My thoughts or guidelines on becoming a travel photographer.
Start local
It’s tempting to jump into the wide world and get lost in it, but that won’t guarantee success right of the bat. There should be places to photograph everywhere including your own backyard. It’s better to start on familiar ground and to have a place to fall back to when things don’t work out as planned in the beginning.
Go beyond Photography
As a photographer you are essentially a one man business and a business can’t solely rely on the product to sell itself. While there are many ways to sell your photos and services you shouldn’t stop there. Taking images is the small part of the job, marketing is where the focus should be. Without getting your name out there, no one will find their way to your website. You have to branch out and not just remain a photographer, but a become a lot more. For example, creating blogs and vlogs has never been easier than today. Creating blogs and vlogs can introduce a whole new income stream and advertise your work much further than previously possible.
You’ll also have to pitch to new potential clients every day. Attending photography and travel conventions is a must as it brings together clients and photographers. You should work on creating a community around your work. Facebook, instagram, discord chat etc. Engage with your audience as much as possible. Don’t let the hype around you die down.
Quality doesn’t matter as much as quantity, or does it?
I think it’s best not to think about it too much as quality nor quantity don’t guarantee success. What does is hard work. If you take your business seriously you’ll learn the basics and the quality will improve on it’s own over time as you learn every day. Take all the images you wan’t and see how they sell. Adjust the quantity that way. Ultimately it’s a shady game of balance and I wouldn’t worry about it.
Free to work, free to sleep
It might be tempting to sleep a lot as you decide the workhours, but you are also responsible for your salary. Don’t think begin a photographer is easy. You might even work more than at a regular job, but what matters is the enjoyment you get out of it which is far more worth it than money. Being your own boss might push you to new levels of productivity that you didn’t know you had in you.
Gear doesn’t matter that much
I think the price of quality equipment is far too expensive for beginning photographers. A cheap entry level camera with a kit lens is good enough to produce great picture these days. Most stock sites only require you to upload 4~8Mpix images while even the cheapest cameras shoot up to 24MP. It means you can artificially make you pictures sharper by downsampling them. Finding a great subject, getting the composition right and doing a stellar job at editing is far more important than an expensive piece of equipment.
Get out there!
I’ve been playing with the thought of becoming a backyard travel photographer for a while now.(shooting in my small country) After a year or so I’d want to start travelling too. It’s gonna be a hard and long road, but I hope these guidelines will help me out. It’s really not that hard as I imagine it, but it’s way harder that I make it out to be :P haha
The first steps are always the hardest.
Do you have tricks or tips to share? Let me know!
*I’m just a hobby photographer atm :)
My gear:
Camera: Pentax K-50
Lenses: DA*50-135 / DA-L 18-55 WR / Cosinon 1.8 50mm
Flash: Yongnuo YN660
Tripod: Zomei Q555
You can find me on:
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Questions about photography are welcome!
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Have a great day!
Very beautiful photo)
ank you, your words are very motivated and worthy to be imitated, I am also sure your success in the field of photographers requires struggle and sacrifice, essentially whatever our desire must always work hard and start from a small thing @sulev
I've also toyed around with the idea of starting a photography business. I already travel full-time so travel photography comes to mind, I can go into my backyard and it will be different every few weeks.
I like your suggestions and think they can all be helpful for anyone trying to move from hobby photographer to pro. It would not be easy but, as you say, it would take hard work. And hard work is... HARD.
Good luck with your journey from backyard to world travel photographer!
To be a photographer yeah is not easy but if you love what you do, it will be your passion. I hope one day you will be a professional photographer :)
It'll be interesting.
I wish that all ideas come true!
It's good to know more about the story behind photography and for sure there are so many steps you have to do for the photos you have taken. I think it's quite similar with painting, isn't? Btw the picture in the blog is amazing! I love it <3
I'm so glad I stumbled across this post. I agree if, you want to be a good photographer you've really got to start in your backyard and it's true it doesn't matter about the quality of what you're using, it's the artist creating the photos. So just get out of there do what you want to do. Just do it and show and the world. Like Andy Warhol said, just keep creating art and while the public is deciding whether they like it or not keep creating more art! Especially for yourself if not for anyone else. It's a beautiful world out there and it's worth just starting with your own backyard. Then conquer the world!
I also have a dream to start traveling and taking photos!) Great photo!
Amazing view
Love your photo bro amazing view ❤️@sulev
its a stunning wiev and nice shot.
dear so amazing photography .. i like this ... you are real photographer
To become a photographer-traveler you need to travel haha)
I think it's better to take pictures, sometimes random shots are very successful, because when you watch them you can notice what you did not notice before.
This post has received gratitude of 1.63 % from @appreciator thanks to: @sulev.
great information! I have the dream of one day being paid to travel to different countries as a photographer