The Beginner Photography Podcast

Photo Q&A: Is It Too Late to Break Into Wedding Photography at 38?

• Raymond Hatfield

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#570 In Today’s Episode of the podcast I chat with YOU as I tackle a wide range of listener questions covering every stage of the photography journey. I respond directly to your real-world concerns, offering practical advice and personal insights on topics like preparing for photography trips, finding and owning your unique editing style, breaking into specialized fields such as wedding or food photography, and building a sustainable photography business even when time and energy are limited.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

  1. Trip Preparation & Gear Selection - Raymond breaks down how to plan a photography trip, using Alaska as an example. He stresses focusing on desired shots first, packing only essential gear, planning for power and backup needs, and not letting equipment overshadow the enjoyment of the trip.
  2. Finding & Owning Your Editing Style - A listener asks about confidence in a "purposefully imperfect" editing style. Raymond encourages embracing what moves you emotionally rather than succumbing to trends. Authenticity, he argues, attracts the right audience and sustains creative motivation.
  3. Building a Photography Business with Limitations - Addressing questions about starting (or sustaining) a business with limited time or neurodivergence, Raymond offers practical marketing strategies, including leveraging local business partnerships, automating social media, and focusing on core client beliefs. 

IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS & CONCEPTS

  • Exposure Compensation: Adjusts camera-determined exposure in automatic or semi-automatic shooting modes to lighten or darken images without switching to full manual mode. Essential for managing tricky lighting situations and achieving desired creative effects.
  • Macro Lens: A lens designed for close-up photography that allows for high magnification and sharpness at very close focusing distances, ideal for genres like food photography.

DISCUSSION & REFLECTION QUESTIONS

  1. What personal moments or subjects are most important for you to capture on a photography trip, and how might your gear choices support that?
  2. How can you refine your editing style to better reflect your personal taste or storytelling goals?
  3. If you were to market your photography business, what unique value or emotional connection would you offer your ideal client?
  4. How might you balance career ambitions with personal well-being or time constraints?

RESOURCES:

Learn What Camera Settings to Use in our free guide!
https://perfectcamerasettings.com/

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Raymond Hatfield:

If you're being hired to edit in a certain way, then you should edit in that way. If you are a photographer who photographs for yourself, or you even photograph for clients who hire you, you should edit the way that makes you feel things, because that's what's gonna make you stand apart, right? If you change up your editing style to be more light and airy or polished, or magazine worthy, what's gonna make you stand out from all the other photographers who do that? Not much, right? So be truthful to who you are, find what it is that you like, and then just lean into that. Hey, welcome to the Beginner Photography Podcast. I am your host, Raymond Hatfield, and welcome to our monthly photo q and a episode. This is where I take your questions and I answer'em here on the podcast. the Beginner Photography podcast is full of photographers at different stages of their journey. It's not just those who started last week. Some of these questions may be from those who have been shooting for a few years or already in business. So no matter where you're at in your journey, my hope is that this episode, full of questions submitted by listeners of the podcast. One will be helpful to you. You'll learn something that moves the needle forward in your photography and genuinely helps you out. So why don't we go ahead and get started with this. Beginner Photography podcast, q and a episode. And by the way, if you have a question that you want answered here on the show, you can submit questions by heading over to beginner photo pod.com/qa. Again, if you got a question that you want answered on the podcast, that's burning within you. You need the answer to something photography related. Head over to beginner photo pod.com/qa and who knows, maybe your question will be answered in a future episode of the Beginner Photography Podcast. So let's go ahead and get on into this month's questions. The first question here comes from Doug. Doug is a long time listener. He says, Hey, Raymond, I'm taking a trip to Alaska next month with my son. What should I be thinking about in terms of photography? Yes, moment matters most. I'll probably be taking pictures of fish and bears. I'll be lugging around a tripod for landscape shots because I love long exposures, and I would appreciate your approach to this. First of all, Doug, I. Awesome to have you, submit a question. and I too will be heading up to Alaska in, well, next month at this point, sometime in July. well the end of July. I'm excited to see what it is that I capture. I've been up there a few times before. Sounds like you have as well. And, yeah, just excited to see what I can get. I love all of the, the nature and just the beautiful landscapes that Alaska has to offer. So it sounds like it's gonna be a great option for you. So, I guess I would approach this in a few ways. However, I am not going there specifically for landscape shots or photographing animals. I'm going there for a small little family, get together and therefore. I'm really gonna