Don Orkoskey, owner of WDO Photography, explains why most photographers fail: burnout from underpricing and poor cash flow, not lack of work. He covers setting rates that cover personal costs, budgeting for seasonal cycles, and why outreach to venues and local businesses beats relying on social media alone.
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The truth is, being a professional photographer is not easy. I've owned my own photography business for going on 20 years, and in that time I've learned quite a lot of stuff, some of which has come through trial and error, but a lot of it has come from seeing other photographers succeed or fail. My name's Don, and I'm the owner of WDO Photography based in Atlanta. For a long time, I ran my business out of Pittsburgh, but for the past year, I've been here in Atlanta. It's absolutely beautiful. I love it. Just look at the area that surrounds me. This is a few minutes from my house, and I love this place. You can succeed no matter what size market you're in. It doesn't have to be a large market like Atlanta or a mid-sized market like Pittsburgh. You can succeed as a photographer in a small town. If you do things correctly. The number one issue that I see photographers make when starting their business is not charging enough. Now, I'm not saying that because I'm trying to make you charge more so that you're competitive with me and not undercutting me. There are photographers out there that will get on you for doing that, for, for not charging enough, that you're stealing their business. But here's the truth. People have budgets and they're only going to spend the budget that they had. So if you're starting out and you're charging very little, you're not stealing clients from a more experienced photographer that charges more. You're just taking clients that are in that price range. The problem with doing that for yourself is burnout. So many photographers don't fail because they don't have enough business, but rather because they just burn out and can't keep doing it. So if you don't want that to happen to you, then you have to charge enough to pay yourself. I've done a large breakdown video on how to budget and figure out how much to charge. One thing that I didn't include in that was how to survive the feast and famine that often comes with being a photographer. If you are, for example, a wedding photographer, especially anywhere where it's going to snow, but really generally anywhere other than a tropical place, you're going to face issues of no winter weddings. Knowing how to survive that is crucial to staying in business. Think of your year holistically And so when you're making money, maybe in the summertime as a wedding photographer, you balance that out to the slow times in the winter. That means don't think that in December you're going to get the same business that you were getting in June. Instead, bank some of that money from June to make sure you can pay your bills in December. I want you to understand that that is something that seasoned photographers like myself deal with Every year, I have friends that are headshot photographers, and after COVID, everyone needed a headshot, so their business boomed in 2021, 2022, 2023, and began to fall off in 2024. If you were just starting out as a headshot photographer coming out of the lockdowns during COVID it would be understandable if you thought. Wow, this is super easy. And then hit 2024 and found, oh no, everything that I thought I was going to make budget-wise is just not there. I'm doing everything I can and I'm not getting people coming in. What's going on? The reality is that 2024, '25, '26, that level of busyness, that level of business is more indicative of how it's likely going to be Unless we have another pandemic with lockdowns that last a year or two and people begin to need headshots again because their headshots are older. Trust me, I do a lot of headshots myself, so I know that that number was here prior to COVID. It dropped during COVID because no one wanted a headshot with their mask on their face or the lines from their mask on their face. And then boomed after and has fallen back down to normal levels. Understanding your market and how many people are out there that can use your service is an important thing to take into consideration. Most states and even the federal government provide reports that give a rough estimate of where different industries are, and it can be really hard to parse that information But you can use some of that information to generally get an idea of the activity. The other thing is joining other photographers in trade organizations or different groups will help you to understand how much business each other are getting. Are people complaining because they can't afford to pay their bills, or is there enough coming in that people feel that they are able to take an extra long vacation, for example. The second biggest issue I see when it comes to starting a business as a photographer is relying on inbound marketing, thinking that I'm posting stuff to Instagram, I'm posting on my website, I've got all the information out there, but no clients are showing up. You have to do outreach. You have to reach out and let people know that you're there. You have to tell them what you can do for them, not what they can do for you as a client. And look, no one likes cold calling. If you get a lot of cold emails and you just send them to spam, you know that that could happen to your business as well. So maybe you're a little scared of reaching out blind, and I don't blame you. So one thing you can do instead of