I want to be a wedding or portrait photographer. Is it difficult?

How hard is it to establish a wedding and portrait photography business?

Everyone with an SLR wants to be a photographer, or so it seems.

There are hundreds, no probably thousands of people in every area of the country advertising their photography services. Digital photography has made the start up costs very low if you just have one camera, lens and flash gun and no insurance.

But is it really that easy? Most of the people offering their services do so at a knock down price.

Someone once said anyone can be in business, the hard part is to make a profit.

At some point you have to charge enough for your services to pay for the gear, the spare gear, the insurance, and also make a profit because at some point your will get tired of not making any money or worse charging so little you are actually subsidising your clients weddings.

I have my own saying, anyone can take an extreme position for a short time, but few people can maintain such a position for very long.

Whether it is taking out a massive mortgage you can only afford while you both work full time without children or offering photography services below cost price, at some point something has to give. In the mortgage scenario children come along resulting in huge childcare costs or the loss of one of your incomes. In professional photography equipment goes wrong and you had neither spare gear or insurance and your financial model collapses. In both cases it was obvious from the outset it was never going to last.

Olan Mills

Olan Mills was a nationwide photography studio chain in the United Kingdom which once had a 100 or so outlets. You would think that if there is one thing people will spend money on in photography it is pictures of their own children and where better to be based than in a leading baby and toddler store. When Olan mills ceased trading on 26 December 2008, they had 34 studios across England and Wales, 25 of which were based in Mothercare.

If Olan Mills can't sell portrait photography in what is probably the United Kingdoms leading baby shop where can you sell photography?

So is wedding photography and/or portrait photography difficult? Yes it most definitely is. It is easily the hardest thing I have ever done. I have a Ph.D in a physics related subject not related to photography (one could say it was out-of-this-world) from an earlier part of my life. Setting up a photography business required much more blood, sweat and tears. It came as a shock to me, and it will most likely come as a shock to you. Talking photographs at a loss is easy. Making a profit, thats hard.