Commercial Photographer: Your Guide to Marketing, Creativity and Growth

Sarah J Naylor is a lifestyle success coach and mentor. She helps people at crossroads in their life. Often a midlife point where you suddenly start asking questions about where youare and what you are doing. She works to help people understand what fires them up, how they want their life to looks and helps them work towards that. It is also about how you see your life and having the gratitude for what you havealready.

Marcus asks Sarah to define mid-life. Sarah says it’s around 40 to 60, but age is just a number.  Sam says that kids leaving home could prompt that mid life re-assessment of who you are and what you do. Sam refers back to a recent podcast with Allie Crewe and she at that mid life, stopped teaching and became a photographer.

Sarah has had quite a journey coming through a divorce and becoming a single parent to setting up her own business during a recession. Sarah says when she was married she now feels her life was on hold.

Sam says there are people that are amateur photographers who would like to go pro, but aren’t sure about it and are worried about it. He asks what Sarah would say to people like that. Sarah has a client in a similar situation with a photography degree, but has lost her confidence in taking photographs. Sarah says the key is just do it. Do what you enjoy. Find the thing that fires you up and do it. Don’t worry about trying to get business from it, just do the type ofphotography you enjoy ad it fires you up. Sarah says you will then start to get work based on that work. Marcus totally agrees with this approach.

Sarah then talks about lifestyle, income and what you want. The key is work out what you want and aim towards that. It might be you want to travel the world, so in that case you could work on how can earn money while travelling, rather than working hard to be able to afford it. Don’t focus on the money, but equally do value yourself.

Sam points out that this is linked to business planning, working out where you want to be and getting there. You can listen to this show here. Sarah says also that small shifts in your life can make the biggest differences in your life.Leading on from this Marcus asks how you get from A to B. Sarah says the first thing is working out in detail what B looks like. Until you have this in place you can’t go anywhere. You then need to be mindful of your words, thoughts and actions. Step into the shoes of the person you want to be. Be positive. Be aware of the opportunities coming your way and take the ones that help you getto B. She says there is a balance here. Don’t fake it until you make it, but you do have to step into the shoes of the person you want to be. So say “I am a photographer” make it positive.

Marcus summarises Sarah’s approach into three steps

1.Be clear where you want to go

2. Step into those shoes and own it

3. Be the best version of yourself
Sarah loves this summary and says that covers it well. Be yourself and step into your own future. Don’t let others pull you down. Surround yourself with great people who support you.

This is actually Sarah's second appearance on the show. Guest Interview with Sarah J Naylor, Lifestyle Success Coach and Mentor is where it started, if you want the full story from the beginning.

Are you a photographer looking to get more leads for your commercial photography business? In this episode, we're talking about Google Ads. We'll cover the pros and cons of using paid ads, the crucial research you need to do before you start, and a simple strategy that ensures your ads actually work for your business.

Three Things You'll Learn in This Episode

• The key difference between Google Ads and other marketing methods for commercial photography. Discover why ads give you instant results, what the downsides are, and how they can either be a fantastic investment or a total waste of money.

• The crucial maths you need to do before you spend a penny. We'll break down the simple calculation that will tell you exactly how much you can afford to spend on ads to ensure you always turn a profit.

• The one thing you must get right for your ads to work. Find out why simply sending people to your homepage is a disaster and how to create a simple, effective flow that turns clicks into paying customers.

Paid ads are only part of the picture. Get More Leads Using Google Maps to Your Photography Business covers the free option worth setting up first.

Meg is from San Deago, our first guest from the US.

Meg is a brand photographer, and has worked with over 300 entrepreneurs. She always wanted to work in an area she had passion in. Twenty seven jobs later she started to work it out. While teaching English in Taiwan she bought a cameraand started a travel blog. On her return to the US she decided she really loved photography and so started a business. She started doing all types of photography.Then one day someone asked her to do some branding photographs and this converted her to brand photographer.

That business changing brand shoot was seven years ago. At that time photography was still a part time job. So then she started going to networking groups and meeting more business owners.
Meg describes brand photography as bring broken down into brand photography and personal brand photography. Brand photography is for a product or business. While the personal brand is for the solo entrepreneur, one man band or family business. The personal branding is what Meg really likes doing. In this age of social media these branding photographs are so important for businesses.
Meg now works less, adds more value and charges higher prices which allows her to spend time with her toddlers.  She enjoys the flexibility that a brand photographer can bring.  She enjoys the creativity of brand photography. If you want to get into brand photography then first of all spend some time getting to know how it works. A client will often have a bigger budget than a personal client. But you need to ensure you let them know what value they will get from your work. Meg also says the planning side of a brand shoot is essential and a key part of the this type of work. This is about finding out about their personality, brand , business and the end use for the photos.

