If you’re considering taking your passion for photography to the next level, here are some hard and fast tips to start your photography business right. As a professional photographer going on thirteen years in the wedding industry, I’ve made mistakes or failed to plan ahead, which always cost time and money. The good news is you can avoid these same mistakes by doing your research and using this guide as a jumping off point for your to-dos when starting your own photo business!

First, a small caveat — YES, YOU WILL HAVE TO READ information, sales tax law, business filing information, etc when you first start your business. This is crucial to understanding how to run your business legally in your profession. If you don’t have the patience to read anything, starting your own business is not a recommend option.

Please Note I am not a lawyer and the following information is a gathering of common knowledge. I, in no way, present the following as legal advice.

1) Your business name:
“DBA” vs. Sole Proprietors and LLCs

What’s in a name? A way to establish yourself as a current, working professional who is available for hire! When you are first starting out, you can do business under your own name, which is considered a DBA (Doing Business As…) so you can set up a Facebook Business Page as “First Name Last Name Photography”. Simple as that, no filing or payments needed— keep in mind though, your personal assets are at risk if you run into trouble with a client — especially if you are combining business expenses and profits with your personal banking accounts.

If your chosen DBA name is taken already, or if you have a business name in mind, it’s time to get creative and file it with your state government. Make sure to research it to see if the name on google, social media, and your state government to make sure the name is not already registered. After verifying the name is up for grabs, pay to file it as your small business with the state in which you will be operating. In the state of Minnesota there are several resources available here. When filing, you will have a couple of options — Sole Proprietor, Partnership, C-Corporation, S-Corporation, and LLC (Limited Liability Company). I will be focussing on LLC and Sole Proprietorship because I believe these are the most common for professional photographers and I personally have an LLC.

Sole Proprietorship is run by a single person. It’s an unincorporated business with one owner entitled to all profits of their business. There is no separation of business and personal assets in a sole proprietorship, meaning that all the profits are taxed as the owner’s personal income. You are also responsible for any business debts or liabilities.

A Limited Liability Company/LLC is a legal business entity formed at the state level. Unlike sole proprietorship, the LLC’s legal identity exists separately from its owner(s). As a result, the owners are not personally responsible for any business debts or liabilities. Basically this means if you get into legal trouble with your business (worst case scenarios), clients can only go after you/sue you for your business assets (not your personal assets like your home, your car, etc). There is a cost to register with the state and you must renew it yearly. (I believe in Minnesota it is free to renew each year).

2) Your online presence:

Start building your online portfolio. I highly recommend SmugMug for both storing your client galleries and showcasing your portfolio. SmugMug is an online platform specifically for photographers to create and store online galleries to share with clients and potential clients. I’ve been using SmugMug for close to a decade now and love that I can separate client galleries with password protection, download capabilities, and automatically selling prints and other goodies without having to do any of the heavy lifting. I also like that I can create as many galleries as I want to showcase my work at Wedding Fairs. Did I also mention there is UNLIMITED STORAGE with SmugMug?

Here are a couple examples of my own gallery breakdown:
Wedding Fair Love (general gallery with a few photos from several engagement sessions and weddings, several seasons, diverse lighting situations). I make this “available offline” so I don’t have to be connected to wifi to show my work to potential clients anytime, anywhere — on both my iPhone and my iPad!

Low Light Reference (I get asked frequently how I operate in “dark venues” and low light situations. This gallery shows several venues with low light that I’ve successfully shot in — mostly with Off Camera Flash “OFC”).

Whole Galleries: Mallory & Shaun’s Wedding at Minneapolis Event Center.
Raeesa & Chris’ Engagement in Minneapolis.

A website with an official “.com” or “.photography” is also a great way to establish yourself as a professional. If you don’t have money to pay for a domain name (I use godaddy) and website (I use Squarespace), then utilize a Facebook Business Page for now. Either way — display your work and contact information in a clean, organized way so potential clients can find you.

3) Your professional portfolio:

A portfolio can absolutely start with photos of your friends and family — just keep it professional. What you don’t show (mistakes, bad photos) is just as important as what you DO show (the best of your work, even if it’s not a lot yet). Quality over quantity, always.

Start bringing your camera out with you and use it to capture live music performances, fun things you see, creative portraits of your friends, etc. The more you use your camera, the better you learn how it functions and start to create your own style. Practice really does make perfect.

Show what you want more of! If you love photographing seniors — include a high number of senior portraits and teen portraits. If you want to get more wedding clients — show weddings that you liked photographing. It seems simple enough, but intentionally curating your work can directly impact the type of clients you attract and book.

4) Choosing your specialty:

A lot of photographers show too much variety in their portfolios (which is fine starting out) but you need to figure out what you LOVE to shoot most, then specialize in that. For instance, I will photograph anything from business headshots, live music performances, senior pictures, family pictures, and weddings… but I really only advertise weddings because that’s my specialty. Additionally, I like photographing “offbeat” and non-traditional weddings, so I don’t show photos of church weddings or anything super traditional on social media or my website. This ensures that I keep attracting the specific clients I really want.

