Reply To: Ok…. Just curious

[IHF]

Don’t buy any equipment right now.  The equipment you currently have is more than capible.  Use it, learn it.  There are all kinds of ways to use given light to your advantage.  Even on board flash can be used successfully by bouncing, reflecting etc. You can make scrims and reflectors very cheaply.  Learn how to use the environment around you.  Trees can diffuse light beautifully, and with fill or reflector you can make it wow!  Shade, walls, overhangs etc can all be used to reflect and diffuse light to your advantage.

I have 2 lenses, a body, and 2 soft boxes.  It’s what I started with a few years ago, and I have no near future plans of purchasing anymore.  Why? I still haven’t learned everything I can do with what I currently have. But I also am under no pressure to preform because I don’t shoot for others.

 

Look I struggle with charging too.  No I don’t shoot for money, or involve people in my learning process, but I do have finished art for sale.  At first I couldn’t even dream of charging anything for them, but that got to be way too expensive for me, way too quickly.  Then I thought I’d charge at cost.  But then I learned that if I had interest in purchasing my work from people that were no way personally invested in my art, then it’s worth something, and my time is worth something, I can do something they are unable to do, and they apreciate that.  I started investing in my own art, and learned the value of it, and starting charging accordingly, so I actually made money of a finished work.  Lol no, I’m not making any kind of money to even talk about because my art just isn’t a marketable genre of photography like portraits have the potential to be. But, I finally realize it has value.  Once I realized this, my sales improved.  Before, people couldnt see the value, because I didn’t see it….ugh I’m rambling…I’m sorry

But my point is…. To be a success at whatever you hose to do with your photography.  You HAVE to change the way you currently think about it entirely?  What you are currently doing, and the way you currently think and feel, will get you no where