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Considering Photography as a career change
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tmcgrath, if you want to start a course this year I suggest you get a move on NOW. Many courses will be starting in the next week or two. Unless you do a distance/correspondence course. Let us know what course you go for.
If thinking of submitting for LSWPP you could do well to attend a wedding photographic workshop with two or more bride and groom’s helping build a varied folio.
I have to agree with Thorsten in regard to pro photographer. Very well put too.
I agree completely Brian, which is why I am responding with what I’ve found out so far!
I might take a combination of NCAD if I can get in at this point, along with some of the Gallery or DIT short courses as it suits.o Kilroys Diploma (?485 ? start anytime – 6 mths) http://www.kilroys.ie 1850 700 700
o Open Learning (?440 GBP – start anytime – 6 mths) http://www.uk-open-learning.com/CartV3/Details.asp?ProductID=558
+44 (0) 1946 811240 (Dip. Pro.Photo – accredited by the Open and Distance Learning Quality Council…whether that means much?!)
o Gallery of Photography (various courses) http://www.irish-photography.com 01 6714654
o DIT Short Course (various courses) http://www.dit.ie/DIT/appliedarts/docs/DLFLYERDecember2005Final.pdf 01 402 7829/3108
o DKIT Into to Photography (?150 ? Oct 4th ? 7-9pm for 10 weeks) http://www.learn.ie (042) 9370585
o Griffith College C&G 6923/6924 – 1 YEAR FULL-TIME (?4400)
o Griffith College C&G 6922/6923 – 2 YEAR PART-TIME (?2500 per yr) http://www.gcd.ie
o NCAD Cert in Photography & Digital Imaging (Cost unknown – 1 yr PT) http://www.ncad.ie/faculties/education/cead_pdi.shtml 01 6364214Hope this helps anyone else seeking courses in the greater Dublin area!
Cheers,
TA Professional Photographer (which I have been for over 15 years now) is simply someone who makes a living from Photography………..nothing more or less. Much of the time, it has nothing to do with photography at all ! !
Strange you might say…………
Well, much of your work will be marketing your services, negotating with and finding suppliers, dealing “over the counter” with customers, account keeping, Insurance cover, collecting money due, VAT & Tax returns, the odd Revenue Audit (hair raising stuff !), fending off advertisers and agencies selling you advertising, keeping bills paid, banking, telling the countless number of people calling you and writing to you that no jobs are available, tracking down deliveries that some courier has passed on to a “friend” that may be in your area “any day now”, weeding out customers from tyre kickers, waste disposal (everyone seem to send me their empty boxes and paper as extra packaging), rates, council charges, ticket sellers, fund raisers, sporting organizations looking for sponsership, etc. etc. etc.
For the few hours left in the rest of the week……….well.. you can take the photographs.
Still….after all that it can be a nice way to make a living but it is not easy ….and you will need a thick skin and a much better ability to run a business than your current ability to take a good photograph.
Always feel free to contact me and I’ll help in any way I can.
tmcgrath, please keep in touch on this subject. It’s an area I’m very interested. I have considered this career change often. Infact over the weekend I’ve been asked to shoot a friends brothers wedding in October. So hopefully if I do a good job of this it can start the balling rolling through word of mouth, which is something I’d like to do. Keep my “proper” IT job and try to get a wedding photography business going in my free time/weekends. To be honest though I think it will take two years to even start considering a career change.
Instead of a course….try books, online sites. Self train. Some of the best photographers in the world are self trained. You cannot beat getting outside (or inside a studio!) and taking pictures to learn.
digitalbeginner wrote:
Having a grasp of the basics of film and developing is not only educational and interesting, but could be useful too
Thorsten, I’m sure you hold these ideas quite close to your heart, and the fact that you have gone through the film/developing bit is probably very helpful to you, but the simple fact is that a knowledge of film is NOT a requirement to become a professional or even a good amateur. The only reason film remains on various syllabus around the country is because colleges put on the modules they know how to deliver, not necessarily what’s best for the student.
Lahinch_lass is correct I believe. I too am stunned at how many courses still ram film down your throat. There’s even a course out there trying to teach you the benefits of APS cameras! If you have the time, and the inclination, then by all means learn all you need about film, but it is not a pre-requisite for becoming a professional.
I have my own pet peeve about courses which include film … they generally include developing … since I don’t have the space to setup a home darkroom & I’m asthmatic I don’t particularly fancy the idea of mucking around with chemicals.