be trying to focus on capturing images of my family. and I hope that the camera gear doesn't get in the way. So I'm gonna be bringing my Fuji Ex Pro two, I'm gonna be bringing my 18 millimeter lens. I'm gonna be bringing my, 27 millimeter lens, and then I will probably also bring my 55 to 200, just in case we decide to go venturing out. And. You know, we see a bear. Like, how cool would that be? That is my main goal is to see a bear and photograph a bear. So, that'd be incredible. I. Obviously, like I said, I'm not sure what you are going for. I know a lot of people go to Alaska for, guided tours. They go specifically for the wildlife. Some go just for the landscapes. All great reasons to go, but I really think that that is going to dictate what it is that you bring. I'm not the kind of photographer who is gonna wanna bring every lens that I have, because that's gonna be overwhelming. I'm not gonna be bringing a drone, I'm not gonna be bringing any specialty lenses. I'm not gonna bring redundant lenses like my, 16 to 55 Zoom lens because I have, most of that focal length covered with my 18 and my, my 27 mil lens. So, think about like what are the images that it is that you want to capture? Go back and then obviously, you can build your kit from there. But I would say that on top of just the gear itself, depending on where you're gonna be in Alaska, where I'm going, it is very populated. I'm not worried about not having access to things like power or electricity. to power a computer, to recharge camera batteries, flash batteries, if you're gonna have those. So, because I'm not worried about those things, I'm just gonna bring what I would normally bring. But for you, if you are gonna be venturing out, you're gonna be gone a few days, deep into the wilderness. Be sure to bring battery packs. Here's one thing that I, I love for travel and has really changed a lot for me. All of the battery chargers that your camera will come with, like you just plug it into a wall, they're fine, but it's one more thing to bring. And again, if you're unsure about what the power situation is going to be, that could make it tricky. For all of my cameras, I go on Amazon and I look for a battery charger that has USBC that will let me charge it through USBC because the majority of my devices, computer, my, I don't know, just about everything. My video camera, my iPad. and then like various other things that my family has, like all get charged via USBC. However, my camera doesn't charge via USB. because it's the expert two, it came out. Almost 10 years ago, requires me to charge it by taking out the battery and then charging that battery. So bringing a battery charger that can charge via USBC rather than a traditional plug, I think it was like eight bucks. And seriously, has improved my quality of life when it comes to traveling'cause it's one less thing that I have to think about. bring in the specific thing, bring in the specific cord, and all that stuff. So definitely look into that as far as backing up your photos. If you are bringing a laptop, like that's great. That's gonna be your answer right there. You just plug in the, the card and then, you can offload your images. I would highly suggest bringing a solid state drive to be able to back up your computer so that you don't lose your photos in case. You know, it's Alaska, it's unpredictable, it's wild. It's the last frontier, who knows what could happen. So, again, I would bring a backup hard drive, specifically an SSD because of the no moving parts in it. And then I would back up the computer so that just in case something happens to your computer, something happens to your camera, you're not gonna be out all of the photos that you captured because that would seriously suck. I remember I took a trip a few years ago, we're talking 14 years ago, I guess, at this point. And, back then it wasn't as easy to back up your files. It wasn't as easy to, manage your files on the go. Computers had terrible battery life, so you'd always have to bring a charger and then that would suck, just to bring one more thing. So, I was taking all these photos and then once I got back home from my trip, I plugged, my camera directly into my computer, which is a big no-no, and why I never do it now. And the software popped up that said, Hey, your camera has a firmware update. Would you like to update it? And I was like, yeah, of course. However, doing that. Ford matted my card, before I had offloaded the images. And that sucked because now the entire trip, all of the images were gone. And granted a lot of them were just snapshots. It was like a, just a little family thing that we were doing. It wasn't critical, but it still sucked to have lost those photos. So make sure that you have a dedicated memory card reader. you know, if you bring your laptop or your iPad, be sure that you have power for those things. Most computers can be, or many battery packs today can charge things like laptops. Many iPads have the ability to, work with solid state drive so that you could back up photos onto them as well. So, those are really the main things that I would think of is, is power. portability. Then just like, the fun element of it. Like you still want to enjoy your trip with your son and you don't want the camera gear to, get in the way or cause you to worry about, you know, you don't wanna bring so much gear that now you're worried about losing or breaking your gear when you're not even gonna use 90% of it. So that's what I would do. Again, focus on the moment, like you mentioned, and then just think about maybe right now, like what are the must have shots for you. Write them out, plan out like four or five, and then get those shots and then just be okay if you don't get anything else, right? I know that we want to maximize our time there. We want