Commercial Photographer: Your Guide to Marketing, Creativity and Growth

Sunjay Singh went from photographing three-day British Asian weddings on almost no sleep to running a video and photography agency that hires other photographers for corporate work. He explains exactly what he looks for when deciding who gets booked - composure, reliability and turnaround speed matter more than most photographers think - and the slow, unglamorous relationship-building that actually gets you agency work in the first place.

Agency work comes up again in more depth in How to Build a Photography Agency: Inside the Business of Commercial Photography Representation, a closer look at how agency representation actually works.

Anthony Milner has spent his career photographing weddings and events - and now runs an apprenticeship scheme that turns beginners into working photographers over eighteen months. He explains what a photographer actually gains from taking on an apprentice, what it costs, and how someone starting out can find a photographer willing to take them on. If you've wondered whether hiring, or becoming, an apprentice makes sense for your business, this is the practical rundown.

How photographers actually develop their skills is worth digging into further - Education, Experience or both? What is the best way to develop skills as a photographer. weighs up the two different routes in more depth.

This year's Christmas episode swaps the usual guest for a look back and a look forward — Sam with three things worth doing before January, Marcus with three predictions for the year ahead.

It's a lighter one, but with genuinely useful year-end homework: the 80/20 marketing audit, a LinkedIn profile refresh, and some bold calls on where the industry is headed.

• The 80/20 marketing audit Sam does every year — and why most of your income comes from a fraction of your effort
• Why the same exercise works just as well on your camera kit as your marketing
• Marcus's prediction that 35mm film is about to have a moment again
• Marcus vs Sam: will AI image generation catch on with clients, or fade out?
• The niche genre predictions — funeral photography, and one Sam isn't convinced by

A fireside chat to close out the year and set up the next one.

The show's Christmas tradition continues — Christmas fireside chat with Marcus and Sam is the fireside chat that started it, a year earlier.

Gain exclusive insight into a 40-year Commercial Photography Career with veteran Mark Kensett. In this episode, Mark reveals the surprising marketing secret he learned over four decades and shares the single most valuable lesson he imparts through Mentorship for Photographers. You will learn the true privilege of working in this industry and how to protect your career by constantly keeping your work fresh.

Listen to discover:

• The Single Most Exciting Element: Find out what Mark believes is the greatest privilege of the job—a secret that unlocks maximum creative output and professional satisfaction.

• The Strategic Marketing Tool: Learn the specific type of non-client work Mark advises every photographer to do, and why it is the most effective tool for Brand Photography Marketing.

• The Key to Sustained Success: Hear the critical lesson in Mentorship for Photographers that Mark learned, helping you to stay relevant and retain clients for decades

For another long career told in full, The Business of Photography: Lessons from a 30-Year Career is worth going back for.

Andy has worked with cameras for many years. Initially, he was in the CCTV industry. This role was about sales and account management. He worked long hours, and got well paid, but eventually got disillusioned with it and decided to be a commercial photography. He started out within a Google Maps niche. At the time google was recruiting photographers to do 360 virtual tours of the inside of businesses.
This was very popular for several years. He also sold standard images to businesses while doing the virtual tour. He also used to upload images to stock photography. He doesn’t do this much any more, but still makes money from the images he has on there. He says the most mundane images are the ones that sell the best. Marcus mentions that we were chatting to Pete Coco about Spotify and how it’s effected the music industry, and we thought it was similar to how stock providers have effectaffecteded the photography industry.

Andy now mainly does self-hosted virtual tours, so he hoststhem not Google. That means they can be much more sophisticated. Andy says this week is quite specialist and the shoot is quite rapid and quite technical. But then most of the work is done in editing. Andy has been doing this for ten years now. Long enough that he keeps being asked back to existing clients to re-shoot. He does a lot of work with independent and boarding schools.
Marcus asks how he markets himself. Before the pandemic, he did a lot of marketing, trade shows, emails, social etc. However, since then he has not needed to do much marketing. The amount of work he got shot up over the pandemic as schools needed to replace their school tours with something virtual. So during the pandemic, he had more work than he could manage. And due to that he has built up a relationship with many businesses that keep wanting him back. But he still does some marketing and outreach to ensure that he keeps getting some new business coming in.
Marcus asks how he stays creative. Andy says that doing the shoot for the virtual tour isn’t creative. But the creative work is in the post-production. He also says he prefers conventional stills photography as it is more creative.

