I want to get away from portraits!

[iluvphoto]

Hi! I'm not sure how much sense this is going to make but I'll give it a try and I appreciate any info anyone can give me.

I just finished the photography program at my local junior college. There they tried to give you a feel for all kinds of photography, they also mostly pointed us in the direction of portrait photography. I learned during my first semester that I don't like doing portraits and the projects I enjoyed the most were of the commercial photography type.

I also was, sadly, one of those people that thought just because I bought a fancy camera, was taking photography classes and I liked taking pictures I was a photographer and did the craigslist thing (don't judge me, I already have). I also sold out to myself and did portraits and weddings because people were paying me to do them and I have had many return clients.

I guess the point I'm getting to is that I want to do freelance photography. I don't really want to work for a company because I want to be a mom first and an employee second. Also, I really like commercial photography. I've been talking with my husband and really thinking this out. I've stopped the portraits and weddings and I'm only finishing up things I've already been committed to do.

To those that do commercial photography - How did you start out? Where do your clients come from? Do you have a website, blog, facebook or something else that is working for you? Did you do the stock photography thing and how did/does that work for you?

Also, if you're willing to share I'd like to see your site, I'm very visual and I like to look at other photographer's websites.

Thanks so much!

[oldwolf]

What do you consider commercial photography?

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by oldwolf

What do you consider commercial photography?

Damn, beat me to it.

[nickbedford]

I want to do portraits, but not your average "sit here, smile!" portraits. I love the "promo" style portraits such as bands and hot people portraits. That's my bread and butter in the future.

[iluvphoto]

I'm thinking food or product photography. Even architectural. I guess my idea of commercial is photos that will be used in advertisement or to promote a product.

My experience with portrait photography has been the sit, look this way type of posed thing. I did enjoy taking brides out to do portraits in their dresses. I did those more like you would do a fashion shoot.

I'm probably not making much sense and I appreciate your patience. I'm still trying to work through all of this.

Thanks.

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by iluvphoto

I'm thinking food or product photography. Even architectural. I guess my idea of commercial is photos that will be used in advertisement or to promote a product.

My experience with portrait photography has been the sit, look this way type of posed thing. I did enjoy taking brides out to do portraits in their dresses. I did those more like you would do a fashion shoot.

I'm probably not making much sense and I appreciate your patience. I'm still trying to work through all of this.

Thanks.

While you figure this out and potentially make a transition, have you thought about just changing the style with which you approach your portrait work and weddings?

It sounds to me like it's the style you want a change from, not necessarily just getting away from people.

People are starving to have portrait and lifestyle work done differently... most of the time they just don't know it yet.

[lonni]

Commercial photography has a bit of a different approach, as you are dealing with companies and business owners who have boards and comittees etc to deal with and you need to approach it like you would a business meeting and be prepared for things to take a while, have things changed and work to a budget and you must never break a dead line.

Build a good portfolio and make sure you know your lighting techniques. pratice the tricky things over and over like shiny metal, glass, black on black etc.

Get your self a business card, letterhead and leaflet and do a mail out to local places that have a catalogue, either printed or online, then follow up with a phone call to arrange a meeting with the manager/owner/art director etc. Meet them, show your portfolio take some details so you can send them a quote, a little while after you think they received the quote call them up and ask what they thought.

You might not get jobs straight away, but you will find later on down the track, when they come to do another shoot, some of them will call you. Thats is how i started out.

Make sure you have a contract for each job, prepared by a lawyer would be best, as you dont want to get bitten by some of the clauses they sneak in. I had one guy try to sneak in catering for the whole shoot from a 5 star catereer, another guy tried to make me pay for all the product i was photographing and i get hit with fee reductions for delivering files online, or late or in low res etc. Companies will do anything to try to save a buck.

Make sure you specify that you will only deal with one person as dealing with a few different opinions confuses the brief and gets to be apain in the ass.

HTH