If you are trying to hunt down individual wedding customers when you are starting out you will starve. Building a good wedding business takes years if not decades. Even then you are still dependent on the next wedding. If you are really good, word of mouth will keep the business coming, but it is a much harder way to earn a living, especially starting out. If you really love photographing weddings that is great, but if you want to earn a living to support you while you build that business then I suggest high volume photography.
What is High Volume Photography?
High volume photography (referred to from here on as HVP) is simply photographing a high volume of customers at a single location or venue. Think about it, a really good wedding photographer might be able to get $3000 for a wedding, but not starting out. With HVP, you book one account and get 100 customers to come to you and spend $30 each. Both scenarios are worth $3000, but would you rather try and hunt down individual wedding customers and convince them to spend a $3000 with you or would you rather have multiple customers show up at your picture day and spend $30. To me the answer is easy. The most recognizable form of HVP is something everyone has experience with, school portraits. I do not recommend starting out in HVP as a school photographer. School photography is a VERY hard business to break into and it is not a good industry in which to cut your teeth.
Another form of HVP is youth sports photography. I started out as a youth sports photographer. Youth sports photographers can earn a really good living while still relatively new in the industry. Also, there are multiple different options to purchase a franchise or license the brand of a more experienced youth sports photographer such as Legends or MVP Studios. This also comes with their experience and knowledge on how to succeed when you are starting out. They have already made most of the mistakes for you, so learn from someone else. You wouldn't believe the amount of detail necessary to successfully run a single youth sports picture day, much less 10 in one day. It is well worth the money to get the knowledge and brand of a proven youth sports photographer.
The other main form of HVP is event photography. Event photographers also have the benefit of the paying customers coming to you. There are tons of different types of event photographers ranging from corporate event photographers, prom photographers or even Marine Corps Ball photographers. The common denominator being that you show up at a venue and the customers come to you. Now that is my kind of business!
In my next article we will discuss the pros and cons of outdoor and indoor picture days.
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