Marcus asks Andy about AI and how he has been using it. Andysays AI is here and we may as well embrace it, it’s here to stay. He has played with the image creation side of AI. He has also been using things in photoshop like the generative AI fill. As an example, he sometimes has to remove items from a room for the tour and 9/10 AI does this well. But at the moment he says he thinks that the AI generative images is not something he can bring into his business.
Sam asks if his corporate life helped him when he had to run his own business. He says it really helped with the sales and marketing side of things as he was doing this in his corporate role. He says many photographers find this hard so it has helped him. He says one approach is to show them what their competitors have and they do not have.
Andy plans to carry on with the virtual tours for schools. He would prefer to do more stills and drone photography. But even his current clients do not know he offers this.

Virtual tours are one route to recurring income. Could an E-Learning Course Get Recurring Income for Your Photography Business with James Martin? looks at a completely different one.

Dreaming of a professional studio but only have a spare bedroom to work with?

Marcus reveals the Small Studio Secrets he's learned from 20 years in commercial photography, showing you how to set up a professional, home-based studio that can easily handle headshots and small groups. This is crucial marketing for photographers advice, as a home studio instantly adds professionalism and speed to your service.

This episode is packed with useful content, but we've pulled out the three essential takeaways that will most quickly boost your commercial photography business. Stop relying on luck; start implementing a clear planthat converts prospects into paying customers.

• The Flawless Background Hack: Why the traditional paper roll is your enemy in a small space, and the simple, low-cost painting solution that lets your subjects stand right up against the wall without any visible creases.
• The Secret Lighting Stand of the Film Industry: Discover the one piece of affordable equipment (it's not a light!) that instantly opens up professional overhead lighting possibilities, even with low ceilings.
• Lens Selection for Small Rooms: Stop struggling with group and full-length shots in a tiny studio. Learn the unconventional lens choice that gives you the perfect distance and focal length to capture commercial photography portraits in a crowded space.

For the opposite of a controlled studio setup, Why Street Photography Is Essential for Photographers of All Genres makes the case for shooting out in the world.

Jeff Brown wrote the book on photographers and LinkedIn — literally: The Photographer's Missing Link has doubled in size since he first wrote it in 2022, and most of his own work now comes through the platform.

Marcus and Sam talk to Jeff about who is actually on LinkedIn, why newsletters outperform regular posts, and his verdict on using LinkedIn's own AI to write for you.

• Why 41% of millionaires are on LinkedIn — and why that matters for who you're trying to reach
• The 26-34 age group that makes LinkedIn a surprisingly good fit for wedding and newborn photographers
• Why LinkedIn newsletters quietly outperform regular posts, and how often to send them
• Jeff's blunt verdict on LinkedIn's AI post generator
• A smarter alternative to working for free: trading with clients who have a large following instead
• The one quick win Jeff says every photographer should do to their profile today

A masterclass from someone whose own business runs largely on the platform he's teaching you to use.

Find Jeff on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn strategy gets one more pass in LinkedIn for Photographers: Win Commercial Photography Clients via DM, focused specifically on direct messaging as the growth lever.

David Harrison built a career as a commercial photographer — and is now steering the business towards his real passion: wildlife photography, sparked by a childhood trip to South Africa's Kruger Park.

Marcus and Sam talk to David about what separates a good wildlife shot from a great one, and why safari photography rewards patience over planning more than almost any other genre.

• Why the photographers who win Wildlife Photographer of the Year spend far longer with their subjects than most
• Why working with what the wildlife actually does beats any shot list
• The case for standing still and waiting rather than chasing the shot
• What it's really like on a safari vehicle at first light in Africa
• How David is folding a wildlife passion into an existing commercial photography business

Proof that a genre shift doesn't have to mean starting over — sometimes it means finally chasing what you love.

Wildlife and safari photography is a niche one — Small Studio Secrets: Master Backgrounds, Lighting & Lenses for Commercial Photography takes a similarly specific look at small-studio technique instead.

A surprising number of photography websites have almost no writing on them at all — which is terrible for SEO and even worse for turning visitors into leads.

Sam and Marcus go through what actually needs to be on the page before you write a word: your ideal client, your calls to action, and a plan for the site itself.

• Why website visitors are there because they have a problem, not to browse
• Why people buy on feelings and justify it with logic afterwards — and what that means for your copy
• Why Sam recommends spreading testimonials across every page, not one dedicated page
• The About page cliché every photographer needs to retire (yes, the “got a camera at 12” story)
• Why repetition works on a website in a way it never would in a book
• Where AI genuinely helps with website copy — and where it shouldn’t be doing the writing

The writing rules that turn a website from a portfolio into a lead-generating asset.

Website copy that converts is one piece of the puzzle — Stop Wasting Money: The 3 Website Analytics for Photographers Metrics You must Track now is about the analytics that tell you whether it's actually working.

There's more to say on creativity than one episode can cover. The Secret You Need to Succeed: Unleash Your Commercial Photography Creativity Before It's Too Late takes the idea further.