So while we're talking about spending money on gear, we have to talk about the sort of philosophy behind that, right? I mentioned that earlier investing in yourself. If you really think that you are going to be a wedding photographer, this is a dream that you're going to be as your full time gig. I think it's time to think about investing in yourself. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that all your money needs to go into equipment and gear, you need to have the minimum gear to shoot a wedding, but you're also going to need a website, you're going to need a laptop or a computer to process all your or your photos, you're going to need the correct outfit for what you're going to wear. You're going to need a lot of different things. You're gonna need a business license, potentially. Um You have to think about investing in yourself as a wedding photographer. So if you're doing this on the side and you don't have a ton of money to get going start small, make sure you have the equipment, tha...

t's the, the bare minimum, make sure you have the equipment to shoot a wedding next, you're gonna need to be able to share what you're shooting on a website or on social media. So the high level of investment here is mostly in your equipment, not necessarily the social media yet and the website minimal costs, but you're gonna need to do it as you move out from there. You're gonna want to think about maybe a client based website, something like Zen Folio where you can share your photos with your clients. Well, you can start thinking about more equipment. You can start thinking about a faster computer. You can start thinking about all the little intricate things that will help you in your business. Now, if you have the money, it's really great to start investing right away in all these things. If you know it's gonna be a thing. But if you don't have the money and you need to start small, like I said, just focus on having the right equipment to shoot the wedding. Well, that is where you need to start and you can start building up right? Every wedding you take on where you make money, start putting a little bit more money into savings, start putting a little bit more money back into your website or back into something that helps push your business. You don't want to forget that you are an investment in yourself and you have to grow. If you don't put money back into your business, you're going to stay stagnant and it's possible that you may not grow and you may not get more clients. It's possible to not put any more money into your, uh business than what you already have done or you've already started. But I think it's worth putting in, uh the money in places that will either make you more confident as a photographer, more creative as a photographer or let it automate certain things. For instance, I had a, a long time, I was trying to avoid putting money into a sort of client management app. I really wasn't feeling like I needed to and I finally did, it was like, I forgot what the, what the starting cost was. It was like 25 or $30 a month. But as soon as I did it automates contracts, it automates uh notes it automates schedules, like everything it does has allowed me to take the time that I would have spent organizing that and put it back into editing photos, reaching out to clients being on social media. So balancing the investment of money and time and how that correlates to your own time and the time that you can invest in yourself as a business and a photographer is important and you need to find that balance for yourself. Once I was able to have a site where I can just click a quote, send a contract, it connects to an email. I don't have to. It all happens within 10 minutes. Whereas before I was custom making contracts, I was custom making emails. I was custom making schedules and the administration part of my business was taking up so much more time and it's honestly not something I like doing. So investing in the things that help you get back to the part of wedding photography that you love, I think is very important and you need to discover for yourself. What are the things that I love about wedding photography in the business? And what are the things that I'm not too excited about? I don't know, any wedding photographer that is excited about every single process in the thing. You know, you either love editing or you love shooting or you love the whole creative process or you love the organization and accounting money coming in, dealing with contracts or maybe that's not the part you like or maybe you don't like going out and getting clients. So invest more money in the parts that you don't necessarily like to do and see if you can automate those things. See if you can find tools that will help you make those things easier for you. So then you can enjoy and spend your time on the things that you do love to do.

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Philip Ebiner

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Will Carnahan

11+ years experience as a cinematographer, camera operator, and photographer. Working with Disney, Nike, ESPN, PredPol and many others.

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Where You Should Invest Your Earnings

Where You Should Invest Your Earnings

Lesson Info

5. Where You Should Invest Your Earnings

Lessons

What this course is about and how to succeed

Why you should become a wedding photographer

Business Section Intro

Building your kit