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SNM234: Turning Photography From A Hobby Into A Full-Time Business with Robert Lowden

• Jonathan Green : Bestselling Author, Tropical Island Entrepreneur, 7-Figure Blogger

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Welcome to the Serve No Master Podcast! This podcast is aimed at helping you find ways to create new revenue streams or make money online without dealing with an underpaid or underappreciated job. Our host is best-selling author, Jonathan Green.

Our guest today is Robert Lowdon, a commercial photographer specializing in editorial, industrial, landscape, and architectural photography with over 10 years of experience. He runs Robert Lowdon Photography, a full-service photography company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

In this episode, Robert discusses opportunities existing in photography for artistic people, highlighting how beginners can establish themselves as professionals and start to gain clients that are tailored to their niche in photography.  

Notable Quotes

-       "So much of photography is kind of honing the skills and the craft of it when you start out" - [Robert Lowdon]

-       "I think that that's one of the challenges; people think it's more about the gear than the skill" - [Jonathan Green]

-       "The more you specialize, the better a path it will make for you to get where you're going" - [Robert Lowdon]

-       "Go shoot the work before you have it" - [Robert Lowdon]

-       "Someone who's starting out; they can build a portfolio for the type of clients they want to get" - [Jonathan Green]


Connect with Robert Lowdon 

Robert’s Website: www.robertlowdon.com

Connect with Jonathan Green

Jonathan Green: Turning photography from a hobby into a full-time business and the power of the camera and the lens. I'm so excited about today's episode of the Serve No Master podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Penji. Every online business, eat graphics, and there's no better company to work with than Penji.

Get a full-time artist without the cost or hassle of hiring a team member. They unbelievable affordable pricing and amazing. They're the best in the business. See just how affordable they are at ServeNoMaster.com/penji. 

Announcer: Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated?

If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now. Then you've come to the right play. Welcome to Serve No Master Podcast, where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented. Live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green.

Now, here's your host. 

Jonathan Green: Today we have a really very special episode. I'm excited to talk to Robert today about a lot of the opportunities for artistic people we're often limited by what we thought the options were for photographers 10, 20, or 30 years ago, which is, I can be a wedding photographer, I can be a landscape photographer, and that's it.

But there's so many amazing things and opportunities now where you can take control of your own business. I'm really excited. Thank you so much for being here today, Robert. 

Robert Lowden: Awesome. I'm glad to be here. 

Jonathan Green: I'd love to hear a little bit about how your journey started your passion for the arts and how you started seeing it as a possibility for a 

Robert Lowden: full-time business.

Yeah, for sure. I just like to say I just had no other option really. , as strange as that sounds or whatever. Yeah, so I started doing photography about my mid-teens or so, and then I did a few jobs I didn't like and then I just decided I was gonna go for it and went from there.

And then I just basically just had to figure it out from there. For me, sometimes I think it's just a matter of survival at times. That makes sense. And. 

Do 

Jonathan Green: you, did you need like a massive amount of skill to start into photography? Do you have to be a master photographer with tens of thousand dollars worth of equipment or can you start out with a little 

Robert Lowden: bit less?

You can start it with a bit less. I think you have to, like everything is so cost prohibitive when you start. Like the equipment that I have now has just been built up over years and years. So much of photography is honing the skill and the craft of it when you start out. And then once you have those basics and those tools excuse me, then you would buy like the tools, the lenses, the cameras and stuff.

I think you're really does a disservice when you get all the top of the line stuff right away cuz you don't really know the basics and how to use it. You can get really lazy that way. Yeah, so I think 

Jonathan Green: a, a lot of people make this assumption that. It's about the gear that you, in order to get into filmography or anything to do with cameras, you have to have really expensive lenses, really expensive cameras.

And I've seen that, like even if you were to go, oh, if you wanna start a YouTube channel, you need $5,000 camera, $8,000 lens. And it's really intimidating. And I think that even for my camera I don't have a very expensive camera, basic 4K thousand dollars camera, but I don't know what, probably 90% of the buttons.

I watched one training video on how to set it up. I don't really understand iso, I don't really understand F stops, all those things. I just look up what are the best settings for my environment, and I think that's one of the challenges. People think that it's more about the gear than the skill.

Robert Lowden: . 

Yeah. And that's really a big mistake with it too. With this technology too it's hard to think about it, but like you can see our cameras were invented over a hundred years ago. Like we're still, there's still the same basic technology. There's lots of different like bells and whistles that have been added with digital and everything, but it's still that basic thing.

So much of it is just learning how to use those tools properly. Now I'm gonna say though, too, like sometimes you do need that equipment for certain things. If you're gonna shoot sports and you're on the side of a NFL field, like you do need that $12,000 lens to get there. Cuz there's, you can't really fake that.