The Basic Photography course offered by the schoolofphotography.com looks to the the most comprehensive course I’ve seen which eliminates all the darkroom stuff.as regard the photoshop stuff.. yeah it’s a great tool, but how many people starting out are using a full version of photoshop .. it’s the same price as a camera ! I’ve already done a couple of courses about using the basics in photoshop elements, and they were great. But as someone that’s computer literate I know how to find my way around an application.. and most importantly how to use the help function :D So it’s not my spending priority…
My first concern is learning how to get the most out of my camera. I’ve put off buying any specialist lenses or Flashes until I’ve learned enough about them to know exactly what to look for. Lenses for sports not a problem I’ve done enough research to know what’s needed there… but lenses for anything else, I haven’t a clue.
lahinch_lass wrote:
I have my own pet peeve about courses which include film … they generally include developing … since I don’t have the space to setup a home darkroom & I’m asthmatic I don’t particularly fancy the idea of mucking around with chemicals.
It’s a common misconception that you need a darkroom to develop film – you don’t! All you need is a developing tank and a changing bag to put the film into the tank. Everything else is done in broad daylight. If you want to print your own prints, then you might need a darkroom. But there are a lot of photographers out there that shoot film, then scan the film and print digitally – best of both worlds!
I understand your concerns about messing about with chemicals, especially if you’re asthmatic. A perfectly valid reason for not wanting to develop your own film. I’m not one of these people that is trying to ram the idea of film down your throat. I just thought you were a bit quick to dismiss it outright. Of course, given the benefit of your extra input, puts a different light on it. And like I said, I haven’t shot film in a long time myself – so who am I to preach (I prefer to think of it as suggesting rather than preaching)!
Hi T,Firstly we wish you the very best in your endevours and hope that you will live the dream,i only became pro about a year ago after my whole work/life/balance thing wasn’t really working out.(i’m only 29 and sound like a auld lad.) All said and done i have sacrificed a lot personnally and financially to get where i’m at so its not easy from the interm but the satisfaction youre getting from it is worth it without doubt.
The above posts are indeed very valid and offer excellent advise but please dont forget that you will be also a business person acting soley for yourself. Everthing from self management to accounts will all have to be addressed.I have known some very well credited photographers go out of business because they never put enough emphasis on Customer Service/Accounts/Deadlines/Legal/Marketing etc. So i would encourage you to maybe consider enrolling for a start your own business course run by your enterprise board just to give yourself some knowledge into getting started even if youre going to be working from home. Then if you still have the enthuasim maybe take it to the next level. PM me if you need any help with the start up.
Ben 8)So i would encourage you to maybe consider enrolling for a start your own business course run by your enterprise board
ben
I think that is one of the best bits of advice that can be given to any body wanting to start out on their own…..
You need to be able to manage the buisness end in order to sell the photographic end
kenmurphy wrote:
So i would encourage you to maybe consider enrolling for a start your own business course run by your enterprise board
ben
I think that is one of the best bits of advice that can be given to any body wanting to start out on their own…..
You need to be able to manage the buisness end in order to sell the photographic end
I’m afraid I would have to STRONGLY disagree with this :? My own business is up and running since April 2002 and thankfully it has grown from strength to strength. However, my personal opinion is that we’re about 1 year behind where we should be at this point because we got involved with our local enterprise board at the start. In general I find enterprise boards, at the lower to middle management level are full of public sector works that have never and will never run a business. They make small businesses jump through endless and mostly unncessary loops, which cost time and money. Now don’t get me wrong, they do it genuinely believing they are trying to assist, but without real life experience to draw from, they’re largely useless. Obviously this opinion is formed from my personal experience with them, but from interacting and talking with other startups which were coming out at the same time (most of which are gone now), the experience was similar.
But I do agree with the point, that regardless of your photographic skills, you will need to be able to manage a business
Ciaran,
I think that there is a difference between going on a ‘start your own business’ course which would be valuable and bringing in the enterprise board
in to help/advise a start-up ?I was involved in a start-up in the 90s for 5-6 years and found as you did that involvement from these guys while the business was running to be
fairly useless. The people we dealt with had very little expertise in business and specifically in the software development business we were in.So I’d agree that they don’t always have the experience to guide your business, but I’d imagine that there would be some value to be had from
attending a course run by them (not that we need).Mark
I’m still not convinced Mark, but I guess everyones experience will be different. We approached the enterprise board before starting the company looking for advice, tips, guidance on available grants etc. To give some background, my company was set up by 3 engineers (including myself) with lots of technical experience, lots of ideas but zero real life business expertise. So we thought going to the enterprise board would be the best way to approach it. Their main advice and help was focused on a business plan. Up until that date we had idea of costs going forward and rates we could charge etc. but they “advised” us that a detailed business plan was crucial for going forward, especially if we wanted to secure any sort of grant or funding. We also had to attend some lectures, presentations and indeed weekend trips away for “entrepreneurs”.
