How to begin your career as a freelance photographer

So if you have that thing for photography and are really considering to take up photography as a freelancing career or full time career then first you should ask yourself how serious you are about it. Some people have the natural inclination for taking good photographs but to become a freelance photographer or a professional photographer you have to hone your skills to the level of a professional photographer.
Photographs always carry a special meaning to every person. Be it a special even in one’s life or be it some kind of evidence, a photograph is always important and special. It could be as special as the your wedding photo or the special moments of your child growing up. A good photograph speaks a thousand words. So in a nutshell photography has universal and widespread applications and a good photographer is always in demand.
We shall now discuss what are the steps that you must take to become a freelance photographer.

The first steps towards freelancing :

By freelancing I mean you will not be employed by a periodical, a newspaper, an advertising agency etc. Rather you will be working on assignments or projects. For this, the first thing you need to do is to get a decent digital camera for yourself. A decent camera will not cost you much these days. A budget of 400 to 500 dollars can get you a pretty good camera to start with. After you get a camera you will be needing to build up your portfolio slowly.

Building your portfolio as a freelance photographer :

There are numerous ways and means to build up your portfolio as a freelance photographer. Start with your friends and relatives. Maybe you offer your free service to photograph a cousin’s wedding. He will gladly agree and you will get to wet your feet. While on an assignment free or paid, you shall have to have an eye for quality. It is the quality of your photographs that will determine whether you will be able to sell your photographs in future. You have to pick up the best photos and put them in your portfolio to get paid for your work.

You have to also keep in mind that you have to learn the tricks of the trade. There are many schools or institutes that teach the art of photography. There are several books available that can help you teach the technicalities of photography. Also the internet has several user groups, discussion board dedicated to the art of photography. Subscribe to those, read the experiences of professional photographers so that you can learn from them. It is also a good idea to work as an assistant of a professionally acclaimed photographer. This is probably the best way to pick up his techniques or photography. You shall also have to try those techniques while you are taking a photograph.

Photography is NOT all about aperture, exposure, shutter speed, focus, subject, light and angle. You require to acquire a third eye for photography. That will make you an exceptional photographer and not just any photographer.

Whenever you get time you shall have to look at award winning works of other photographers. The internet will make this possible. Then you will need to sit down analyzing each photo maybe for hours together to find out about every aspect of it. What makes it a winner and how it is different from other photographs? If the subject is an easily available one then you might want to take that photo yourself and see what makes it different than the photo you took.

Photo retouching software

After you have taken a photograph you will sometimes have to touch it digitally to bring out its effect. So you have to start picking up some digital photo editing software like photoshop. Photoshop is a one stop shop for editing digital images. It will be an indispensable tool to cover up some common errors that crop up in photos like the red eye effect. You could also use photoshop to add some special effects like the lens flare effect to your photographs to add an edge to it.

One final word

After you have selected some of your best photographs and digitally touched them,  you might consider submitting them to some magazines and contests to see where you stand. Who knows you might win a big cash prize in some contest and that could be the beginning of your career as a freelance photographer.