Getting in front of as many ideal clients is really important. It’s a numbers game. The more people you can get in front of the more clients and the better clients you will gain. This is a part of the business photographers don’t necessarilyenjoy but it is vital for a thriving business.

Marcus asks what makes a branding photograph different from a portrait. Meg says it tells a story. You want to try and capture the essence of what a business is through the use of photography. Meg says that although we say the photography market is saturated, this is not unique. Many other industries are the same and businesses in those industries need photography to make them stand out from the crowd.

Marcus and Meg agree that in branding the coffee cup and computer and overused, although they have both used them. They say that you need to get more creative than this. How could a brand photographer go beyond this? Props, location and wardrobe can help and make the photos more unique and interesting.

For a brand photographer working somewhere very different, What Is It Like Working in Thailand as a Brand Photographer with Charlotte Graham is worth a listen.

Jamie Stewart used to dread networking - now he runs a networking training business built on turning £18k of work a year into £88k. He shares his rules for actually getting something out of a networking event, starting with going in with one clear goal instead of just 'meeting people', and why treating your headshot as personal branding, not vanity, changes how people respond to you online.

Networking as a skill gets revisited with sharper focus in The Power of Connections: Why Networking for Photographers Is More Crucial Than Photoshop, years on from this first conversation.

Marcus says the show was triggered by a client he had recently who wanted images cropped in a very specific way.
Back in the days of film Marcus says it was a lot simpler and to some photographers it was a badge of honour not to crop their images. There were of course a great deal of different film sized and ratios back then including:
35mm – which were a 2x3 ratio

6cmx6cm so a 1x1 ratio

6x7 ratio was also possible for magazine covers.

Large format 5x4 was also available

There also camera specifically for panoramic images thatwere a range of formats and sizes.

Back then once you had chosen your film that was about it. Now with websites and social media these is so more to think about and so many different sizes. And when shooting you need to think about what crop you will use at the end.
For example a website header might be a 2:1 ratio, quite cinematic, while an Instagram reel will be 16x9 in portrait mode, which is very challenging to shoot. Sam says when shooting for a website you need to remember that the images will be auto-croppped so it needs to cope with a range of crops. Marcus says when shooting a website banner think first about if there will be text over the image. If there will be ask for an overlay so you can work out where the text would go on the image. View finders allow you to have crop marks (like rule of thirds) and these can help you think about the final crop you will have.
There are lots of sizes needed for social. For example for a profile banner a really wide thin shot is needed. Because there is such a range of image sized needed it’s important to ask the client what the client is going to use the images for. It’s a great value add for the customers providing them withpre-cropped images for different platforms and uses. Doing this also ensure that your images are shown in their best light when used.

Marcus loved the square Instagram photograph format, butwith the move to reels being more popular, then this is a move away from squares to 16x9 portrait. As he has said before this is a challenging format to shoot in.
When thinking about cropping you also need to think about file size. If you are going to heavily crop an image you need to ensure it is a large file size that can cope with the crop.

Marcus suggests another thing that can make you stand out from other photographers is making videos from still images and giving them to your client. Marcus suggests using Canva for this and Sam suggests using CapCut. Marcus says making gifs for clients is another thing you can do them.  

Getting your images right is one thing, but Marketing for Photographers: Why the Wrong Social Platform Is Killing Your Booking asks a bigger question about where you're actually posting them.

Jo wants to help people who don’t want an average vision. She asks them if the level of effort they are putting in reflects in their bank balance, but for most people that is not thecase. Jo finds that most people don’t know how to sell or land business. Once she helps them with that they can afford her and move everything else forward. One of the things Jo shows people is that it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s how you present yourself that is important. And once they do that the work follows.
Jo says she helps people present themselves in the best possible way. But there is a problem. People can see her, and in many ways photography, as a luxury. So a photographer needs to show a potential customer what they are going to gain from the photography, and what losses will be avoided.
Marcus explains what she is saying follows a Japanese philosophy he follows Ikigai. It has four tenants. Jo has mentioned two of them. Getting paid for what you do and adding value.
Jo says if you don’t believe in yourself you are never going to get work. She also says the prices needed to reflect your value. And if you are very good at what you do, charge accordingly.  The conversation then moved onto mindset and Jo says the key is that it is simple. But that doesn’t mean it is easy. The first step is self awareness. Be able to see the  doubts and negativity in your mind. That awareness then flows onto to the changes being possible. They discuss the Jeff Olson book The Slight Edge that talks about this gradual change. In Marcus Galdwells Outliers he says you have to put 10,000 hours into something to become an expert. Jo says it is a journey and you need to enjoy that journey. Ask what a confident person would do and how would they behave.  Jo says awareness and little and often changes are really key.