You can't run on the field to get a closer shot. But too there's options too, right? Like people get in this gear hungry phase and it's just not, it's not. You can rent what you need. There's professional programs, like I have a Nikon Professional Services and they help me out with gear when I need it for often zero to low cost on it.

So there's support systems you need. Yeah there's a lot more than just buying stuff, I think.

Jonathan Green: So how can someone like with an eye for photography or is it something can 

Robert Lowden: be over. I think it's something you learn. I think it's a lot of this is just sheer determination. Any arts field. I think it's I have this theory about people who seem to excel in these difficult careers like sports or arts or anything.

I think, like most of it, to be honest, is just not quitting. And a lot of it is just almost an unhealthy commitment to it or almost a passion for it that I. Makes it happen. I don't think you can really be born good at this. You might have different attributes. Like with me, I'm an introvert, right?

So I take more times to observe things. I'm always looking at obscure things that I'm not sure really other people notice cuz I'm more concerned with things that aren't maybe necessarily right in front of me. So maybe that gives me a bit of an edge for the type of work I do, cuz it helps me be really detail orientated.

But that's just my thing, so that's probably just helps me with my style. The next person could be better at this or that. I think it's just getting all those hours into mastery You. There's 

Jonathan Green: so many different ways you can specialize, whether it's wedding photography, architectural photography, which you talk a lot about on your website or taking pictures for like open houses I've seen that's become a whole thing.

Or drone photography, like there's all these paths you can go down that whether you wanna interact with people or never interact with people. Some people love to take photographs of children, and for other people it's their worst nightmare trying to make a kid smile. That's what's really interesting to me is that it's a much more wide open field than people realize.

Like whatever you like, you can become Like one of my friends, he's a voiceover artist that only does HR videos for European companies. It's like such a specialty, but you can find your thing. And I think that's what's really exciting by a lot about what you're doing now and showing people that there's so many 

Robert Lowden: possibilities.

Yeah, for sure. And that's just it. Like the funny thing is too, by like how you mentioned with your friend, The more you specialize the kind of better path it'll make for you to get where you're going. Cuz it's easy to be, it's easier to be the best person that specializes in voiceovers for European countries than it is to be the best person who specializes in voiceovers for everything, right?

So right there, like using your niche is huge and you really can do whatever you want. Like you can craft your career into what you want it to be like. You don't have to. A wedding photographer, like in my industry, like everyone starts as a wedding photographer. I actually didn't. And people are generally shocked that I don't shoot weddings and it's just not something I'm into, like I, I think weddings are great.

I just don't think I'm the guy to shoot your wedding, so I don't do it cuz I'm not maybe as excited as an next person to do it. But I, I think too a lot of people too, like it's really good to match your career with your. And what you're interested in too, and that doesn't necessarily have to be directly either.

Like for me like I was obviously really interested in photography, but I'm also really interested in like how companies work and like industrial facilities and how things are built and made and things like that. Like I've really, I've always been interested in that kind of like mechanical asset aspect to it as well.

Excuse me. And for me, that makes. Better for me cuz I'm interested in that. If you're a rock climber and you're interested in photography too, like you could be a really good photographer of rock climbing. There's a famous photographer I think's Jimmy Chin or whatever that did the free So Oak, like nobody, there's very few people in the world that can hang off a mountain and have that qualifications to do photography, but he is matched them together and he's super successful at it.

Yeah, I think that's 

Jonathan Green: really good is to realize that you can merge the two things you like together. So as. The hardest part, the biggest hurdle is often the first paying project. What's the best way, or maybe how you started instead, a wedding photographer, getting your very first client. I would be very nervous to do a wedding too, cuz you only get one shot.

I would be so nervous if that was my very first project, my first client. And it's their wedding and so important to them. So I understand that hesitation. I would be nervous too, but. Where, what's the best way, or some of the ways that people can go from zero to one from going, this is a hobby to, wow, people will pay me for 

Robert Lowden: this and people will like what I've done.

Yeah. I think a lot of it is time and I think you should volunteer for things like weddings if you need to or work as a second shooter, you can work for someone else. To get started where all that pressure's not on your shoulders. I don't know. I've heard so many horror stories about friends, shooting friends weddings and ruining friendships because things didn't turn out perfectly.

So I don't think you should just start and go shoot a wedding off the top, but you can go shoot charity events. Charities are always desperate for people to take photos. You can do things like that to get started, and then once you have the experience, Then it's all about just getting out there. Treat it like a full-time job.

Get your website up and post work and eventually people start to come to you. Is the goal? What's a second shooter? Oh, I'm sorry, a second. Shooter's just like a second photographer. You'll see Like on a wedding, there's usually two photographers. So you'll have the, basically the person you hired, and then they'll have a secondary person that'll go and get like the B-roll, even though we don't call it that photography it's just like a, it's like an insurance.

