Best Business Practices for Photographers [83]
When I graduated, having not studied photography—my degree was in political science, with a minor in economics—I took a job as a staff photographer for a magazine that paid a whopping $15,000 per year. I was by no means at the top of my graduating class, but even this stung a bit. Yet the opportunity to have my own studio sizable enough to fit a car in, my own darkroom and film processing line, as well as an extensive range of cameras from 35mm through 4×5 and more studio lighting than I'd ever seen was a dream come true for an aspiring photographer who'd had a few stories published. The important thing was that I was a salaried employee with benefits paid by my employer, zero investment in capital, and zero risk of no revenue. As long as I did my job, I got my paycheck. Today's starting photographers can hope to find salaries in the low to mid $20s, where they will cut their teeth for a few years.
As you look at your current experience level and do your own research as to what others are earning or what you could earn in another field were you not a photographer, you'll want to choose a salary level that also takes into consideration growth potential over 5-, 10-, 15-, and 20-year periods and target those salary levels in your projections of overhead costs and your cost of doing business. That way, you can incrementally raise your rates to pay you a higher salary as you become more experienced and, more than likely, have familial obligations you didn't have when you graduated.
Chapter 10 Insurance: Why It's Not Just Health-Related, and How You Should Protect Yourself
Insurance is one of the most important things you can have to ensure the longevity of your business. Although you may understand that insurance is important, understanding all the necessary components beyond just health insurance can save you and your business— literally. Insurers will underwrite almost anything for a price. If you are a staff photographer, you have a wide assortment of coverage that you benefit from individually, and usually your employer carries the necessary insurance for your actions on their behalf. When you are transitioning from staff to freelance, you will need to not only secure these insurance types for yourself, but also account for their cost in your overhead. Many freelancers I know carry what they consider to be the bare minimum—health insurance—and more than a few wing it and carry none. When I ask them why they're not carrying the various types of insurance, their response is uniform across the board: "It's too expensive." If it's too expensive to carry these types of insurance, then you are not operating your business in a sensible or cost-appropriate manner. I won't go into health insurance in depth, but I will touch on it briefly because almost everyone seems to understand that it's critical to their own personal well being. However, the following insurance types are crucial to being successful in the long run, protecting what you've earned, and ensuring the well being and safety of family members in the event that you can't work anymore.
Health Insurance: Your Client Has It, So You Should, Too
If you don't have health insurance, you are playing with fire, and you will get burned. One of the secrets of the health insurance industry is that, although you and your insurer are billed the same amount for visits and prescriptions, your insurer is allowed to pay less. This means if you do not have health insurance, and you have to get X-rays done of your wrist after falling while carrying your camera, it will likely cost upwards of $1,000 for the visit, and the hospital will send a bill to either you or your insurer for the same amount. However, when the insurance company pays their standard amount of, say, $450 for the medical attention you received, the hospital will consider that bill paid in full. For you, until you pay the full amount of $1,000, they will hound you for every dollar. Although this might seem a tolerable