That self awareness and confidence is vital to the processof photography. Jo says it’s important that this inner confidence is important. And that the work on improving ourselves is vital every day.  Not many people like their photograph being taken and so that confidence and calmness is essential.

Jo likens your self confidence to being on a perch. If youhave self belief and self confidence then day to day issues won’t knock you off your perch. But if your confidence is not in place, you can easily be knocked off your perch.

Marcus brings up the idea of melancholia and getting creativity from the darker times. Jo says that everyone will go though these times but what’s vital is that when you go through this you are aware what is happening and being aware that “this too shall pass”. Working through it ismore possible with strength and resilience.

Other book recommendations

Beyond positive thinking, Dr Robert Anthony

The courage to be disliked  

As a final thought Marcus brings up sods law, which hethinks he is effected by. Jo says here partly this is about letting go and saying what am I doing this day to make this day count. 

Mindset coaching resurfaces later in the show — The Injury That Could End Your Career: Why Fitness for Photographers is a Business Strategy connects it directly to physical health and injury risk in this line of work.

Most local photographers are sitting on an underused lead source: Google Maps. Sam walks through what actually moves the needle on your Google Business listing - from how your business name and category are set up, to why reviews matter more than almost anything else, to using every inch of the description field Google gives you. If local clients are how you get booked, this is the fifteen minutes that fixes it.

This episode is sponsored by Website for Photographers - get in touch at [email protected] or 01482 765871.

Google Maps for leads is a starting point. Google Ads: A Marketing Masterclass for Your Photography Business goes further into paid advertising as the next lever.

Zoe Wadsworth built an events business, watched Covid strip it away almost overnight, and rebuilt it as a marketing and business consultancy that now works with photographers who are brilliant at the creative side and stuck on everything else. She talks about the KPIs photographers actually need (nothing complicated, just clarity), why creative people tend to avoid the business side of the business, and what a business plan should actually read like.

Business fundamentals from an expert guest continue in Getting More Clients with Christine Saunders, a conversation about actually winning more clients.

This week Marcus talks about building a portfolio as a photographer. He breaks this down into three areas, photographs, pace and presentation.

Marcus starts by taking about Robert Frank and his book 'The Americans', that was published in 1960. He took photos and made what he called about a visual poem out of them. Marcus encourages you to look at the book and focus onthe fact that it is a series of images.
Sam asks why a photographer wants a portfolio. Marcus says there are two reasons. One is to get more work. The other is to present a body of work. Years ago a portfolio was leather bound and shown to people to show your work. Marcus still has some of these. Clearly now there are many more options. You could have pdfs, movies and more, but printed material still has it’s value. And printing out work and showing it to clients will make you stand out from the crowd. You can also make a slide show to go at the back of Zoom calls during networking meetings.  Marcus thinks 20 to 30 images in a portfolio is about right. Less is more. Sam says that on websites photographers usually add far too many images.

When you are putting together a portfolio the beginning and the end are really key. They are the parts people remember. The middle is almost a filler. The beginning and end does not need to be your best shot. It may be more your mostimpactful or alternative to get attention. Tweaking portfolios for the viewer is also really important.  Marcus says to look at your portfolio from the back forwards, remember some people flick through books this way (if it is physical).

Think about how the photographs are arranged. So colours for example, or work on themes. Working through a time frame can also work. The key is do not put them together randomly. Sam introduces the ides of adding humourin there and Marcus agrees this is a great idea.

Finally Marcus talks about pace. Allowing space and allowing your portfolio to breathe. Marcus gives examples of leaving blank pages or part pages.

Marcus explains that he offers online portfolio reviews thatcan be booked in via his website.

For a completely different angle on creative work, What Can Photographers Learn from Musicians with Pete Coco is worth your time.

The Professional Edge: Is the rise of AI and a crowded market making you nervous? Jeff Brown, President of the BIPP, joins Marcus to explain why now is the time to double down on your professional identity.

• The World's Oldest Secret: Discover the massive business benefits of joining a Professional Photography Association and how 123 years of history can protect your future.

• The Death of the Generalist: Jeff explains why the "freelancer" label is damaging your income and the urgent steps you need to take to niche down.

• AI vs. Authenticity: Find out exactly where AI fails and how to position your Branding Photography to offer the one thing a robot can't—personal storytelling.

For a working example of building a distinct brand identity, Meet Meg McMillan, Branding Photographer and Educator is a good next listen.