to get as many photos as humanly as possible. But if you plan ahead and think, okay, if I get these four shots and then you do get those four shots, you don't have to worry about photography for the rest of the time. Everything else is a bonus, which allows you to be in the, moment of your trip more. You can be more present with your son, and just enjoy it more. So again, the point of photography shouldn't be to be the point of the trip. It should enhance the trip. So just try to think of it like that. So again, Doug, I really hope that helps. All right. Let's go ahead and get on into our next question. And it comes from Jess. Jess has a question that I know many of you are wondering. you're thinking about, it's in the back of your head, which is, how do you feel confident with your editing style? I like a purposefully imperfect style with grain, and I know it's not for most, but it makes me feel things. Well, Jess, great question and I'm kind of with you there. I really like purposefully imperfect photos as well. I will lean into the quote unquote shortcomings of a camera and try to capture images that highlight those things because, they're organic or they make the image stand out in some way, shape, or form. So, I guess one notable example that I might give is that I had a, Fuji X 70, a number of years ago, it was a relatively pocketable camera and at the time I was shooting a lot of weddings, which was focused on precision and, just a really polished look. And the X 70 was my camera that I used to play around and not take too seriously. And therefore, just for fun, I would in camera, be shooting with a black and white film simulation. And then I would set my ISO to 3,200 and it's a crop sensor camera. And it was, well, I guess 10, 11 years old and it didn't handle 3,200 great. It was definitely visible signs of noise in the image. And then I. Y controlled the rest of my settings around that. So what that meant is that my images looked dirty, they looked gritty, they looked imperfect, as you mentioned. And I loved that. It was a time in my journey as a photographer for what I enjoyed it. It was something that made me feel something, like you said. So how do you feel confident in your editing style? I mean, here's the thing. If you're being hired to edit in a certain way, then you should edit in that way. If you are a photographer who photographs for yourself, or you even photograph for clients who hire you, you should edit the way that makes you feel things, because that's what's gonna make you stand apart, right? If you change up your editing style to be more light and airy or polished, or magazine worthy, what's gonna make you stand out from all the other photographers who do that? Not much, right? So be truthful to who you are, find what it is that you like, and then just lean into that. If you like imperfect photos with that grain, try to go deeper into that and see how far you can push it, because I guarantee you. Again, if you're shooting for clients, there will be a subsection of people who will not only love it, but will go outta their way to find you so that you can deliver it for them. If you're not shooting for clients, then who cares, right? Like, if it makes you feel things, then congratulations, you found it. But like, don't give up at that point. still continue to experiment, continue to go deeper. Continue to evolve as a photographer and, try new things. Because my editing style that I loved a number of years ago is not the editing style that I love today. And that is because I've tried new things. I've experimented, I've done new things in my process of when I shoot that my old editing style wouldn't work for today, and therefore, you gotta try new things. So when it comes to the confidence, like, I don't know, or I can't imagine that people are grilling you, saying like, why are you editing like this? What are you doing with these images? So therefore, like the confidence just has to come from within yourself. If you like it, you like it, like, don't be ashamed of that. I forget who it was. I had a friend maybe it was an acquaintance. can't remember who it was, but, I remember, this idea that like, there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure. if you like it, then like it, and that's that. Like, who, like, who cares? It's not guilty. You don't have to be guilty for anything. Like, just like it, embrace it and it is what it is. Know that your style will change in the future, but this is what it's like today. And if you like it today, then that's all that you have to care about, right? So, Jess, I hope that helps, go deeper into your editing style, like it for what it is, and, enjoy the ride. All right. Next question comes from Jess e. Jess e, not Jess, who asked the last question, but Jess e Jesse says, the wedding photo market is flush with young, vibrant female photographers. As a 38-year-old father of four, is it too late to try to get into weddings? So, there's a few parts of this that I want to address first. first, why are you trying to get into weddings? Right? That's a question that you have to answer yourself. There's a lot of new photographers who want to get into weddings because it pays well, and I'm not gonna lie, that was me as well, right? I loved a lot of elements about wedding photography, but knowing that it paid better than other genres. Definitely pushed me towards, shooting weddings. So asking yourself, is that the reason why you wanna get into weddings? Because if that's the case, it's gonna be a long, hard road to get into, so you might as well do something that you actually love. Right. Okay. Let's assume though that you absolutely love wedding photography. You love the idea that every day you go to work, there's cake. You love the idea that everybody's super happy and thrilled