You have like most wedding photographers, the good ones, we'll have two shooters because things happen. So you get two viewpoints. Is 

Jonathan Green: it like an apprentice? Is it someone you're training? Is it a paid position? Is it just a kind of like a learning the skills rule, writing someone else's reputation? Or is it like it's actually paid and it's you're just a 

Robert Lowden: backup?

It's usually paid. It depends on your skill level. You could start out as an unpaid. I'm not gonna go into the , how people pay each other in this industry, but I'll just say that it should be paid cuz you are working. But that is not always the case. Okay? You know what I mean? 

Jonathan Green: Yeah, because it is that once you, I think the most important thing is having a bit of a portfolio, right?

Or the referrals. That's where most of it comes from. Cuz in my experience, whenever I'm doing creative work, it's if it's a referral, they didn't even ask to look at my portfolio. They just go, oh, someone else said you're good, so let's do it. So I think once you get, get the ball rolling. So however you can do that to start getting people that have said, oh, I've seen his work, it's pretty good.

Then the 

Robert Lowden: doors start to. Yeah, for sure. For me, I it's all portfolio. I don't think anyone hires me without seeing a portfolio. And that's just really, like in this industry it's really about having those shots that people are looking for. , or especially a style. And to go back to what you're saying about getting started too, go shoot the work before you have it.

You can do personal projects, you can figure out places you need to shoot, like if you wanna shoot photos of cars, start staging cars, start talking to people, start doing what you need to do to get a good book or portfolio together. And then when people see that they'll hire you for that type of work.

They don't generally think as much outside of what you shoot. It does happen, but for instance, like I don't get any wedding inquiries anymore Because I don't have a wedding, a single wedding photograph on my website. But I get inquiries for the work that's on my website, if that makes sense.

It does. 

Jonathan Green: So that's something else I wanted to dial into, which is that when someone's hiring a photographer, they're gonna, and they look at portfolio and say they're looking at three photographers, whoever has the example that closely matches what they want. If one has only cars, one has only buildings, one has weddings.

If they're looking for cars, they're gonna go with their first photographer, even if the other two might be a little bit better. Because it matches, they can see what they're gonna get, 

Robert Lowden: right? . Yeah. And that's neat that you mentioned better too, cuz better's a very relative term to the viewer.

So yeah, they're gonna go with what, what matches for them and yeah, that's exactly it. 

Jonathan Green: That's really good. So someone who's starting out, they can build a portfolio for the type of clients they wanna get. So it's almost like the chicken 

Robert Lowden: does come before the. Oh it does. And that's so crucial and everyone makes that mistake when they start out as they like have a picture of their cat in their portfolio and a picture of their friend and all these things that don't match which the work they want to go for.

And I'm guilty of that too. Like when I started out, I didn't know what I was doing, for marketing. I just had anything in there. But yeah, like planning what you wanna do and having that. The mind to set up the types of shots you want and build that portfolio is really essential and it'll save you a lot of steps to getting there.

That being said too, like you're not, you're also not gonna be pigeonholed into doing one thing. Like I used to do like a lot of product photography and now I don't do that much anymore. Just cuz I, I was getting bored of it and I've moved into different areas to where I am now. Where I really enjoy the most is where I am right now.

But, Yeah, it's all about the portfolio. So a lot of 

Jonathan Green: people wait to build a portfolio until they're getting clients. And it's the same thing in the writing space. People like, oh, I don't have any samples. Make the samples and then you'll get the clients. Cuz it is that trade off. Like you either you do free work for someone like you talked about, or you do free work of your own.

That's like your passion project. And I have seen, like when I've been hiring models or photographers in the past, sometimes they have stuff that's in their portfolio then you. Why would you mix in a non-professional photo? Like when we're hiring actors for videos, sometimes we shoot like ads. And I'm always surprised when someone has like a photo that's like with a Blackberry camera and you can't really see them like, or half their heads cut off.

Like people don't realize it's, the small things can make a huge difference. So would you say it's. Better to have a smaller portfolio that's like your best work. Cause I think sometimes you're like, oh, I just need more quantity. And I personally think two or three photos that are really great are much better than three great photos and seven photos.

I'm like, why are these here? 

Robert Lowden: Yeah. I, it really needs to be dialed in. And it depends on what you're going for and showing. I think big portfolios are good if you wanna show. A lot of the projects you've worked on and done, but it needs to be really dialed in and the, they need to be good photos and you have to separate your own emotions from it.

And that's the hardest part cuz you have to put yourself in what a viewer would see of that. But yeah it's so crucial. Like even getting back to the actors thing too we hire models and actors for some of our shoots and I see the same thing and it's. Three great photos and then you see one bad one, and then you're just like, oh I probably won't reach out to this person.

