(My friend Daniel Davis Interviewed me for this podcast)

One day my friend Natalia was telling me that she wanted to be a photographer, but she didn’t know how to get started.

Don’t seek permission, just do it

Just buy a Camera, put an ad in Kijiji, offer your service for a low price and disclaime that you are a beginner photographer

At that moment in her life, she didn’t dare to do it. She assured me that she had to go to school, get a certificate and permission from the permission giver.

I felt frustrated with her answer. We are conditioned to ask permission from the permission givers to validate ourselves. We put so many restrictions on our own dreams.

In a moment of exasperation, I told her. Fine, I will show you that you don’t need permission from anyone, in order to start a photography business.

Leading by example

1. I bought a camera
2. I started reading photography blogs
3. I placed an ad that goes like this:

Amateur photographer will photograph your event for $20/hour

That’s it. That was my business plan. That was the beginning of my Photography Business.

It wasn’t an overnight success. Three years after, it’s still developing. In the first year, I probably got 10 gigs. The second-year I got about 20 gigs, and halfway throughout the third year, I got already about 30 gigs.

Lessons I have learned in my three-year business

• This is a relationship business. If you do a good job, people will refer you to others, but the referral cycle is slow. If I do a good wedding this year, they will refer me to their friend who is getting married the following year. I think it takes about 5 years before having a full-time business.
• The skill of talking to people and making them comfortable in front of the camera is more important than knowing all the technical aspects of your camera.
• Whenever other photographers say in social media that they were making lots of money after their first year, they are lying.
• I have heard the advice to practice the craft of photography, and then, once you are good, become a high-end photographer. This is bad advice. You only learn the craft by doing the work. You don’t learn photography by practicing in your basement for three months and then you are good, you learn photography by being in the field.
• You don’t need to go to photography school to become a good photographer, you just need to practice a lot. You practice a lot by getting lots of gigs.
• The hardest part of a photography business is not learning how to take good photos. The hardest part is building the relationships which will help you build a profitable business.

I am a firm believer of starting before you are ready and figuring out the rest as you go along.

There are hundreds of other businesses you can develop as you learn. You don’t have to go to school or you don’t need permission from the permission giver to get started, just start doing it and learn along the way.

Which business have you started without asking permission?

Update: September 2020.

Due to Covid-19 I put my photography business on pause; it was too dangerous to take photo. In addition, I am loosing interest in photography, so I think 2020 is the last year of my photography business.

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