PHOTOGRAPHY IS A LONELY BUSINESS.
As a freelance photographer, photography can be a lonely business, invariably you will spend the majority of your time entertaining yourself.
You have to be able to balance your time working on your business and working in the business, and there is a big difference between the two.
For those who don’t know the difference, in brief, working in the business tends to be the reason you picked up a camera in the first place, and working on the business will be the part that you find absolutely any excuse to avoid, like invoicing and tax returns for example.
One of the most difficult areas is remaining subjective about your own work and your processes. With no one to bounce off of it is easy to convince yourself that your way is working, when in fact it isn’t.
Photography is a subjective minefield, so how can you tell whether what you’re doing is leading you along the right path. Well, there are a number of ways to identify this;
Firstly, if you’re inundated with calls and bookings, chances are what you’re doing is working. But be careful, as trends change, be prepared to tweak your style to remain ahead of the curve.
If you don’t fall into this category, it may be an idea to surround yourself with like minded individuals so you can be inspired by what it is they’re doing and tweak your processes accordingly.
Join a club.
Sign up to a course
Start a group.
The bottom line is that you have to love what you are doing, if you don’t, this will be reflected in your workflow and results.
If you struggle to get motivated about working in your business, it may be time to consider getting someone in to deal with this aspect to free up your time to focus on what it is you love to do, because this could be the one thing that’s holding you back from really excelling.
