The 10 Things All Staff Photographers Must Do Right Now

During the last few days of 2009, the Washington Times unexpectedly eliminated all nine of their staff photographer positions. The news spread fast and furious throughout the photo community. Photographers who were still fortunate enough to maintain a staff position somewhere got another wake-up call – they could be next.

With all the layoffs we’ve seen in the industry in the past few years, what surprises me most, however, is how common it is for a staff photographer to be “surprised” with the news of their own layoff. They are very often leaving themselves totally unprepared for life as a freelancer.

“The staff photographer who believes he will have a job in 10 years is kidding himself,” says John Harrington in his book “Best Business Practices for Photographers“.

The writing is very clearly on the wall, so I thought I’d ask Harrington, a freelance photographer, blogger and author, to help me come up with a list of things that photographers (both staff, and former staff) should be doing immediately.

The 10 Things a Not-Yet-Laid-Off Staffer Must Do

1. Know that it is not a matter of if, but a matter of when, you will lose your job. No one gets gold watches these days, and your company, no matter how much you think they care about you, only cares about the bottom line. Don’t take it personally, it’s not personal, it’s just business.

2. Save, save, save. You should have at least 6 months (if not a year or 18 months) worth of savings that will sustain you.

3. Establish your online presence, including a website with your URL, and a professional e-mail address (that means no @gmail or @hotmail accounts!)

4. Over time, build out your businesses infrastructure. Acquire a laptop, cameras/lenses, cell phone, and street legal software (stealing Photoshop is bad karma for people stealing your photos).

5. Determine your cost of doing business in the event that you are no longer subsidized by your full-time employer. The best tool to help you do this is the NPPA’s Cost of Doing Business Calculator.

6. Establish your policies and prepare your contracts. Knowing what you will not do (i.e. work-made-for-hire), and also the terms under which you will do it, will be important.  These policies should apply to all the freelance/side work you are doing.

7. Establish your rates for all your current freelance work so that it is not considered “gravy”, but rather revenue from a client at a rate that, if that was your only income, would sustain itself. Nothing is worse than having a dozen freelance clients at $200 an assignment when, if you were not a full-time employee, it would have cost you $500 to do the job, not to mention earn a profit. Not only are you using your employer as a subsidizer for that job, but you are setting the bar way too low for your freelance brethren and they won’t appreciate it.

8. Fight for your freelancers. If you can figure out that from your $45,000 a year job as a staffer, that your benefits/gear brings the companies’ total cost for you to $52,000, you cost them $1,000 a week, or $200 a day. When your paper can get a freelancer for $150 a day – and only when they need them, how long do you think it will be before the accounting department considers you replaceable? Make sure that freelancers are paid an assignment rate that is at least 20% higher than you, and that the publication/organization gets only the rights they need.

9. Grow a select clientele during your days off that appreciates the opportunity to work with you, and focus on who you would want your clients to be if you had more time to freelance, as well as knowing that segment of the industry. (i.e. weddings, unit photography, or annual report photography).

10. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Photographers who have been recently laid-off should not panic. It’s not the end of the world, and there is life after-staff.

The 10 Things a Recently Laid-off Photographer Must Do

1. Determine if the freelance life is for you, or if finding another staff position is what is best. Be honest.

2. Ascertain how much your personal “burn rate” is, and how long it will be before you are broke, without any assignment revenue.

3. Establish your online presence, including a website with your URL, and a professional e-mail address (that means no @gmail or @hotmail accounts!)

4. Build out your businesses infrastructure. Acquire a laptop, cameras/lenses, cell phone, and street legal software (stealing Photoshop is bad karma for people stealing your photos). If you can’t afford cameras/lenses, in many locales you can rent them per day. Further, some things can be bought from the company that laid you off, so ask.

5. Determine your cost of doing business. This is a variation on #1, however in this case, it’s not about how much cash you’re burning through, but about how much it costs to sustain you each day. The best tool to help you do this is the NPPA’s Cost of Doing Business Calculator.

6. Establish your policies and prepare your contracts. Knowing what you will not do (i.e. work-made-for-hire) and also the terms under which you will do it will be important.

7. Determine what you can live without. My priority list is: 1) Roof over my head, 2) power, 3) phone, 4) computer, 5) internet, 6) food. Really. Cut the cable out, and whatever non-critical-to-existence expenses you’re making.

8. Reach out to your network of colleagues about sub-contracting work from them they can’t do. Second-shoot a wedding, or take on an assignment that they’ve double-booked.

9. Focus on who your clients could be, and who your dream clients are, and then begin an outreach program to them that includes the best method to make that outreach. It could be emails/calls/go-sees/portfolio ship/etc.

10. Know that you won’t be getting much sleep as you ramp up from zero to 60 your business. It will take all of your effort (and then some) to succeed.

The second edition of Harrington’s book has a whole section geared toward this, titled “After Staff: Transitioning to Freelance.”

“The transition to freelance is one of the more difficult transitions to make, usually because it happens to you without notice and when you’ve not planned for this occurrence,” he says.

The great news is that today, the information you need to make good business and marketing decisions, and the tools you need to run professionally, are at your fingertips.

There will always be a need for good imagery and dependable photographers. More and more freelance photographers are entering the market, so the sooner you start preparing for it, the more of an advantage you’ll enjoy.

Be sure to take advantage of PhotoShelter’s free resources, including “Google Analyics for Photographers”, “2009 SEO Cookbook for Photographers” and “Photography Websites: What Buyers Want,” all available as a free download.