and, willing to, try something new and experimental and just having, 6, 8, 10, 12 hours of uninterrupted, pure photography time that can help you grow, in your skills and feel fulfilled, right. If that's the case. Is it too late for a 38-year-old father of four to get into weddings? I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say absolutely not. I'm gonna say you're overthinking this, right? The market is flush with young, vibrant female photographers. I think that may just be who you're seeing online, honestly. I know a lot of male wedding photographers, and I know a lot of male wedding photographers over 40, right? And I think that this is the best time in history for a 38-year-old father of four to get into wedding photography. Why is that? Well, because the average age of people getting married is, is getting older and older. The average age for men to get married is now over 30. It used to be 22 years old. It is now over 30. If you're 38 and you're shooting a wedding for a 22-year-old, it feels weird. There's a lot of inside jokes. There's a lot of generational differences that you don't fully understand, and you kind of feel like the odd man out. If you're 38 and you're shooting a wedding for somebody who's 30, there's a lot more in common. You've had more life experience. It's not as weird. Right? On top of that. That's the average age. Are some people still getting married at 22? Yes. Are some people still getting married at 40? Yeah, absolutely. And here's the thing, people are waiting later in life to get married because they want to be more established in their careers. So if a couple is waiting longer because they want to be more established in their career, that's great news for you because these people who are more established, these more established couples have more money, right? They're willing to spend on something that they see the value in. So if you position yourself as the guy for these couples, then you're set, position yourself as the guy, for couples getting married later in life, or couples having their second marriage. If you've been divorced before and you're looking for a wedding photographer, you're probably not looking for some 22-year-old, young, vibrant female photographer. You're looking for somebody who has some life experience, who understands that this isn't the most magical to have your life. And it's all, butterflies and fairy dust. Not that that is what all young, vibrant female photographers are like, but like point is you're gonna want somebody with more life experience and you're gonna be that guy. People who are on their second marriage might already have kids. They're gonna be more established in their careers. They are gonna have some extra money. They're gonna be willing to spend more on things that are valuable to them, you know? And the thing with weddings that I loved is that, weddings are a great, weakened hustle, if you want to call it that, as much as I hate that word, hustle. If you find 10 couples, 10, I don't know where you live, but there's more than 10 couples within half a mile of you, right? Unless you're like deep in the Alaskan wilderness. But, point is there's gonna be more than 10 couples just around you, right? So imagine how many different couples are in your city if you shoot just 10 couples a year at three grand, that's below the average, the national average for a wedding. what couples pay for wedding photography? That's not a bad side gig. These couples, mid to late thirties, these are the couples who are spending$70,000 on a new SUV five grand for a wedding photographer is not a huge ask. I mean, the average car dealership, I just looked this up, is selling four to eight cars per day, four to eight cars per day. Who to people who are spending 60 to$70,000 on a new car, you can find 20 people in an entire year to shoot their wedding. And going back to this whole, 38-year-old father of four thing, check out the work of wedding photographers like John Dolan. Check out Jeff Tysman. Check out Ryan Brenn, Eiser, all of them over 40. All dads all in demand. I've had interviews with all of'em. Go back, search'em up, check'em out, see their work. It is not too late, and in fact, I would say this is the best time in history for a 38-year-old father of four to get into wedding photography and succeed. All right. Next question here comes from Steve. Steve says, Hey Raymond. Love the show. Thanks, Steve. I too am a Fuji shooter. Right on. I love the manual controls. What, if anything, is the disadvantage of making use of the exposure compensation dial? I use it all the time. Steve. Congratulations on finding the best camera system in the entire world. Being Fuji. Just kidding. The exposure compensation dial. For those who are unaware, what is exposure compensation? When you are shooting with a camera and you're in some sort of automatic mode, whether it be aperture priority, where the camera decides the shutter in the ISO, but you choose the aperture, whether you're in shutter priority, where it's, you choose the shutter, then the camera chooses the aperture in the ISO, or even if you're controlling your aperture and your shutter speed, but are, are relinquishing control of the ISO to the camera. There's some sort of automatic function there. So, because you're not choosing each one of your settings. The camera's gonna have to make a choice on what the exposure is going to be. You might decide that that exposure after taking a photo is, is too bright. You might decide that it's too dark. You might have an exposure where the shutter speed is too slow. You might have an exposure where the ISO was far too high, right? And you need to kind of reign that in. So you do that with exposure compensation. What your camera's gonna do, when again, it has to make a decision on exposure, is it's