Changing Your Photo Career For the Better

In just a few minutes (as of the writing of this post) we will officially enter the 3-day Memorial Day weekend. Summer has arrived, and it’s a great time to drink beers, fire up the BBQ, and think about the direction of your career. Is it going where you want it to go? Are you happy doing what you’re doing each day?

For a lot of photographers, this is a difficult thing to think about. Most often feel powerless and unable to make a change for the better. I disagree. As long as you’re inspired, you can do anything.

Changing Your Career Direction
Why change can be good.

• It gives you a chance to pursue your passion.
• It gives you a chance to re-evaluate your skills.
• It gives you an opportunity to learn new things.
• It allows you to turn personal projects into paid gigs.
• It allows you to leave today’s mundane tasks behind you.
• It builds confidence and trust in yourself, and your abilities.

Change was a scary concept for Robert Seale – who left his safe newspaper staff job to pursue a freelance career. He was inspired about his photography, and about his future, and was determined to make it work — and it did.

During a recent webinar about inspiration, I talked about the concept of changing your career direction – and why change can be a good thing. The information is available as a free download in the 2011 Inspiration Handbook, produced by the PhotoShelter Research Team.

I interviewed Robert Seale for the Inspiration Handbook, and our conversation was recorded, and appears (below) in this blog post. During the interview, he presented a very helpful list of things to think about when changing careers.

Robert Seale’s list:
Ten Things Photographers Should Do When Changing Career Directions

1) Identify your serviceable market.

2) Research the new market’s business practices.

3) Save money before you make the move.

4) Get your business house in order.

5) Have a plan for self-promotion.

6) Create new work for the new market.

7) Start promoting at least a year before the move.

8) Show the work to people within the new market.

9) Start working for them before the move.

10) When you’re losing money, make the switch.

Since we’re going into a long weekend, I figured it would good to give you something to think about as you’re eating a few burgers and drinking a few brews.

Have a great extended (and inspired) weekend.

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Download the 2011 Inspiration Handbook, another FREE guide that will help you cultivate your own inspiration. It contains valuable tips from top professional photographers, and includes 8 different interviews from photographers explaining their sources of inspiration.

Download this free guide right now!

About the author

Grover Sanschagrin
Grover is co-founder of PhotoShelter. He is a frequent contributor to the PhotoShelter blog. He loves tequila, Frank Zappa, and avocados. You can follow him on Twitter here: @heygrover

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