doing that is attend as many networking events in the area that you want to work as possible. And when I say in the area you want to work, I don't just mean geographically, but I also mean in terms of the type of clients that you're looking for. Just as an example, I do a lot of conferences and conventions. So as an event photographer, it's important for me to go to the networking events that the Convention and Visitors Bureau here in Atlanta and when I was in Pittsburgh sponsor. Those networking opportunities are invaluable. Meeting people that are booking large events for hotels or doing other things around conferences and conventions means that once they've gotten to know you and if they like you, they are more likely to recommend you. In addition, if you team up with those folks, and cross-promote them, they're going to cross-promote you. When I was in Pittsburgh, I made friends with folks who worked at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, and they were amazing to work with. And they often sent people directly to me. People didn't have to search for an event photographer. They said, hey, we're booking our conference here. Do you have recommendations? And I was one of the top people on their list. To be clear, that takes time, but it really doesn't take that much time. It takes personality, and it takes reaching out and meeting people and being honest and being yourself. Sure, your work matters, but networking matters sometimes more. The next biggest issue I see is a refusal to outsource parts of the business that you, as the owner and chief photographer. Probably don't want to do anyhow. That's things like accounting. It's things like maybe even editing. If you do a lot of volume, maybe as a real estate photographer, I think that's really critical to be able to upload those photos, have somebody else edit them, and then get them back to you so you can deliver them to the client. There are a lot of tools and a lot of service providers out there that can help with A lot of those things. There is obviously an expense, but the time that you save by not doing that stuff yourself is critical because that's time that you could be investing reaching out to new potential clients. Speaking of how you spend your time, it is one of those things that I see a lot of people struggle with. And look, I have ADHD. Time management is not my strong suit, but it is imperative that you set a schedule, that you wake up at the proper time every day, that you actually sit down and do the work that you need to do, and that you keep that set schedule. And not just for business-related things, but especially for home life so that you can have a good work-life balance. Remember what I said? Most photography businesses don't fail out of a lack of work, but out of burnout. So if you're not taking enough time for yourself and your family, you're going to burn out. There are so many things that as a new photography business owner, you're going to have problems with more than I can cover in this video, which is why I think it's super important to become friends with. And join trade organizations that other photographers are in. Joining those groups, finding kinship, finding mentorship, that sort of thing is going to save you so much time and energy. In addition to that, that support that you'll get from other photographers is invaluable. Don't think about the fact that, oh, this is my competition. If you're friends with those people, Sure, you're going to be competing for the same clients oftentimes. But if you're really friends and you value that friendship, you will find that what happens to you all as a group is better when you work together than what happens if you go it alone. And look, maybe you're in a market that's not quite big enough, so there's not a trade group that's near you. Maybe you'd have to drive 2 hours to the nearest city to go to those types of meetings. So if that's the case, joining other small businesses in your area is also beneficial. So look for things like economic development groups, chambers of commerce, those sorts of things that you can be part of, because you will find that those other small businesses can be very supportive as well. I want to leave you with one last piece of advice about being a professional photographer. If you got into photography for the money, you're in the wrong business. You should go into financial planning or something like that, because quite honestly, this is an industry that is about passion for doing what you're doing. And though there are plenty of photographers who have made a fortune Most of those are boomers or Gen Xers, and there's not a lot of them that are millennials, Gen Z, certainly not Alpha. Again, maybe a tiny, tiny handful that have done well for themselves through something like YouTube. But for the most part, if you're just going to go out there and do your thing as a photographer, whatever it is that you love to photograph, It's going to be a ton of work and it's not going to pay you extremely well. It's going to be like any other small business, especially if you are the sole person who's doing that, the only person in that business, you are the business. It's, it's going to be very difficult and it's not going to pay very well. So you have to have a love for what you're doing and you have to make sure that you don't burn out like we've already talked about. If you've made it this far, I would really appreciate it if you'd like the video. And if you haven't already, please subscribe. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you, and I will see you next time. Bye-bye.