It's, yeah. I think it 

Jonathan Green: professionalism. Exactly. They're accidentally adding that nonprofessionalism thing by trying to build the portfolio and Exactly. One of the things I've noticed as well is that, As a writer, my favorite stuff, my favorite content is not my audiences. Do you ever have that experience where your favorite photograph from a set is the one the client does not like?

Robert Lowden: Yeah. . Yeah. That that's a weird thing you brought up because that, that is definitely something that does come up sometimes. I know in my portfolios and stuff, and even the photos I share, like they. The ones that get more attention sometimes aren't the ones I like the most. But that's just the way it goes.

The neat thing though is about being more established and doing it for a longer time is you put up the photos you like more, and then you get asked to do that type of photos more too. So it balances out. But yeah, that's, it's thing that comes out from time to time . 

Jonathan Green: So when someone's starting out earlier, is it better to customize their portfolio based on what other people say they like or potential clients like?

I'm usually thinking whatever the ideal client for whatever they like is what I wanna show, even if it's not my favorite or not exactly. Matching my artistic style. Does that 

make 

Robert Lowden: sense? Yeah, I think it does. It, I think you change over time, but I think when you start, like your main goal in this is to.

And to eat. So like really hone in that marketing, figure out where those clients are. And that's so crucial. Like you can't just put up a website and expect everyone to come see it. Like you gotta figure out all the marketing aspects. Who's your ideal client? How are they gonna see you? How are you gonna get to them?

How are you gonna market to them? Will they find this meets their needs? There's so many things that are just outside of being creative. Are so essential to being successful at it. And is it 

Jonathan Green: possible to travel while doing this type of career? Or are you trapped in the city where you build a reputation?

Robert Lowden: No. I travel. It took a long time to get it to happen. But in the last few years it's really picked up. I spent the last I think I was on the road, 40 days in the last. 50, 60 days, something like that, right across Canada a few times back and forth. So you can do it, it's difficult, but you have to figure it out and if you wanna travel, you can do it or you can just stay in one city yeah.

Jonathan Green: So 

go ahead. Is it possible to plan a trip like around and go, okay, I wanna go to these three cities, so I'm gonna set up work there in this order and have work waiting for you when you arrive? 

Robert Lowden: It is, but it's, like I said, it's very difficult. . You need to have established clients. And you need to figure that out how that's gonna work.

And yeah it, you can do it. You can also just go around and shoot too. There's, you can try to sell stock, you can do other things too, right? It's not all clients hiring you too. 

Jonathan Green: If you're working on a project for a client, like the content they don't want to use, are you allowed to, if it's not of something particular, like if just a buildings in nature or something, are you allowed to reuse that as stock photo, sell it on your own?

Or is it part 

Robert Lowden: of what they own? That really depends on your contracts. I don't really do stock with client work. Some people have it in their releases that they do. I just don't like it cuz I, I've never had a real, a client that was, would be too excited to see some of the photos you took from their shoot on a stock photo website.

I've had clients come to us from other photographers who did things like that and they weren't dealing with that photographer anymore. For me, it's not worth it to make like $2 on selling a stock photo, to burn, like clients that are in the five digit range doesn't make sense to me to do that.

Some people do, and some people that's in their contracts. It's really all on what that is. And I guess I should explain more too, like with photography, it's the clients don't really own the photos unless they're specifically purchasing. Unlimited ownership out of that. And that's usually an add-on cost.

But generally for photography, they're almost, they have an usage agreement on it, what they're allowed to use it for and stuff like that. So we're lucky in our industry cuz we do really own everything in that too. So it's good that way. We're musicians, we own everything.

So it's Excited 

Jonathan Green: by this. I know my audience is gonna love it. There's a lot of really creative people trying to build their business. A lot of times people think, oh, I can either be creative or build a business, but it's awesome to see. You can do both. This is really exciting. I appreciate your time. Robert. Where can people find out more about you, see some of your work and learn more about becoming a professional photographer?

Robert Lowden: Yeah, for sure. The easiest place is just my website, so it's just my name basically. So it. Robert, so r o b e r t, Loudon, l o w d o n.com and we're on Instagram and everything else you can just Google. Me too. I tend to pop up all over the place and we do have some articles and stuff on the blog too about becoming a professional photographer and things like that too.

You might kinda, ears might, or excuse me, listeners might find useful as well. 

Jonathan Green: No, that's great. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate 

Robert Lowden: you being here. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Thank you 

Jonathan Green: for listening to the Serve Master Podcast. Get a free copy of my bestseller. Fire Your Boss right now on Amazon.

Go to serve master.com/get fire or just search Fire Your boss on Amazon. Thank 

Robert Lowden: you for listening to this week's episode of the Serve No Master Podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss another. We'll be back next week with more tips and tactics on how to escape the rat race. Please take a moment to leave a review@servenomaster.com slash iTunes.

It helps the show grow and more listeners means more content for you. Thanks again and we'll see you next 

Jonathan Green: week.