One of the more interesting movies of the last 5 years is Richard Linklater’s Boyhood.

This might be the first time you’re hearing about it – while it won many awards, it also had the feeling of an independent film, and sort of still flew under the radar for most people who aren’t cinema buffs. There are a number of reasons for why this might be including it’s 3 hour run time and the lack of over the top action the majority of moviegoers are into that is found in blockbuster movies like Star Wars and Transformers.

Like it or not, a lot of the greatest films throughout history tend to have a warm reception from critics, but still have a limited audience.

Being the nerds we are, Boyhood caught our eye because of the story it was setting out to tell (a “coming of age” film to give you the most generic description possible), and because it’s director is well regarded in our books given his track record for producing a lot of great gems such as Dazed and Confused, Bernie, School of Rock, and others.

At face value, you can get a lot out of Boyhood as a film – but what makes it really interesting is what went into the production. Boyhood was filmed and produced over the course of 12 years!!

12 years is a long time, especially in a world where movies from start-to-finish can be put together in a year or less (look at what has happened to the Star Wars films in the hands of Disney – now putting out 2 a year!).

The reason why we start off today’s post talking about Boyhood is because it is the kind of film that only can come around every once in a while, and is the direct result of the directors determination to make it a reality.

In the world of the arts, a 12 year creation process is not exactly a safe bet – so much could go wrong, and probably for some aspiring filmmakers who set out to do something similar, things probably have gone wrong.

A core aspect of Boyhood is not just telling a story, but in being able to tell the story where the character’s physically evolve. A lot of the power comes from great acting and storytelling, and seeing the evolution as the actual actors grow up. While it’s maybe not so impressive to see Ethan Hawke, a middle aged actor at the onset of the film, grow – it is impressive to watch the younger actors change over time from kids into teenagers and adults. It’s powerful stuff, really!

With so much time, energy, and effort invested into the film – it’s a great thing to see it have the level of success it did reach. The concept might not attract everyone in the world, and that never seemed to be the intent, but at it’s core the film, at least, stands on its own as a prime representation of what happens when people who are determined get together in a room – and what real determination actually looks like.

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What does it mean to “be determined” anyways?

Determination could be simply defined as a state of mental wanting for a thing, and physically following through in an attempt to get that thing.

It’s not exactly a formal definition, but it’s the best we have, and it sums it up well. However, having determination in and of itself is not a valuable quality – but having the ability to be determined for as long as it takes, and with a logical underpinning, really can help you if your aspiration is to do photography as a full time career.

“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work.”

Often when reading about the exploits of others online, in both the worlds of photography and small business in general, we tend to see these people at the points where they already have results.

We occasionally gawk over photographers traveling the world and photographing elopement weddings – something we aspire to do ourselves.

We see other small business owners making headway into the world of affiliate marketing and creating nice passive income streams and get a little jealous – it’s another thing we aspire to.

All the talking heads and best brands out there have all been in the “early stages” everyone experiences when they begin to grow their business. For ourselves, as we write this article, we are somewhere in the middle – beginning to see some level of success, getting the bookings we want, making some money from our work…but we also are still in a limbo where we reinvest a lot of our money into gear, and have lulls in inquiries that make us wonder if things will ever pick up again.

Needless to say, determination is required to be on this road. To be determined means to be capable of sticking with it – even through the difficult times.

How we show determination in our photography business pursuits

If this is your first time visiting our website, you’d be amused to know we are a husband & wife photography team that work as Hand and Arrow Photography. Formed From Light is our blog to talk to photographers and small business owners, but a lot of our insights come from the experiences we have gathered in pursuing our own photo company over the past several years.

To give you a brief background, we decided to start our photography business after being inspired by our own wedding photographer – and seeing the potential to pursue this art form for the sake of artistic expression, and the ability to create something lasting and impactful for others. While wedding photography is our core service, we also frequently explore other avenues of photography such as in travel, landscapes, astrophotography, portraits, and so on.

In January 2017, we filed to make ourselves a legitimate business, operating as a Limited Liability Company (LLC). This was really the most pivotal moment, and as you might imagine, quite terrifying in it’s own way. Along with this came setting up a business bank account, business credit card, investment into things we needed with our own personal savings, and so on.

Our earliest bookings (some of which came through Thumbtack) were of the introductory price sort – not exactly meant to pay the bills, but to help create a portfolio that would allow us to better represent ourselves to the world. Steadily over the course of years, we began to book more serious gigs, with our wedding package costs hovering between $3,000 – $4,000 (plus travel expenses when needed).

It’s all fun and games until you realize the untold story that has only really been observed by our friends, family, and a few inquisitive clients during our initial meeting or an engagement session.

We both work full time jobs in the corporate sector.

Both of our jobs require 40+ hour work weeks, and come with their own stressors.

