The business of photography

Something nobody tells you when you start a photography business: It's a BUSINESS. Should be pretty self evident, right? But when you start (or at least when I started, or as I'm in the process of starting <- probably more accurate) you think "Hey, I love photography. I'm decent at it. I have the technical ability (or a wonderful husband with it) to set up a legit website. How hard can this photography business be?" And so I made myself a website, set me up with a blog, and voila! a business. Rrrright.... and then came contracts, and model releases, and balance sheets, and legal forms, and fictitious names, and taxes, and finding customers, and, and. The business side of this is hard! I'm still working on my business plan and let me tell you -- it is downright difficult to (succinctly) put into words the vision I have for Sarah Reed Photography. How do you describe a passion in business terms? I know where I want to be in a year, but for someone who has no background in marketing, how do I get there? Where do I start? How do I measure success? Is it income? Number of shoots booked? Quality of photographs? And how do I make sure that during all of this buisness focus, I'm not losing the focus on my art? That my photography isn't becoming stagnant, that I stay true to my style of shooting??

So if it's been a little quiet on here lately, that's why. I've been mulling all of these things over in my head, working on them. I'm not sure I'll ever entirely have it figured out, but all of the good resources I've read say that the business plan is not a finite document, it's ever evolving and being reworked. So I'm setting some goals. Keeping them small for now (like, FINISH the business plan, don't just think about it!), talking to some professionals about the way I should be doing business, and making some grand plans for next year. Actually, those plans are starting a little early, I suppose. I've got three shoots coming up in the next few weeks that will hopefully rock your socks off. So stay tuned. Because while it might get quiet on here every once in awhile, it's usually because I'm scheming.... ;)

Finishing on a good note, with quite possibly one of my favorite shots ever...