going to look at the light meter, it's gonna read the amount of light coming in, and then it's going to, adjust its settings so that it's quote unquote properly exposed. The problem here is that how does a camera know what is properly exposed?'cause the camera doesn't know what it is that you're trying to expose for. So it takes the middle ground of what is something that is too bright white and something that is too dark black, and it finds the middle ground, which is gray. So if you're shooting something that's white and your camera's in some sort of automatic mode where it needs to make decisions on exposure, it's going to adjust the settings, underexposed so that this white thing, say a car or a bride walking down the aisle so that the exposure is too dark and it looks gray. If you're photographing something black, let's say the night sky or a groom in his black tux, it is going to overexpose the photo and instead of make it look black, it's gonna make it look gray. Now this can be bad because nobody likes a gray, muddy dress. I've found that the way that a camera will overexpose a groom in a black tux is through shutter speed, which means it's gonna slow down my shutter speed to the point to where now every single image has motion blur, and that's not acceptable. So you can use the exposure compensation dial. The exposure compensation dial allows you to say, Hey, every photo that I take, I want it to be one stop brighter than what you, the camera would consider a quote unquote proper exposure. That's great for when you're photographing something like out in the snow or again, a bride in a white dress. Or you can say, I want something. I want everything two stops under exposed. You can compensate for that when you're shooting the night sky or a groom in his black tux. So what is the downside of using the exposure compensation dial? The short answer is there's no direct disadvantage of making use of the exposure compensation dial, except that you're still giving up control of the image to your camera, to your camera. That, again, doesn't know how you want to expose something. It doesn't know what you're photographing. It doesn't know if that's a white car or if it's just too bright of an image. So if you're shooting in something like manual where you control the aperture, you control the shutter speed, you control the ISO, the exposure compensation dial does nothing because you've already taken control of the three settings, the only three settings that control the exposure. So the exposure compensation again, does absolutely nothing. So to answer your question, here's the thing, I don't always shoot in manual. I love shooting in manual. I love the control that it gives me. I love how if I have an idea for a photo, I can change my settings and achieve it extremely quick. However, if I'm just out on a walk with my kids or at the park, I just taken some snapshots. I will oftentimes put my camera in Aperture priority, and then I just have to be okay with the knowledge that the camera might make a bad decision. And if I have to edit the photo later, then that's the price that I'll have to pay. But for anything that I'm serious about, anything that, is a paid gig, I will absolutely shoot in manual. So it's 100% up to you if you don't know how to shoot in manual. I highly suggest everybody knows how to do it, because it's gonna give you such a deep understanding of how a camera works, how it processes light, and how you can control the camera to create a scene in front of you that you see with your eyes. It's not boring, it's not flat, it's not dull. It's not taking the same photo that every single person with a camera shooting on auto would also take. So, little pitch here. If you want to learn how to shoot manual and you're just trying to dip your toes, I have a free resource for you. It's called Picture Perfect Camera Settings. There's more than 10 types of photography in my free guide and in it I share my real photos from that type of photography as well as the actual camera settings I used. What my aperture is, what my ISO is, what my shutter speed is, so that you can get a base to start shooting a manual for yourself. And then I also share how to know what setting is the most important to adjust if you're photographing a portrait, right? Your aperture is one of the most important settings of controlling exposure because it also controls your depth of field. And if you want a specific visual look, then you need to adjust your depth of field, your aperture in a very specific way. Therefore, if your photo is still too overexposed or underexposed, you need to adjust one of the other two settings. And I share with you in the guide what setting to change and again, what setting is most important for each type of photography. So if you're interested in it, it's totally free. Like free free, like you don't have to enter in a credit card or anything free. You just go to picture perfect settings.com, enter in your email and I'm gonna send it to you right away. But knowing. Again, the importance of shooting a manual, knowing what it is that each setting does, is incredibly important to knowing how photography works. And then once you have a really good understanding of it, once you feel proficient in it, then you can reign back the control and, shoot an aperture priority if you're just out for a fun family, trip or, something like that. So Steve, again, I hope that helps. Exposure Compensation doesn't actively change anything in the image except for your other exposure settings. So therefore, there's nothing bad about it. I use it when I'm just shooting an aperture priority, but it does mean that you are still relinquishing control to the camera. So again, Steve, hope that helps. Alright, moving on. Next question comes from Bruno. Bruno asks, how do