual, while camera, office and liability insurance is about the business. Have you ever considered insurances as ways to help you stay in business?

And accounting, oh dear. You love that, right? Not that much? Nevertheless, you need to deal with it or at least understand some aspects of it if you hire an accountant.

Necessary format and content of different contracts are discussed at great length and detail in the book. The differences between contracts of commercial and corporate photography, the content of wedding photography contracts and the like are listed with sample contracts and even case studies.

Other topics in the book are: how to negotiate, how to treat clients (as gold, the least to say), how to handle non paying clients, what to do when copyright infringement of your photo happens, continuous learning and self-improvement as a professional photographer, how to balance work and family life, and lastly how to give back to the photography society making good karma .

Are you planning to start a photography business? Are you working on reshaping your photography business model?
Read this book.

That’s a great example of under promising and over delivering. Might be applied to your business as well.

The books I ordered and received were:

• The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes

and

• Monte Zucker’s Portrait Photography Handbook

More on them later.

Are you planning to buy it?

The handbook starts with explaining the equipment and basic techniques necessary for portraiture touching topics from focal length and depth of field of lenses, through file formats (RAW rules) and noise filtering, to studio strobes and light controlling tools.
These things are important parts of the foundation of portrait photography however, most of these details can be found on the Internet with some googling.

Posing, as it is a critical component of portrait photography, is also discussed. The fundamental thought is that rules of rendering the three dimensional human body into a two dimensional picture have been refined over hundreds of years by artists. These rules are not be followed to the last letter but are important to know, understand and leverage them because they provide a basis of showing the human body at its ideal fom.

The author mentions the basics of picture compositions as well: the rule of thirds and the golden ratio and lines as picture elements driving the attention of the viewer.

Lighting is a bigger topic discussed through more chapters. We can read about the kind of industry standard portrait  photography lighting patterns, the different ratios of key and fill light, and also about how a photographer can leverage available ambient light outdoor and how it can be combined with artificial lighting.

One chapter is talking about correcting face or body irregularities by smart posing and lighting, and an other touches upon some Photoshop tips.

The book is full with great – but, according to some critics, somewhat too sweet and American – portrait photographs and we can read a short technical explanation of how each picture was made, what techniques have been applied.

The Portrait Photographer’s Handbook might not be the best books for everyone, but is definitely worth a reading for the not-that-beginner portrait photographers.