While there certainly is some good that comes from having a full time job (like the money…well…mostly the money) – it is very difficult to manage this while also attempting to run a photography business.

Early on, it was not bad given that we would only have occasional bookings.

Now, in the heat of wedding season, where every weekend is fully booked on our schedule from the end of August to mid-November, we feel real exhaustion. It is tiring to manage all of the things required of us by our business such as:

• photographing weddings and other sessions

• culling and editing all of the photos

• buying and maintaining gear

• doing the accounting and paying taxes on time

• handling emails

• having meetings with new prospective clients, and some current clients

• making wedding day timelines

• putting together contracts and invoices (Honeybook helps us with this, fortunately)

The list goes on and on.

With so much on our plate, we end up working easily upwards of 100 hours a week each between our day jobs and our photography business.

There is rarely a time we aren’t working, and when this does happen, it’s the exception and not the rule.

So…where does determination fit in?

We point out our personal experiences as it pertains to managing a small business and our day jobs because it highlights one core area of our lives that we can’t seem to escape – working all of the time.

There are days where we just want to sleep in, days where we significantly doubt how much more we can handle, and days where we just want to sit on the couch, watch TV, and eat a tub of ice cream. We rarely give into these things (though…when we do…we go hard).

In our experience, determination as an action is having the ability to take on the difficult times in pursuit of something better and more fulfilling.

It carries with it an absolute requirement for sacrifice – often of time, often of money, even at times of relationships, experiences, and the like.

At it’s worst, when things aren’t working out as well as you’d like, it can feel very hopeless and like a waste of time and energy. Unfortunately, there are instances where even good attempts fail for one reason or another, and it’s a part of the gamble we all take when starting a business. We’ve felt some of these pains ourselves, but were able to work through them – thanks to our friend “determination.”

But! The other side of the gamble is extraordinary.

It is literally an out-of-this-world experience to see something we have created grow into something valued and treasured. The words of encouragement we receive from clients in reviews, via email, and just said to us on location keep us going – and seeing new inquiries come in with serious intent to want to work with us just gets us every time.

Of all the small business types, photography is one with a lot of potential to be fun. We have fun most of the time, and working with couples into things that we are into like The Office and hiking just enhances the experience further.

Our collective determination has taken us on quite a trip for the last few years, and we’re still on the road for the long haul.

For every day that might include frustration, stress, even anger we are balanced out by positive experiences that are really impactful. Our photography inspired a trip to Iceland, a visit to Oregon to shoot with other photographers, and has us shooting weddings consistently throughout the year now. Even 5 years ago we would have never thought this would be our current lifestyle.

What does it take to make photography your career?

Now that we’ve talked about ourselves for a good deal of this article – hopefully in a way that is useful for you to see where we are coming from as photographers, business owners, and human beings – we want to turn your attention to, well, you.

In a sea of professional photographers, in an industry some say is dying out, there are still opportunities.

From here until the end of this article, we are going to look at the essentials that go into having a self-made career in photography. Please keep in mind, it’s not all going to be easy, and as we’ve exemplified – it can take some serious time to go from zero to something worthwhile. But…if you want it enough, the doors can become open to you!

Here are 7 tips for making photography your career:

1). Your time is now (mostly) owned by your photography & business

We mentioned earlier in this article how we work upwards of 100 hours many weeks between our photography business and day jobs. It really is no joke that our time is extremely limited for other things we’d like to be doing. The number of times we’ve had to turn down friends to go and hang out, or just turn ourselves down from lying around on the couch or going to bed early, are all pains that come from the amount of work required.

In our minds, the hope is to invest this time upfront, so as to have more success down the line that can be better controlled. Of all the things that go into starting a business, this is probably going to be the most difficult for most people – and you need to be prepared to make sacrifices in this area to make it work.

2). You will need to invest money for the right equipment

In order to grow as a professional photographer, you will need to have the necessary equipment to do so successfully. While in the early stages you can get away with some budget items, as things progress you will need more expensive gear to effectively do your job. If this equipment was just about making a fashion statement, we would have saved ourselves the trouble and cost – but the reality is there is a need for a number of lenses, camera bodies (don’t forget having backups), SD cards and external hard drives, flash setups, and so on.

To give you an impression of the costs you could expect, over the course of 2 years we have spent in the area of $50,000 on gear, software, and other supplies.

If you are interested in knowing more about the photography gear and business tools we use and recommend, we would suggest beginning by taking a look at our Resources page.

3). You should set up a legal business entity

Now with the required investments of time and money squared away in your mind, you’ll want to know that the most serious photography professionals incorporate their businesses. It is actually very unsafe (legally speaking) to take pictures for others without being set up as an LLC, S-Corp, Corporation, or some other legal business entity type – because these legal entities provide a lot of protections for you in case something would go wrong.