I get started in food photography? What lens, what light? What are the basic mistakes to avoid when you start? Alright, Bruno, I'm gonna answer this question, but I want there to be a huge disclaimer that I am not a food photographer. I've never been paid for food photography. I've taken the majority of food photos throughout my life on a cell phone. but i've interviewed some food photographers. I have tried some Photoshop tutorials that required me to shoot some food, and I have a few fonts for you. So the first thing I would say, that if you really wanna make an impact with food photography, you're gonna need a long lens, meaning a telephoto lens so that you can, fill the frame with whatever your subject is. A cheeseburger, a cake, a beer, a salad. I don't know how many people are photographing salads, but you get it. So a long lens. Also, making sure that it is a macro lens, because food isn't always, the size of a laptop or anything, like it's not, it's not big. So you have to be real close to it to fill the frame, and therefore you need a very close focusing distance. So that is why a macro lens I would say would be required. Now every camera manufacturer has some sort of long macro lens specifically for this purpose. Canon has a hundred, I think it's either a hundred or 105 millimeter macro lens. Nikon has one. I dunno about Sony. I'm sure they do, but if they don't, I think Tamron makes one. Sigma makes one, Fuji has one and they're kind of like the standard to get into it. So with Fuji it's a 90 millimeter macro lens. And those are gonna be your best shots because again, it's gonna allow you to get in close to the food and focus close as well. I would also recommend having some sort of basic like off camera flash. for now, and then like a bounce card. So when it comes to an off-camera flash, I use and love young Nuo products. However, I mean, they're really not like innovating. I don't think that they're like really around much. I think the company has probably gotten smaller, so therefore I would. I would feel better recommending something like a Go Docs, off-camera Flash. God Docs makes really good camera triggers. I mean, they, they just communicate wirelessly and effortlessly. It doesn't require, a huge, big tech setup. It's really easy to get into and you can get a flash and a trigger for under 200 bucks. So like, again, it's relatively cheap to get into. And then also getting something like a bounce card, for the opposite side of your food to fill in some of those shadows. And I think for gear, probably a really good tripod. a styling table. I'm sure that there's a lot of, props and things that you could look into to have, to be able to elevate the quality of your work. but I don't know too much about that. but let's get the mistakes as far as mistakes go when it comes to food photography, I would say that the most common ones are probably shooting down on the food as if it's just like from the human perspective. If you look at a lot of advertisements, food is shot from like a relatively low angle looking up at it. because. from the psychology of photography, if you're looking up at something, it feels grand. It feels big, it feels powerful, and that's what you want, the food to look like. You don't wanna look down on it and make it feel small and insignificant.'cause nobody's gonna wanna buy it, right? so shooting down at food, not styling the food, right? Kinda leaving it messy. distracting backgrounds, bad lighting, not filling the frame. I would say that those are really the main mistakes and probably the most common mistakes that, new food photographers make.'cause you can, if you have this, long macro lens, you can get close to food. You can make it fill the frame, but if the background is still distracting, if the lighting is bad, it's still not gonna be appetizing or enjoyable to look at. So, those are my things. Again, I. I'm not a food photographer, so I would recommend if you want to go deeper into food photography, to check out YouTube, there is a popular YouTube channel called Tin House Studios. This guy, photographer Scott, he is a commercial photographer, shoots food, on top of other things, has a studio, and he shares a lot of behind the scenes and secrets as far as how he does it and things that he would recommend. So, again, check that out. That's, 10 House Studios or 10 House Studio. You'll find it right away, I'm sure. I bet if you just search like food photography mistakes on YouTube, you'd probably show up. but again, 10 House Studio, check it out. That's TIN, house, not TEN. All right, so Bruna, hope that helps. Last question here. I saved this one for the end because, well, you're here. It comes from Jay. Jay says, last year I started a family documentary photography business. I got the LLC, all the other state paperwork I. All without having clients because I needed to pay bills. I got a full-time consulting gig and recently a full-time traditional chop. I'm also neurodivergent and need a long recovery time from work, so I haven't dedicated time to the photography business. Ideally, I would love to make this work full time. Any advice on tips or small actionable things I can do to build a business? Or do I just call it and dissolve it? This is a big question and I would say that I can't answer it for you. There's a lot about photography that, is personal. there's a lot of personal things going on here that only you are going to be able to truly decide, but I have been in a place to where I have given up on or quit or closed the doors on my wedding photography. I have been in a place to where it felt like I wasn't making any progress. Or getting any traction as a photographer. And I do understand how tough it can be at times. In fact, I felt the same way about the podcast as well. The podcast. There's been