For the last 4 years, I’ve been shooting as a hobby. After my family saw my photos, I became the dedicated photographer for the family; birthday parties, family group photos, and even did my sisters wedding.

I enjoy it as a hobby, and it’s made all my travels even more memorable and I’ve gotten MUCH better over the last 4x years. (I was awful when I took my first “family photo shoot”)

the long term goal is that if I get good enough, my wife and I turn it into a side hustle business

…but why?

1. I love doing it. But it gets a little boring photographing the same exact people over and over. having clients/bookings will give me more opportunity to photograph. More experience. More fun.
2. My wife who went to business school has bucket list of owning a business one day (no matter how small)

Since 80% of photography is the business side, my wife’s knowledge and desire to help start/grow/market my photography = this idea.

Even if we just “break even”, it’s worth it. I’m not in it to make a living off it. I expect to not make any additional income. I want my hobby to be more than “I need you to take photos at Jake’s birthday party” because as much as I love Jake, I wanna photograph other things than Jake.

what keeps me from starting is the fear of sucking…

My initial goal was to market myself for FREE to grow my portfolio until I was confident enough to charge $$$. Anything and everything. Senior photos, family, portraits, etc. until I find my niche that I can market myself for.

we’ve looked at photographers in our area and both immediately thought:

oh… yeah I can do better than that. That’s good… but I like my own stuff better

Then I turn around, browse photography communities/forums/reddit and I think

oh… I suck… bad… I am not a photographer at all. I just know how to use a camera and every now and then I take one that’s “good to the untrained eye”

And then I’m dejected and don’t want to be an imposter on a very very hard field. And most importantly I don’t want to be that person that thinks they are a photographer just because they have a nice camera.

TLDR

Everyone starts somewhere right?

How did you know you were ready to market yourself to other people (whether you charge $$$ or are Free)?