If you are unsure how to set up a legal business entity, begin by searching in Google terms like “Setting up an LLC in [Your State]” and similar. If you are still stuck, you can reach out to a CPA or lawyer to help you along – but of course this will cost you.

4). You will not just be a photographer, but a business owner

The lure of photography as a career is the opportunity to take pictures for a living.

This is a cool thing for sure, but the reality is not quite all there.

Practically speaking – while we do take photographs – the majority of our work is done not behind the camera, but behind our computer screens. From photo editing, keeping up with social media, bookkeeping, sending out contracts and invoices, emailing with clients and prospective clients…there is an endless list of things that have to be done to run the business side of things.

Fortunately for us, this is something we enjoy, but for others – it will need to be a serious consideration as to whether or not this is something that can be handled long term.

Of course, with an influx of money, you may end up able to outsource some of these tasks. An accountant could handle your bookkeeping, an assistant could help out with responding to clients and managing your calendar, and so on.

5). You will need to be able to manage client expectations effectively

As a photographer, you are placed in a significant customer service role. From the first set of emails and meetings, it is important to set expectations appropriately, and meet and supersede them as much as possible.

For some clients, this is really easy to do – we’ve been running into a lot of really relaxed couples that seem to pretty much take everything in stride, and don’t have any significant concerns when it comes to the photography they are receiving.

In other cases, clients can be a bit more demanding. If you’re provided a long list of “required” shots, mostly inspired by Pinterest, how do you react? It’s just one of many scenarios that pop up, and you will need the confidence to handle these conversations effectively.

6). You need a distinct and appealing brand

Because there are so many photographers out there, the key to success really lies in being able to sell yourself.

Something we have reiterated over and over again is that people don’t really buy photography, they buy a relationship with the photographer.

This is something that is especially true with wedding photography, where a lot of trust is required to be spending a full day together on the most important day of your client’s life. It’s actually pretty surreal when you think about it.

With Hand and Arrow Photography, we communicate our brand in the images we display, added graphic accents we have around our website, and even in how we talk about ourselves on our About page. The most powerful inquiries (and most serious) are those that communicate genuine interest in our work AND our personalities. Any indicator that someone has spent time actually getting to know us before even reaching out is hugely significant, and impacts the experience we have shooting for them heavily.

Fortunately, with years of refinements and striving to remain as authentic as possible, we have mostly limited our inquiries to the most serious ones. We don’t receive a lot of inquiries, but the ones we do frequently book with us.

While there are many articles to be written on the topic of brand, the starting point for you is to consider 4 things:

• Who are you as a person and photographer?

• What kind of clients do you want to attract?

• Where do you want your work area to be (local, out of state, out of country)?

• Why do you want to be a professional photographer?

7). You need to (ultimately) charge what you are worth – and what people will pay

In the early stages of your photography business, you will likely charge really low fees to shoot.

It frustrates some established professionals as it can be viewed as undercutting their business, but the reality is far different – low paying clients are not typically clients an established professional wants to work for. The truth is, people have an array of reasons for why they don’t want to shell out thousands of dollars for a photographer. Maybe they are cheap, maybe their priorities are in a different area of their day (if shooting a wedding), or maybe they just don’t have a lot of money to spend.

Regardless, despite what can sometimes be relayed in conversation between photographers, some budget clients are great. We have had the fortune of being enabled to express ourselves creatively and get adjusted to the experience of shooting weddings ourselves through our earliest clients.

Of course, doing things for a low cost is not sustainable.

Over time, we consistently have tested the waters and have charged more and more for our services. As we have become more “in demand,” our costs have gone up. The earliest weddings we shot for just a few hundred dollars, and now charge $3,000 – $4,000. The difference is significant.

In order to get to this point, you need to layout a road map and determine how much money you need to have to support your business (overhead costs, costs for fixing or buying new gear, etc.) and support yourself personally (paying bills, buying groceries, investing in retirement, etc). Generally speaking, the numbers you arrive at will be your own depending on your specific situation, but we highly advise really thinking these things through and being honest with yourself regarding your financial needs.

Last words

Wow, look at how far we’ve come.

We were pretty determined to write this article, with the hopes of showcasing to you how determination can be a hugely significant factor in helping you start a photography business and pursue photography as a career for yourself.

Whether you are setting out to have a business with really long-term ambitions, sort of like that movie Boyhood we talked about in our intro, or are just wanting some side income – most of our thoughts will be applicable to really any situation you find yourself in.

Given that we’ve been in the shoes of people just starting out their photo business before, we’re happy to give you some input if you have any specific questions or concerns about starting your own – so feel free to leave a comment below!!

Started your own business and want some more help? Check out our article – How to Get Your First Client as a Photographer