How it all started…
Real Photography opened as Traci Turchin Photography in April 2007. It was a natural progression from years of studying photography and Photoshop.
I started with portraits of families and babies and children and teens…and at my sister-in-law’s wedding that summer I fell head over heels in love with wedding photography. I wanted to learn more about the art of wedding photography, so I began second shooting with the talented and amazing Laura Dombrowski. A few months later, Nic and I were ready to shoot weddings on our own.
After our first wedding together as a team, Traci Turchin Photography was no longer an appropriate name for our business. We asked our photographer friends to toss out words that described our images, and every one of them mentioned “real” or “natural.” Armed with a camera icon drawn just for us by my cousin, illustrator Jaime Temairik, Real Photography was born.
Running our business allows me to work from home, so if you call, you’ll occasionally catch the background noise of our active toddler or the sound of Brio trains at work on their toy track.
I am frequently asked about advice for starting your own photography business.
Here are the things you need:
- Practice. Make sure you have plenty of practice and strong technical knowledge before putting your welcome mat out. Your clients deserve it.
- Backup. You need back-up equipment. It is absolutely mandatory for weddings–it would be criminal to photograph a wedding without backup lenses, camera bodies, flashes, and memory cards.
- A file back-up plan. Know how you plan to protect client images from unspeakable fates!
- Business/resale tax license. Depending on your state, you’ll need different things. Google is your friend here. The business side of a photography business is full of unpleasant things. You’ll have to pay Use Tax on any equipment you buy for your business from out of state (some states count photography equipment [actual cameras and lenses, not bags, accessories, etc] as manufacturing equipment and they are exempt from use tax while others [like Colorado] will make you want to poke your own eyes out when you discover how much use tax you owe from all of your B&H purchases).
- Great records. The accounting side of a photography business is an ugly unfriendly monster. Make sure you keep detailed records of all of your expenses and revenue. QuickBooks is a small business’s best friend. Their simple start software is all you need (they used to have a free version, but I can’t find a link for it–I wouldn’t be surprised if they got rid of it, because it was fantastic and you didn’t need an upgraded version). Try not to shove everything into a closet of “keepers” like in the movie Dodgeball. Photography sole-proprietorships are frequently on the examination end of an IRS audit, so you’ll want everything all together in case the tax man comes a knockin’. (I’m always tempted to tape a Jelly Belly to the bottom of each of my invoices, receipts, and bank statements before I file them.)
- Website. You can use a blog to showcase your work, but a full website works even better. BluDomain has beautiful website templates for crazy cheap, but be warned that their customer service is legendary (and not in a good way). Make sure you don’t host with them. I love HostMonster.
- Support. There are many online forums for photographers to share their work and learn from one another on all aspects of photography and business. Many portrait photographers like ILP, and I have learned a ton from Digital Wedding Forum.
- Vendors. You’ll need a lab, dedicated canvas lab, packing supplies, and album vendor(s) for all the goodies you’ll want to offer to clients. Photography forums are a fantastic place to find vendors and read their reviews.