times where I felt like this isn't working, I'm not getting any traction, things like that. And there have been thoughts to, to give it up. So. What is the decision tree that I go through to decide whether to stick with something or give it up? Because I have quit wedding photography, but I have not quit the podcast. So I've made both decisions, quitting one, not quitting another. I would say this, I quit weddings, the podcast doesn't make enough money for me to do this full-time. So I too had to get a full-time job that's why now I'm a videographer for a company who does marketing for senior living facilities. And that is great because it allows me to not feel as stressed about the podcast. Like, oh, you know, it's not working. I wish it was going better because sometimes when it doesn't feel like it's working, you just want to give up on it. And if it's your sole income, you don't really have an option to give it a year or give it, time because you need money. So that's one of the great things about having a full-time traditional job is that, monetary security that you get from a traditional job. The problem becomes now you have money, but now you have less time. So there is a balance there. And finding that balance again, depending on what it is that you're doing full-time, can be difficult, but being neurodivergent, that also adds a whole nother element onto it with the amount of recovery time that is needed. I know that when I work a full day, with my traditional job as a videographer, the last thing that I want to do is come back home and then sit down in front of my computer for a few hours and figure out, a big strategic marketing push or something like that. So asking yourself, should I just give this up? is a hard question. So what tips or actionable things can you do to build the business? That's what I'm gonna answer, because I can't tell you to just call it or dissolve it because I, I don't have all the information because I'm not you. So the only thing that I can do is give you small, actionable things that you can do to build the business. You said that you're a family documentary photographer. Alright, that's great. I love that you have, defined a client and a style of photography. Like you are huge steps ahead compared to many people, so now you just have to get the word out there. You have to get people to know who you are. And there's a lot of things that you can do with this. And what's great is that because of this day and age with computers and automations, you can actually, schedule out and, automate a lot of these things. So take a day and try to figure out, what are the things that I really want my clients to know? What are the things that my clients have to believe before they book me? Right. As a documentary photographer, they have to believe things like the perfect family photo doesn't have to be post. They have to believe a messy house is more authentic than than messy, I guess, and they have to believe that that's okay. They have to believe that sometimes the in-between moments are the ones that are more important than the big moments. So think about those things. Think about what other messages do your ideal clients need to believe. Do they, they need to know that, their time with their kids is limited right before they grow up and, and move out. I don't know, like whatever else your ideal client needs to know. Think about those things and write them down and then figure out, well, what messaging could I create that enforces that? So what you want to do is share that message or those messages over and over and over and over and over and over and over again on social media every image that you create, make sure that it emphasizes one of those four main beliefs or five main beliefs that you may have, and three or four main beliefs is like, it's good. And like, that's fine. That's all that you really need. So every photo must reinforce one of those things. Make sure that you have photos of messy houses, of kids being destructive of those in-between moments that aren't quote unquote traditionally beautiful, but have meaning to them. And then if you're not that great with words, right? Just brain dump everything that you can think of of why your client wants and needs. this style of photography, right? Write down your core three or four beliefs that they must believe as well, and just brain dump everything that you want to say and that you want them to believe and that you want them to know and that you want them to feel. And then honestly, like, I'm not that great with words. That's why I am behind a camera. That's why I host a podcast and I'm not an author. Take all that information and put it into Chad, GBT and say, Hey, look, I need. Okay, you to break down these into themes and I need help with, marketing captions and then get to the point. And then you can always ask for more. You can ask it to refine it. You can say that it's for Instagram, you can say it's for Facebook, you know, whatever it is. And then, you can take those and plan them out in a tool, like a plan which integrates with Cloud Spot. I use a tool called social Be, which is a little more robust, but it goes to different platforms. You can use a tool like, buffer or Hootsuite or Pali. All of those are social media schedulers, right? So pick out, 20 photos, that you really love. They don't have to be portfolio worthy, but you just really love them for one reason or another. And then, ask at JBT to come up with 20, 25 different. marketing captions, assign those to a photo and then just schedule those things. again, you really want to just get the awareness out there. You want people to see that what it is that's important to you, because if they buy into that, well, then they're gonna wanna work with you. Then, from there, like, just schedule that, just