In the end, our business plan went from a 5 page concise document to 80 pages which went into minute details including forecasted monthly cashflow statements for the next 3 years :shock: Their whole focus was about the business plan – it was crazy. We spent the guts of a year (we were working full time in our real jobs at this stage) formatting a document to suit them. It very much seemed like a case of ticking boxes for them, rather than giving sound advice, i.e. does the company have a business plan? Does the business plan include x, y and z? For financial help, they recommended (I’d hesitate to use forced or coherced, although that’s how it felt in the end) an accountancy firm, which while it gave solid advice charged over 4K for the privelege! A massive spend for a startup. Basically, if the people aren’t aware of real life business, they aren’t in a position to give advice and as such they end up reading from hymn sheets and ticking off boxes on forms.
Eventually, we got talking to a person who started their own business before, whom we met through the enterprise board but is not involved with it. His sound, logical “real life” advice was invaluable. He more or less told us to scrap the business plan and focus on starting the business, which we did. In the end, after almost a year wasted, an 80 page document of pure horse s**t and 4k down on accountancy fees, we took the plunge. We did eventually qualiify for a grant, which came to a whopping 6K from the enterprise board – after 1 wholes years work :!:
Enterprise boards are there to encourage start-ups, but in my experience, if anything, they stifle them. What’s even funnier, is my company has experienced significant growth since. (20% year on year in terms of revenue, profit and staff). Now that we’re reasonably successful and sustainable, it’s easier to secure grants. In the not too distant past, we applied for further grants only to be again met by the “submit an 80 page business plan” answer. We held firm, told them that our focus was on the business not wasting effort on worthless documentation. In the end, we submitted a 2 page document and secured a very sizeable grant. The funny thing was that we really needed that help back at the start up stage NOT when the business was trading and sustainable!
My advice for people planning on starting their own business is to talk to others that have done it. It’s those people that can tell you what you really need to know – where the pit falls are, what to avoid, what is worth chasing down. Better still, talk to the people that have started and failed. Hind sight is a wonderful thing and their experience of what went wrong may be invaluable going forward.
I also did a SYOB (Start Your Own Business) course run by F?s. While the outline of the course was very good, the organisation and delivery was very poor – due to the particular lecturer involved. I actually learned very little from it – but only because I had done quite a bit of background reading and research myself first.
Having said all that, I do think these courses are useful for people who have no idea of the legal and financial issues involved in running a business. Otherwise I think it’s best to go it alone. They do, of course, push the idea of developing a detailed Business Plan. The main function of this seems to be to be able to show it to a bank when you need to borrow money. I actually think a Business Plan is useful to get things focused, but not the 80 page blockbuster mentioned by Ciaran. All the details will probably be out of date after the first year anyway (if you survive that long !).
One useful resource is the http://www.startingabusinessinireland.com/ website. If I was doing thigs again, I would have skipped the SYOB course and gone for their ‘bootcamp’.
FrankC wrote:
I also did a SYOB (Start Your Own Business) course run by F?s. While the outline of the course was very good, the organisation and delivery was very poor – due to the particular lecturer involved.
“Those that can do, those that can’t.. teach”
Obviously there are exceptions, but as a whole, when someone is delivering training you should always be asking yourself why they’re teaching rather than doing – particularly if it involves people in the public sector lecturing on topics related to the private sector.
FrankC wrote:
The main function of this seems to be to be able to show it to a bank when you need to borrow money. I actually think a Business Plan is useful to get things focused, but not the 80 page blockbuster mentioned by Ciaran. All the details will probably be out of date after the first year anyway (if you survive that long !).
Coudlnt agree more. We had a business plan at the start, which was enough for us to santise was our business a reasonable proposition. To even get to the 5 page plan we had, took considerable research and effort. And you’re 100% right, the 80 page plan, which ticked their box and wasted 1 year of our time, was completely innacurate within the first year of trading.
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