5) Get social:

(and stay active online!) If you haven’t already, create your business instagram page and start showcasing your portfolio there. It is recommended that you post once a day to really build your business and audience, but quality is always better than quantity!

As I mentioned before, it’s also recommended to have a Facebook Business Page. You can automate your Facebook posts to feed your instagram posts, but doing this 100% of the time will decrease your reach with both platforms, so make sure to post separately once in a while. I’m no social media expert and there’s a ton of information out there — so if you want to learn more, here are a couple sources:

Melanie Lea: Marketing Mentor and Content Strategist
Jera Bean: Transforming how you show up on social media
Akua Konadu: Craft a story that’s impossible to copy

Don’t get held up on captions — it’s better to post and tag vendors with a one-sentence caption than to post nothing at all. The best part? I use my same SmugMug account from my cellphone to pull pictures from my existing galleries to share on social media. It’s made posting easy for me!

6) Strengthen your equipment “toolbox”

I often get asked about what equipment I use and recommend. While it ultimately comes down to personal preference and how much you can invest, here is what I suggest for starting professionally:

Professional Canon 5DSR Camera, Canon Mirrorless R5, Canon 24-70 Lens, Canon 50 Lens, Canon 135 Lens, Canon 70-200 Lens, Profoto A1 Flash

Semi-Professional Canon 5DSR Camera, Canon 24-105 Lens, Canon 70-200 Lens, Canon Flash

Hobbyist Canon 70D Camera, Canon 24-105 Lens, Canon Flash

For more resource recommendations and discounts, check out my Resources for Photographers.

Additional Tips: If you don’t know what to get first, invest in full-frame high-quality lenses before you buy a pro camera. Want to try before you buy? You can rent lenses from local shops (Minneapolis has West Photo), or use sources like borrowlenses.com.

Don’t buy cheap SD/CF/UHS II cards. I only buy Kingston and SanDisk pro cards. If your camera takes 2 cards, write to both at the same time as a backup.

Always carry a backup camera for weddings — don’t have one? Rent one for the day!

Full-Frame (as opposed to cropped-sensor) cameras are the way to go. If you have to choose between a nice lens or a a full-frame body though, get the nicer lense with the cropped-sensor.

7) Price your work fairly

Pricing your services and offerings must take into account several factors, including:
– Cost to you like your equipment, your software, raw materials, printing fees
– How much your time is worth realistically for both photographing and editing
– Your market — where you run your business
– Seasons in your area and how it affects demand for your service
– What profit margin you want
– How much work you want to take on in a given period (i.e. per year, per season)

It is important to look at a large variety of other photographers in your area and what they are charging to understand your market. You don’t want to sell yourself short (and risk getting customers that don’t meet your ideal clients, or worse, end up working several events for little pay and getting burnt out), but you also don’t want to price yourself out of client reach. There is a happy spot that is different for each photographer, so be comfortable experimenting until you get it right. If you list your pricing online (recommended), write in a caveat that prices are subject to change, then update them immediately if you do change them.

Yes, if you are first starting out I would recommend participating in “shooting for exposure,” but if you already have a solid portfolio, you should be getting paid for your work.

Here are some resources on how to price your photography, as explained by the experts:

Michelle Harris Studio The Hustle Vault
Makayla Jade of Harris Co.’s Printographer’s Society and Facebook Community

Additional information, specific to your business filing in Minnesota:

To apply for an LLC in MN, they will have you fill out this form and pay the fee either by mail or in-person (address is listed at the bottom):

https://www.sos.state.mn.us/media/1824/llcarticlesoforganization.pdf

You will receive notification from the state when your LLC has been approved.

As for taxes — you are able to file your sales tax online by creating an account with the MN dept of revenue, here: https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/e-services-information

— that link is also where you can apply for your MN tax ID number (EIN).

When you charge your clients, you need to charge them state sales tax. The way I calculate it is by entering in the zip code of my home office or the event venue, along with what you charge here: https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/sales-tax-rate-calculator

*For instance, if I enter 55416 for $250, the tax would be $18.81, so I would charge my client $268.81.

Sales tax is paid quarterly, which has admittedly been hard to remember, so I have to set reminders to myself.

Quarter 1 = January – March (Due by April 15)

Quarter 2 = April – June (Due by July 15)

Quarter 3 = July – September (Due by October 15)

Quarter 4 = October – December (Due by January 15)

Again, you’d log into your account, here: https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/e-services-information and click “make a payment.”

When entering in your quarterly sales tax, you’d enter in the gross amount earned, without the taxes added in. So if you did 4 sessions at $250, you’d enter in $1000 for gross sales, then the site would calculate the taxes due on that earned $1000.

The state of Minnesota has a great system and has made it easy to understand and follow, you just need to take the time to read the procedures. I know they also offer free sales tax “classes” online for more information.