This week we have a very special guest post from my good friend Nate. Nate is a budding business owner; while doing the things he loves for a living. He is very achieved and is willing to share his personal experience.
Growing up I always loved being out under the stars. If it wasn’t the annual meteor shower, I would be out contemplating the depths of space with my friends or laying out under a full moon with my girl. I’ve seen so many amazing photographs in my life and I knew that one day I had to try and capture the night sky myself. I finally decided to make the investment and buy a camera. I knew that the up front cost was going to be huge, but would pay off in the long run. Having never owned an SLR camera or knowing anything about photography, made it a very difficult hobby to jump into, so I had to teach myself everything. I spent countless hours reading books, watching tutorials online, and even reading my camera’s manual! Eventually, I decided to focus on night photography, which I soon realized is not the standard path for most photographers and was not going to be easy – patience was going to be my key to success. Staying up all night, monitoring the weather, the light pollution, the moon, and the earth’s position in the sky, was not easy to manage, but it was the passion that led to me to keep striving to capture the perfect shot, the perfect moment.
At first, the idea of starting a business had not even crossed my mind. All I wanted to do was take pictures and I took every chance I had to use my camera. The pure enjoyment and satisfaction that I got out of taking pictures was my pay off but I knew eventually I would want to share my photos with others and designing a website was the best way to do that. It wasn’t until later that I realized people wanted to buy my photos. Then it hit me, I might actually be able to make money doing what I love! The amount of experience I had did not play a role in how I managed my business because I learned to take on each problem, project, or photo, one at a time, and so far it has been working well.
Once I designed a website and made a portfolio I needed a convenient way to expose myself. The conventional studio/art gallery is something I would love to set up in the future but due to my travels and finances using the social media outlets has been the best way for me to share my work. Marketing with social media is the easiest and fastest way to release news, photos or updates and does not cost a thing.
The key is get your photos out there and continuously add new photos, news, and updates to your site. The best way to do that is by running a blog, where it’s easy to post, manage, and share. I used www.weebly.com to purchase and design my website and highly recommend it. From there the only barriers will be the ones you create and doing what you love has endless possibilities. You can see my work on my site www.paradisopics.com.