Here are a few ways to kill your love for photography, or how to quit your business before you ever get started.

Step: 1 Worry about what everyone else is doing
When you worry about what everyone else is doing it distracts you from the work you should be doing, it makes you bitter and angry when you are not as good at the people who have more experience, you will get mad at the people who price higher than you do or lower than you do.  If you want to learn to run a successful business look into business classes like The Thriving Photographer where you will learn the in’s and out’s of running a profitable business (though they will not teach you how to be a better photographer, you need other education for that)

Step 2. Judge yourself based on others work

When you judge your work against other photographers you are setting yourself up for failure.  Most of the time when you are looking at photographers that have images better than your own, they have also been doing it a lot longer than you have and have more experience, had the time to learn more, and have probably had more failures. YES I said failures!! Photographers learn more from their failures than from their sucesses, so look at your own work and what has worked and not worked for you and learn from that.  There is nothing wrong with being inspired by others work, maybe even reach out to some of the photographers that really inspire you and see what they can teach you, but you are your own photographer and should only judge your work on your past work and focus on your own growth!

Step 3: Take Critiques of your work as personal attacks on you

If you want to really kill your love of photography take every critique of your work as a personal attack of who you are as a person.  Really? Ok, so when some people critique they will be brutal and they will tell you what you did wrong, unless they say “you suck and should not be a photographer”  then don’t think they are saying that at all.  In photography if you want to improve you need strangers who know what they are talking about to critique your work, to take a look at an image they are not personally connected to.  We all see our images and see all of our hard work that we have put into them, we see with emotions, when we ask someone else to look at our work all they see is the image presented and critique it as such (this is a great thing) they take out all of the emotion we have and can say, “your lighting is off” “you should clone this out” “try using a different DOF” I have had some BRUTAL critiques, and after the initial emotional response in my head of “OH! no! they hate it!” I took what they said and improved the image, and kept the critiques in a note book for when I go shooting to remember what mistakes I was making and FIXED them! So don’t cry and think everyone hates you when you get a harsh critique, learn from it and improve your work.

Step 4:  Photograph what you hate just to gain experience

Yes, because everyone wants to hire a photographer who hate what they are shooting and have no interest in it and have not studied it… Many photographers starting out shoot anything and everything because normally they don’t know what they like and what they hate that is totally different than KNOWING you hate shooting newborns but you keep doing it because that is what you are know for… If you want to do weddings but keep taking on kids and families and you don’t like kids and families you will never get away from them and into Weddings.  Once you have decided what you want to do as a photographer then do that, make your portfolio around that, learn everything you can about the area you are interested in, work with another photographer in that specialty and learn, study, practice.  It really does not do you any favors to be that photographer who does everything, maternity, newborns, kids, families, weddings, seniors….. and on and on.  It is hard to be great at everything, pick something and master it.   You will be known for being the “Go To” photographer for that area, this can also allow you to have higher prices for your specialty.   “Quality over Quantity” Ansel Adams is know for his amazing landscapes, Anne Geddes is known for her creative and beautiful Newborn images, Diane Arbus is known for her fashion and advertising photography, the list goes on and on, but you get the point.  They are NOT known for being photographers who did EVERYTHING, they are known and set the standards for what they specialize in.  So be known for what you love, and know everything you can about what you love.

Step 5: Undervalue yourself and your work

Go ahead and after you have studied and learned how to be awesome, invested thousands into equipment and gear, you are running a legal business paying taxes and all the little things that go into being the awesome photographer that you are…. Go ahead and charge $25 for a 1 hour session and give the client a disk of ALL their edited images, because yeah.. that’s going to have you rolling in the dough right?? you’re making $25/ hour right??  WRONG!! You have to cover the costs for everything above, and pay yourself.  If you look strictly at how many hours you put into 1 session and don’t even think about the CORB (cost of running business) you will average 6-8 hours of work for a 1 hour shoot… so.. let’s see… we will average it to 7 hours of work divided by $25…. and you are making $3.57 an hours… and at those rates you might as well just go get a job at McDonald’s where they are working on raising their minimum wage to $15!! If a fast food worker “deserves” to get paid $15 right out of high school or while in high school then with all of your education that you have invested in to be an amazing photographer you deserve to make much much more than $3.57 an hour.

Again, go check out The Thriving Photographer to learn more about how to run a profitable business, and stop giving everything away just because Jane Photo up the road does it.  You may have started photography as a little hobby many decide to venture into the world of making their photography into a business, Value yourself as a photographer, value your time, efforts, equipment, and Value your work.

Step 6: Jealousy

Lastly, let’s make sure that we are keeping up with “Sally Photo” and all the expensive crazy gear, camera, and lenses that she has.  Let’s be jealous that she has the latest tech, and go out and spend crazy amounts of money on gear we don’t need at this point.  Ok, so realistically you don’t need everything, especially if you haven’t mastered what you already do have.  I don’t care what brand DSLR you have, if it is an old crop frame or the newest full frame because it is not the camera that makes the photo it is the photographer behind the gear that makes the photo.  If you have been drooling over the Canon 1Dx (like I have) but have not mastered using your Canon T3i, but think that having the 1Dx is going to magically take your work to a whole new level you will be disappointed and out nearly $7000!  If you have outgrown your camera like I had when I moved from the Rebel T3i to the 6D then look at investing in a camera that will suit what you shoot.  The only real reason that I have found to own a 1Dx is if you do action photography, otherwise the 6D or the 5DmkIII are more than enough IF you are going to go with a Full frame camera.  (and yes I am a Canon user so that is what I talk about HAHA) if you shoot only in natural light you will generally have very little use for a big strobe setup (usually strobes are brought out more for high fashion and your everyday family photographer does not have a huge use for them when shooting outside)  Really it’s about having what you need, mastering what you have, and not wasting your money on tools and equipment that you don’t need or won’t use.  Take your time researching what you will use, be realistic about how much you will use something, understand what gear is best suited to what you are shooting.  You are not going to use that 600mm $12,000 prime lens to shoot newborns, and you probably won’t use all those cute backdrops if you prefer to shoot lifestyle sessions.  So don’t worry about having the latest and greatest tech for photography, worry about knowing what you have inside and out and upgrade when you have outgrown the gear you have.

I wish you all the best in your photography journeys, I hope that you keep the joy, and expand the knowledge you have for what you love.  There will be hard days when you just want to give up because of the naysayers and some bad shoots, but push through, remember what you love about photography, develop your own style, and Love What YOU DO!

~Go, Do, Be Inspired