12 Tips for Getting Started in Professional Photography

• Architecture Photography, Corporate Photography, Flash & Strobe Lighting, Lifestyle Photography, Outdoor Adventure Photography, Portrait Photography, Seminars & Workshops, Special Effects, Strobe Lighting

You love photography and want to photograph full time by launching a photography business. Maybe you are unemployed or wish to supplement your retirement income or simply wanting to earn money doing what you love.

For those with jobs you may not want to quit the day job until your business is launched and earning you an income and enough income allowing you can quit that day job. Maybe you are unemployed and if so you can get started right away but be careful if your financial resources are limited.

So how do you get started? I have compiled these ideas into the 12 most important steps I believe are crucial to finding success as a professional photographer in today’s markets.

I Photographed the Lost Dutchman Miner

• Flash & Strobe Lighting, Outdoor Adventure Photography, Portrait Photography

This past spring I was enjoying quite a bit of time wandering and photographing the Arizona deserts and mountains. While down in the desert I was stunned when I came across this old miner in the desert with his donkey.

We started talking and I asked what he was doing down here in the middle of nowhere. He told me he was the Lost Dutchman Miner of the infamous Lost Dutchman mine. He continued by telling me that he was truly lost in his attempt to relocate his mine.

I replied that he was a long way from the Superstition Mountains, where history suggests the mine is located. He did not comment obviously fearing if he said anything I might start searching for the mine myself. This got me thinking that the mine might not be in the Superstitions after all.

He asked if I had anything to eat as all he had to eat for sometime was beans and hardtack. I happened to be carrying in my camera bag a crab salad sandwich from Subway and one of my favorite beers: McTarnahan’s from Portland Brewing, and it was still ice cold.

I told him I would give him the sandwich and beer if he posed for a picture and so he did not move as I grabbed this shot. I did use flash fill because the sun was high noon and created the shadows in the eyes.

He scarfed down the sandwich and guzzled the beer (I don’t think he liked it. Never had a beer like that) then without saying a word, headed off into the sunset so to speak, in search of the Mother Lode. I grabbed my gear and went looking for the mine.

In Photoshop,

How to Stash-a-Flash

• Flash & Strobe Lighting, Outdoor Adventure Photography

I love to tell stories with light and do it with stash-a-flash technique which includes hiding a flash in the scene so that it lights a part of the subject.

This image of a rock climber is in my new book: Outdoor Flash Photography and was taken right before a thunderstorm rolled in. You essentially hide the flash with a remote trigger and in a place that it lights your subject but nothing else.

I hid the flash to light the climber and it worked well but some light spilled elsewhere and I show in the book how to fix that as well as how to add light to other remote subjects when shooting outdoors or on an adventure.

My New eBook: Outdoor Flash Photography

• Flash & Strobe Lighting, Products for sale

Finally….my new eBook: Outdoor Flash Photography is published and available.

If you have a flash and wonder how to use it, or you wish to learn how to apply light, this eBook covers it all.

You’ll learn:

  • The functions and features of the flash
  • How to see light
  • How to improve your flash photography
  • How to shoot action
  • How to tell stories with light…and much more!

Only $9.97

Click here to read more and order.

Cool Springs Arizona is Very Cool!

• Image Processing

During our winter wanderings through Arizona we discovered Cool Springs, Arizona along Route 66. From a photographic standpoint, this was a must-shoot location. It is now a vintage museum of memorabilia from the bygone era of Route 66 and interstate travel in general.

It is out in the desert and on the slopes of the Black Mountains and while we enjoyed a 85 degree day, this location is no doubt a harsh environment during hotter times of the years. Built in the mid-1920’s, the road was designated Route 66 in 1926 and as you head west from Cool Springs the road gets steep and windy.

You cant help but wonder what it must have been like to travel from Los Angeles to Chicago in August. Cars slogging up the hill in intense  heat and travelers thirsty and dehydrated. Cool Springs would have been a wonderful site.

I thought this was a perfect location for a light grunge HDR image. I did not like the distortion I got with my super wide, so I shot this with a 35mm, vertically, and in sections. I then did the HDR processing in Photomatix and finished by stitching the 6 image

The Magic of Discovery

• Architecture Photography, travels

I was on a walk, with camera in hand of course, when I discovered this door and entryway. It stands out very well and obviously I had to shoot it. I love the color contrasts that the painters chose. Everything snaps!

I tried various angles really skewing the lines and perspective and I like those, but keep coming back to this one-the first frame I shot.

This is the way of my ‘artists mind’ in that I like symmetrical and angles as they should be with everything in order. The skewed perspectives are cool and I will process those later, but am drawn to the straight looking down angle.

Maybe that will change later!

Shooting in Sajuaro National Park

• Nature Photography

Sajuaro National Park is a very cool place to photograph! A very diverse plant population, Native American petroglyphs, and beautiful desert light.

I passed through a few weeks ago and had about 2 afternoons to explore and photograph. The light was perfect and then it wasn’t. You know how it works: you want overcast and the sky is clear. You want clear skies and it’s overcast. No worries, there is no such thing as bad light, right!

In Sajuaro West, I was driving the road and hoping for blooming cactus but I was to early. I believe, at least this year, that mid_April to May will be the best time for blooming cactus. At least that is my guess.

The Ocotillo were doing well however, so I looked hard at those and I did find one blooming Hedgehog Cactus. As you can see it was overcast skies and I worked within the limits of that light. This image still has directional light or that back-lit feel and the image benefits from the softer contrast.

This is the Hedgehog Cactus that I found blooming, the only one. I was very happy to find this one blooming, anything blooming, but I have since found hillsides of them blooming (mtk). I shot it and was happy at the time, but in hindsight I am not that fond of all the clutter; the grasses and such.

The Barrel Cactus

• B&W, Nature Photography

I was just hiking around Sajuaro NP really hoping to find blooming cactus, but it is to early still. They will be blooming in the next few weeks, but I am an impatient traveler choosing to move to new locals and scenery. I did however grab a lot of other images including this detail of a barrel cactus which I then converted to B&W using Topaz B&W Effects. It seemed more interesting than color image.

The Cactus Are Blooming

• Nature Photography

I have been looking for flowers and blooming cactus in Arizona for a while and the flowers are out and even expiring in many locations. The cactus are blooming and have been in a number of areas. Finding them can be a challenge. I shot this Claret Cup about a week ago near Tucson.

Old Truck in The Desert

• B&W, Special Effects

We recently visited the Desert Bar outside Parker Arizona and if you have not been there it is worth the visit. It’s an old mine that someone bought and turned into a huge bar. Very cool!

On the property are many old vehicles like this one. I shot it and then converted it using Topaz BW Effects. They just came out with version 2. I then brushed back some of the color.