do that once a month and now you have an entire month of social media already schedule out. And then honestly, with those 20 posts, you could take five from each month and then just recycle them the next month as well. Like people don't know, they're not gonna remember what you posted two Tuesdays ago at 4:00 PM and then now you just gotta come up with 15 photos for the month or something. And then, which of course that library is always gonna grow. So after that, now you want to get to the point to where you're getting in front of people and asking them to book you for your services. Make sure that you got a website that's important, right? A place where people can find you. Then think about where do those families go? What are the types of things that they do? Where do they shop? One of the most powerful marketing tactics I've heard from another photographer who was doing family photography was to go where these families shop, where they hang out, and then partnering with that business owner to, say, provide them with a free photo shoot that they can give to some of their best clients. So the way that this would work is in the beginning, you can go to a local business. Maybe it's a local sports shop, they got a lot of kids who are in baseball, softball, travel stuff, you know, whatever. Something like that. Actually, that's a really great start. Go there and say, Hey, business owner, I want to give you five family photo sessions to give away to your best clients, right? Look through your system or whatever, find the people who buy most consistently, who spend the most with you, you know, whatever it is. And then I want to give you five vouchers for you to give to them. What's gonna happen is that that business owner, it's a win-win for them. Now they look like the hero because they're gonna give their customers their loyal customers something of value. And what's gonna happen is that these customers who have proven that they spend money, that they're, loyal to a brand will now come to you. You'll be able to photograph them. Now, you're not giving away the world. Maybe you're just giving away a free 30 minute family session where you go in their house or whatever. And then if they like the photos that you captured, then they have the opportunity to buy the photos or buy prints or buy product, right? And then that's where the money is made. When that's successful because it will be successful, go back to that business owner and say, Hey, this was a huge hit. Thank you so much. I. Let me ask you something else. Can I set up a box at your counter that says, Hey, enter to win a free family documentary, photo shoot and then you supply the box. You can get'em at like Office Depot or whatever. You supply the cards, and then people just write their name and their email address, and then maybe like their city or whatever so that you're not going crazy far. And then once every two weeks you go back and you pick up those cards and now you reach out to every single person and say, Hey, I mean, you can stock them on online, you can pick one person to win. And then everybody else you can say, Hey, you didn't win. However, thank you so much for signing up. I wanna offer you$200 off of a session or something like that, that is gonna grow your list so fast that is gonna grow your clients so fast that is gonna allow you to reinforce what it is that you do because now you're shooting with them. And the great thing is that like you don't have to do the work to find these people. They're gonna self fill out the cards themselves. All you gotta do is once every other week go and get the information. Like that's all that you gotta do. You set it up once and then it's gonna keep growing. So every two weeks you go back, you get the information, you email everybody, Hey, you didn't win, but here's,$200 towards the session. Would you like to book in a session? If not, it's whatever. Now they're on your email list. You can keep them updated with new shoots that you're doing. But if they do, then great. You were able to book in a client with very little help, just only the initial setup and then that was it. Honestly, I think that that's probably the most impactful thing that you can do because it will run in the background and doesn't take up a lot of your time daily. It doesn't require you to, go through analytics on Facebook ads or Google ads or, ads in other photography groups or magazines, whatever it is. But it will run in the background and it's very cheap to do you just print out the sign, you print out some business cards for them to sign, you buy a few pins, and then that's it. And then you just simply do this until you've provided so many good services to families that now they're telling their friends about you, and then now they're all coming to you as well. So that, that is what I would do. That is the main thing I would do. That is what I would get started on to move the needle forward in growing your photography business with the least amount of effort. Consistent effort, daily, updated effort, you know, whatever you wanna call it. So there you go, Jay. I really hope that helps. I hope that you give that a shot before you decide to call it and dissolve it because I'm here to help and I want you to get to a place to where you are, excited and happy, and that you can make this a full time gig. So that is it. All right. Thank you again so much for listening to this episode of the Beginner Photography Podcast, q and a, episode. Reminder, if you have a question that you want answered on the podcast, just head over to beginner photo pod.com/qa and submit your question there and who knows, you just might hear it on the show. All right. That is it for today. Until next time, remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you'll be tomorrow. Talk soon.