The nuts and bolts of running a business are the most important thing you need to be a successful independent photographer. More than 95% of your time as an independent photographer will be spending time marketing, doing estimates, and negotiating with clients.
National Press Photographers Association has been conducting business seminars not just for their members but for anyone interested.
The event gave photographers information to help empower them in business practices. However, at no point did any of the speakers show their award-winning photographs and talk about how they made their pictures.
A few years ago, during Alicia Calzada’s time as the NPPA president, she and Greg Smith worked on business practices for the membership. Greg is the one who created the NPPA Business Calculator, which is referenced by everyone teaching photographers today how to run their business.
Greg walked everyone through the different calculator fields, helping to explain why each of these fields is needed to come up with a working budget for the “Cost of doing business.”
Beer Money or Rent Money
One of the problems many staff photographers continue to have is that they often think of doing side jobs for “beer money.” The problem is the following week, many of these staff photographer’s business model of working for “beer money” and using company gear will not work when they have to buy their equipment, pay for all the costs of running a business and then have enough money left for now their basic needs like “rent.”
Mickey Osterreicher told us over and over, “it’s complicated.” He helped us better understand copyright, contracts, and how to negotiate with clients. He helped clear that we need to register our images every three months, not every ninety days. So come February, when you have less than ninety days, you can get caught where some of your pictures are not protected.
There are four legal issues that you must address for a photograph to meet the “Fair Use” requirements.
- Purpose
- Nature
- Amount and Substantiality
- Effect of the use
We learned that the cap per image violation was $150,000, divided by the parties that misused the idea if they were all related. We knew the differences between copyright and license. Understanding this was how we were able to negotiate more effectively with clients. We learned what must exist for a contract. Offer + Consideration + Acceptance = Contract He even helped us understand that you can have an oral agreement, depending on where you live.
Deb Pang Davis explained that for our business to be successful, we had to understand our brand and know how to build it in the community. “You are already a brand,” she said. “Do you know what it is?”
She encouraged everyone and especially the students, to think LONG terms. She is fostering long-term as in ten years into the future. Then you need to present the work to the audience you want to do.
One of the most significant pitfalls of most business people is getting stuck on a “roller coaster.” This is where you do “11 marketing.” You have rent due, work hard to market, and then get some work. The next time you sell is when the work starts to drop off.
Deb gave us many different ways to market and build your brand so that you can avoid those roller coaster rides of the past.
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| Stanley Leary & Akili Ramsess [photo by Mark E. Johnson] |
Deb Pang Davis explained that for our business to be successful, we had to understand our brand and know how to build it in the community. “You are already a brand,” she said. “Do you know what it is?”
She encouraged everyone and especially the students, to think LONG terms. She was encouraging me to think ten years into the future. Then you need to present the work to the audience you want to do.
One of the most significant pitfalls of most business people is getting stuck on a “roller coaster.” This is where you do “911 marketing.” First, you have rent due, work hard to market, and then get some work. ThThen, theext time you sell is when the work starts to drop off.
Deb gave us many different ways to market and build your brand so that you can avoid those roller coaster rides of the past.
 |
| [photo by Mark E. Johnson] |
While I came to speak, I also came to learn. I took a lot of notes. While most everything presented I had heard before, I did hear new ways of presenting the material. I am always looking for a better way to tell the story, and I learned a few new ways to do just that. I cannot encourage you enough to spend the time to get to know this material so that you, too, can be a successful independent photographer.