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idea; rather, you're looking to document what you are currently doing, and this can be an interesting exercise. By analyzing your clientele, marketing efforts (to date), and profits from the various assignment types you complete, you can begin to see patterns emerge. From the type of clients who seem to always pay late (and thus may be enticed to pay on time with discounted rates or surcharges for late payments added); to marketing efforts that used to work, such as the major photo annuals, but that are dying on the vines; to profits, where you can find that clients who used to be profitable are now demanding more for the same price and, therefore, the profits per assignment are below continuing in that line of photography and should be jettisoned from consuming your time and resources—a review of a business plan drafted from existing work is more often than not an enlightening experience.

There are numerous books available and courses (many free or very inexpensive) in communities across the country that you can utilize to help you draft your plan. Bring your tax returns and marketing materials (postcards, websites, and so on) to courses or small business gatherings to meet with other entrepreneurs and even bankers, and in a day or two you'll find that you have a banker's perspective on your business. Bankers are math people who look to make sure that if they loan you the money, you'll be able to pay them back; they have a vested interest in making sure you can do so and that you remain in business.

Whatever course you choose, you'll want to make sure you establish a business plan. If you're not the planning type, think again. You've planned to have the right equipment and the right computers, and you've planned to learn the software necessary to do your assignment. For assignments for which you're not familiar with the subject or subject matter, you've done your research so you know that SiriusXM Satellite Radio is not a local radio station, but rather the nation's premier satellite radio company, so that when you walk in for your assignment to photograph the CEO, you don't ask where they are on the dial. For your assignment to cover a sports team, you've done research that tells you who the key players are in the game and what to expect from them. For a stakeout, you've studied the entry and exit points so that the indicted politician has to pass by you when he leaves his lawyer's office building. If you're planning all of these things, planning for your future success should be just as important (if not more so). Those planning exercises were tactical—they helped you complete the assignment successfully and hopefully earn another assignment from the client. Developing a business plan in which success is defined as you remaining a photographer is a strategic decision, one that is critical to your future.

Understand, though, that your plans must incorporate the idea that the business of photography is constantly changing. You not only must plan for what you expect, but you must establish responses to unexpected events and responses to those responses, and so on, and so on. By doing so, you will ensure that you are prepared for whatever clients and trends get thrown at you. This is not a plan-it-and-forget-it, check-that-box-I'm-done situation; it's one that will require you to be just as on top of your business as you are on the trends in news, weddings, portraiture, and the like.

Chapter 2 Professional Equipment for Professional Photographers

Top-of-the-line and specialized equipment is expensive for a reason. In many lines of cameras, there are the consumer models, the prosumer models, the professional models, and, in some, the top-of-the-line models.

We Are Professional-Grade: Why We Must Use That Equipment

Can you use a consumer or prosumer piece of equipment and often produce exceptional images? Of course. In fact, there are premium newspapers and magazines that are using some of the prosumer bodies because of the size difference. If, in an analysis of your circumstances, you've evaluated the available