My thoughts /guidelines on becoming a travel photographer

My thoughts or guidelines on becoming a travel photographer.

Start local

It’s tempting to jump into the wide world and get lost in it, but that won’t guarantee success right of the bat. There should be places to photograph everywhere including your own backyard. It’s better to start on familiar ground and to have a place to fall back to when things don’t work out as planned in the beginning.

Go beyond Photography

As a photographer you are essentially a one man business and a business can’t solely rely on the product to sell itself. While there are many ways to sell your photos and services you shouldn’t stop there. Taking images is the small part of the job, marketing is where the focus should be. Without getting your name out there, no one will find their way to your website. You have to branch out and not just remain a photographer, but a become a lot more. For example, creating blogs and vlogs has never been easier than today. Creating blogs and vlogs can introduce a whole new income stream and advertise your work much further than previously possible.
You’ll also have to pitch to new potential clients every day. Attending photography and travel conventions is a must as it brings together clients and photographers. You should work on creating a community around your work. Facebook, instagram, discord chat etc. Engage with your audience as much as possible. Don’t let the hype around you die down.

Quality doesn’t matter as much as quantity, or does it?

I think it’s best not to think about it too much as quality nor quantity don’t guarantee success. What does is hard work. If you take your business seriously you’ll learn the basics and the quality will improve on it’s own over time as you learn every day. Take all the images you wan’t and see how they sell. Adjust the quantity that way. Ultimately it’s a shady game of balance and I wouldn’t worry about it.

Free to work, free to sleep

It might be tempting to sleep a lot as you decide the workhours, but you are also responsible for your salary. Don’t think begin a photographer is easy. You might even work more than at a regular job, but what matters is the enjoyment you get out of it which is far more worth it than money. Being your own boss might push you to new levels of productivity that you didn’t know you had in you.

Gear doesn’t matter that much

I think the price of quality equipment is far too expensive for beginning photographers. A cheap entry level camera with a kit lens is good enough to produce great picture these days. Most stock sites only require you to upload 4~8Mpix images while even the cheapest cameras shoot up to 24MP. It means you can artificially make you pictures sharper by downsampling them. Finding a great subject, getting the composition right and doing a stellar job at editing is far more important than an expensive piece of equipment.

Get out there!

I’ve been playing with the thought of becoming a backyard travel photographer for a while now.(shooting in my small country) After a year or so I’d want to start travelling too. It’s gonna be a hard and long road, but I hope these guidelines will help me out. It’s really not that hard as I imagine it, but it’s way harder that I make it out to be :P haha
The first steps are always the hardest.

Do you have tricks or tips to share? Let me know!

_{*I’m just a hobby photographer atm :)}

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My gear:

Camera: Pentax K-50
Lenses: DA*50-135 / DA-L 18-55 WR / Cosinon 1.8 50mm
Flash: Yongnuo YN660
Tripod: Zomei Q555

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You can find me on:

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Questions about photography are welcome! Upvote, comment, resteem and follow if you like! Have a great day!