Follow your passion: how to succeed or fail in wedding photography

During last year I attend some conferences and workshops that are highly considered by some of my colleagues.I spent more than 20 years in the photography business and I won some of the most important awards in photography not in wedding photography, my pictures are inside private and public collections, I am a doctor in business administration and I own a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology here more about me.So I was extremely curious about some new superstars of wedding photography.What I discovered is a little bit depressing, a lot of words and very little values.Words like:

• follow your passion;
• we are artists;
• charge more;
• attend workshops and conferences to strengthen your skills;
• take control of your life;
• live a meaningful life.

I have to tell something to a lot of new wedding photographers:

• we are too many;
• we are not artists but great craftsmen;
• taking control of our lives is difficult and it's a process that will never end;
• mastering photography is hard and take a lot of time;
• succeed in photography requires a lot of skills that are about business not about photography;
• it's better if you are not alone but inside a group of peers to share knowledge and to help each other;
• workshops are really important if they are the good ones (very few) that will help you to enhance your abilities and to meet new people that will give you great ideas;
• technology and business are changing fast and you must evolve and learn;
• reading will be your super power;
• most of the business is to sell something to wedding photographers;
• SEO, Marketing, Advertising, Accounting, Get things done, good behaviors, how to learn, how to evolve are the greatest skills to succeed;
• you will need a little amount of capital for the first two or three years to invest in learning, website, and equipment;
• paths are personal and change quickly, flexibility understanding your mistakes and rescheduling your goals is absolutely necessary;
• your body and your health also mental are really important so training and eating well are a part of your business;
• the most of you are going to fail.

Here in Italy what I see is that a lot of young talented people think that wedding photography is a call, a lot of photographers are coming to Italy for free because they want to build a portfolio with couples in Lake Como, Venice, Tuscany, Milano or Amalfi coast, so we are obviously under pressure but is a bubble and sooner or later will  explode wedding photography is a business and the right amount of money every month is crucial to run your studio.If you will not see financial balance sooner or later you will become depressed.Financial balance means to have enough money and time for your family.Technology in photography changed so many times in the last 15 years, it's important to understand what will come. It's about cameras, lenses, software, marketing and advertising...  It's better to understand your customers and to provide value that they can appreciate...Stay tuned next time I will speak about softwares that are really changing our industry.If you are a couple and you land here think about twice when you hire your wedding photographer: will be there in the next 3 years? Will he archive my images? Will he create great photographs? Will he preserve our memories?More here:  Wedding Lake Garda