Leaving your day job and turning a full-time landscape photographer sounds like a dream come true. But is it really all that romantic? Professional landscape photographer Joshua Cripps knows a thing or two about turning this hobby into a career, and he confirms that it’s not all sunshine and roses. In fact, he believes that landscape photography is a bad career choice for most people, and in this video he’ll give you five reasons why.
What does it take to become a professional photographer?
Perhaps you have a dream of becoming a professional photographer or you have already started your professional photography business. If for you it’s still a dream what is it that’s holding you back? If you have already started how was it for you? Did you start part-time, nervous about taking that first step or did you, like me, jump straight in?
I read so many articles and hear far too many comments from other professional photographers who tell you what photography equipment you need and what photography training courses you should go on before you even start. The camera, the lenses, lighting, training it all adds up.
You can’t fight without an F-you fund
When it comes to negotiations, as a photographer (or any freelance artist, for that matter) you’ve got to master the art of not being emotionally invested in the outcome – something that is nearly impossible to do. But without it, you’ll never be able to break free of difficult clients and underpaid gigs.
The Social Media Fallacy – Does Social Media Generate Business Income?
Let me ask you a simple question: Does your investment in social media generate business income?
For most of the creative professionals I ask, the answer is either: “No, not really” or “I don’t know.”
The more I invest in social media, the more I get the feeling that this social media thing is just one big giant fraud – an elaborate ruse designed to do nothing more than monopolize time and energy chasing after likes and followers.
If you listen to the social media gurus, they’ll tell you straight up – your business MUST be on social media. You MUST engage your followers – the more active you are, the more likes and followers you can acquire…ergo the bigger audience you have the more crap you can sell them.
It gets even worse (as if investing your time isn’t already enough, they want your money too) – they’ll also tell you that you need a hook. You have to offer free products, discounts, contests, pay for ads – anything to drive interest and get more likes and secure more followers.
Who exactly benefits from all of this? The social networks sure do. The social media gurus do to.
But what about your business? How much are those thousands of likes and legions of followers really worth to your business in real world $$$?
Because here’s the thing – I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the return on investment for social media is ridiculously small – or in other words, social media is probably not worth the time and effort you put into it.
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