SOFTWARE

Photography Senior

Starting a Photography Business - A Seven Part Series - Step One

Introduction

This article is one of a seven part series originally published as "The Seven Steps You Can Take RIGHT NOW To Get Your High School Senior Portrait Business Off The Ground" If you'd like to receive the report in its entirety visit the links in the author bio at the bottom.

Get started the right way with: Step #1 - Goals and an Action Plan

If you would accomplish anything of significance in life you MUST have a goal and you MUST have an action plan. The actual "act" of writing down your goals and creating your action plan being the most crucial step.

Each person reading this article will be at a different place in their life with respect to photography skills and business growth. You may already have an established portrait business and be looking to develop the senior portrait part of your business. Or you may be at ground zero, camera in one hand, desire in the other.

My goal for you, upon completion of the steps in this report, is that you are ready to photograph a high school senior and get paid for it. You'll still have challenges and hurdles to overcome in the creation of your business, but you'll have made that all important start.

Probably you're currently working some other job and may continue to do so for some time. (All the more reason to set goals and create that action plan.) Set aside a certain amount of time each day to work on your business. I find it's best to make it the same time each day. Then your spouse, your significant other, your kids and your dog all know that i.e. from 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm you are not to be disturbed.

The Importance of Goals

Do you ever wonder why some people always seem to rise to the top - no matter what they do? Perhaps you're personally acquainted with someone like this. You know for a fact they're no smarter than you and they certainly aren't better looking! But they always get the raise or the promotion. They enjoy better vacations and they drive a nicer car. What gives?

Do You Have a Plan?

In the "7 Steps" report I mention a man by the name of Jim Rohn. Mr. Rohn passed away in December of 2009 and believe me, it was a significant loss in the world of personal development. I was fortunate to have been exposed to Mr. Rohn when I was in my 20's and his voice still rings clear in my memory. "If you don't have a plan for your life chances are you'll always fit into someone else's plan. And guess what, you may not like what they have planned for you."

Don't Just Let Life Happen to You

In my life I have been a meat cutter in a grocery store butcher shop, I sold real estate and became a designated and licensed residential real estate appraiser; later starting and running my own real estate appraisal firm. I have presented to small groups on time management and motivation. I started my portrait studio in 1994, built it to one of the most successful senior portrait studios in southern Minnesota, added baby portraiture, family portraiture and then team portraiture.

Throughout my working life I've enjoyed great successes and suffered significant failures. I was exposed to the "art" of setting goals and creating action plans while in my 20's during a short experience as an Amway distributor. There is no question my greatest advancements came when I was actively involved in setting goals and creating daily action plans. The human psyche is a strange thing. If I know I do my best and achieve the most when I'm setting goals and creating action plans, why don't I continue to do it every single day of my life? I'd have a considerably larger bank balance if I knew the answer to that one.

We Are All Alike

I'm fairly certain you've been exposed to some kind of goal setting in your past and I have no idea your level of success. My guess is if you're reading this, there is still more in your life you want to achieve. Dreams as yet unreached. I believe you can achieve whatever you put your mind to. I don't even know you and I firmly believe that - because you're human.

What Do You Believe - About You?

I make the next statement at risk of your immediately hitting the delete key sending this article to the virtual garbage can. But then I like to live on the edge; so here goes. I'm a Christian and I believe in God.

Still here? Good. I believe you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to because we are all created in God's image. BUT - even if you don't believe in God, and that's fine - this is about pictures not religion. Even if you don't believe in God, is there any reason NOT to believe something as complex and intelligent as a human being can accomplish anything it truly wants to?

Our Beliefs Carry Us Forward - Our Beliefs Hold Us Back

The person we are today is the sum total of all of our experiences to date. Everything that's ever happened to us, every experience we've had, has somehow, in some way, affected and molded the person we've become, the person we are right now.

Over the years we've developed beliefs in our abilities and in-abilities. If we didn't do well in math as a young student we grew to believe we'd always have trouble with numbers and very likely today we suck at math. If we played basketball as a kid but were never very good, it's likely we migrated towards something else we were good at. "Nah, I don't really like basketball." I wonder why.

Figure Out Why and Then Get to It

If you go way back to the beginning on the Portrait Expert blog you'll find a post titled, "How Big Is Your Why?" What makes you get up in the morning and what keeps you awake at night. What do you want more than anything else in the world - Napoleon Hill calls it "developing a white-hot desire".

Photography is a wonderfully exciting, artistically satisfying business - but it ain't gonna trip your trigger every day of the week. It won't be long and you're bound to have a day filled with snotty brat, inconsiderate, ill-mannered, temperamental teenagers. You'll drag your weary body home, fall into your chair and wonder what could have possibly possessed you to want to start a portrait business. That's where your all important "why" comes in.

You can do this.

About the Author

Please feel free to use this article on your website or blog. Please remember that the article must be used in its entirety and this bio must remain intact.

Dave Meir has been a professional portrait photographer in Rochester, Minnesota since 1994. He and his wife Kate specialize in High School Senior portraiture and have photographed in excess of 1800 seniors. They also photograph babies, families, sports teams and – at exorbitant rates - the occasional attorney.

Dave also owns The Portrait Expert website at http://www.the-portrait-expert.com  helping new photographers develop profitable and successful portrait businesses. If you'd like to learn more about the high school senior portrait business visit http://www.LearnSeniorPhotography.com  You'll receive Dave's special FREE report "Seven Steps You Can Take RIGHT NOW To Get Your High School Senior Portrait Business Off The Ground" as well as his FREE 282 page high school senior portrait posing guide.

Photography tips: Senior pics on my own?

Hi! I'm a super amateur when it comes to photography but I want to experiment with it for senior pics. I have no relatives here and no graduation party, so I don't care about getting them professionally done. Plus they're so expensive! I want to experiment with doing it just me and my friend at our backyard, house, and park. My digital camera is kind of crappy. Would a disposable camera work? I have a friend who only takes pics with disposables and they look so cool; the effect is this sleepy, feathery look.
Do you guys have some tips?

There are professional photographers who deliberately use the crappiest cameras, but that's because they know exactly what the limitations are and what they're hoping to get from the camera. In the hands of a self-described "super amateur" I would not expect good results with a disposable camera. But amateurs do good enough with a Canon PowerShot or Kodak EasyShare.

"Annie" Senior Portraits | Senior Photography- King Street Studios