It occurs to me now that in my previous post I spoke a lot about the journey but neglected to mention where I am aiming to get to. Doh. 😮
My ambition is to become a full-time, successful professional photographer by mid-2011. Why so long? Well, I have a family to support and this allows me sufficient time to build the business in terms of client base, equipment and expertise (not just in photography!) to allow this to happen. I’ll also have my mortgage paid off by then which will significantly help.
So, what am I concentrating on???
Photography is a huge field and covers many, many disciplines. I’ve narrowed my focus to just the area that I get the most enjoyment from: people, in partcular Portraiture and Weddings. I’m also still going to shoot stock images and photo-art too but I’m looking on these areas as supplementary.
Portraiture and Weddings are great fun but the best thing about this type of photography is that it is commissioned and providing one can find the client (subject for a whole different post) is relatively straightforward. I also enjoy wildlife and nature but so much of this type of photography is speculative. To build my business model on this would need a huge amount of time and a lot of luck. Besides, this is a great area for just going out and having fun with the camera. The results will seed the imaging part of the business hence why I consider this to be supplementary rather than the real “bread and butter”
I have a couple of offshoots too that don’t really fit in with the rest of the scheme. I’ts more a bit of fun really but has been consistently creating revenue for almost a year now so is probably worthy of a mention here.
Greeting Cards – I have a couple of store-fronts on the web, hosted by other companies. I seed them with images from time to time and have sold nearly 300 cards so far. Again, this is very much a supplementary revenue stream and one that I am planning to grow over time. Probably at a similar rate to my imaging site.
Clothing Designs – Rather stumbled into this by accident last year, but like the greeting cards I mentioned above this has also generated a constant stream of revenue. Not core business but really great fun. My main market here is gay & lesbian so is very specialised. I may choose to leave this as-is depending upon how much time I have available.
I’ll add links to these at the foot of the page, but here they are for now at least…
www.qtweddings.co.uk (Parked)
www.qtcards.co.uk (Parked)
