How to be a Photographer! A close friend recently asked me just how he could become a photographer, and this got me thinking - numerous individuals wish to get started down this spectacular path, which can end up being a tremendously unique and gratifying career or pastime. If you would love to learn, or are really even thinking about photography, read on! Step 1: Research and Attain a Digital camera! In the beginning, you want to look up digital slr cameras and equipment within your budget. Have a go at sites such as Amazon, B & H photo, as well as various other online retailers. You will want to browse through a ton of comments and ask for tips and advice from friends to increase the chances of getting a good model. Step 2: Develop The Technical Skills You'll need to find or download the user guide to your digital camera before you can really start. If you choose to just 'wing it', you will greatly reduce your potential to be a great photographer. Most people we perceive as genius photographers have actually spent immeasurable hours studying and improving their talent. If photography is important to you, you should consider that point. Search engines like google, bing, yahoo, etc are your best friend, and you should find a computer nerd friend to show you how to effectively learn online by searching. This might seem dull or boring at this point, but it will be worth it, believe me. Though important, studying isn't everything after all, so you will also need to take plenty of photos. Try purchasing a dedicated hard drive just for photos, so you won't be tempted to limit your photo sessions because you're worried about running out of hard drive space. Find other photographers who inspire you, and compare your pictures to their own, looking for ways to improve your technical and storytelling capabilities. Learn how to be a photographer by their examples, but just do not completely copy them. Step 3: Make Your Portfolio I like to keep a directory for each month of my best photos on my computer, and you want to too. As you continue to take tons of pictures, you will see yourself getting more skilled, and can use past photoshoots for inspiration or the relearning of lessons. You can use your monthly best photos to more easily determine your all time best, which will then end up in your photography portfolio. Your portfolio is actually not any good if people can't see it, so you need a web site. An official dot com is inexpensive and usually not as hard to obtain as one would imagine, but you can always start out with a freebee website if you are in a hurry to begin. Step 4: Marketing Your Work You must also make, at minimum, a twitter a facebook, and any other social networking pages that you regularly use or hear about from your friends. Give each of them a bio about yourself, some posted photos, and links back to your primary site. Promote them as much as you can as well, and they'll all help the overall effect of promotion. Your voyage to becoming a great photographer will not ever end. Never stop improving, or you'll get left behind. Always aim for bigger and better photographs, techniques, promotion, and ideas. It can be a long and hard path, but in the end I feel its worth it when you learn to become a great photographer. I sincerely hope you have found this guide informative and helpful. If you've enjoyed it and you believe that it might assist you in your venture towards being a great photographer, help us out by giving us a website link back and a tweet. Thank you! |