AboutSteve Meltzer Expertise I am a professional photographer and I've been shooting for newspapers, magazines, commercial clients and artists for over 30 years.
I have shot stock photography for dozens of years and in 1977 created West Stock (Seattle, WA) which was one of the first to produce stock photo CDs and later one of the first to establish an online stock photo slaes site.
I have a new book on digital photography "PHOTOGRAPHING ARTS, CRAFTS AND COLLECTIBLES (Lark Books, 2007)which is available at Amazon.com, eBay.com and in bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I have another book, CAPTURE THE LIGHT which will be puiblished in November, 2008.
I write 20-30 feature articles and columns for regional and national publications a year.
My education includes studying with photographers like Cornell Capa, Duane Michels and Oliver Gagliani (from the Ansel Adams Center.)
Expert: Steve Meltzer Date: 11/5/2007 Subject: Just starting
Question I am about to start my own photography business. I am going to try to focus on weddings but I will do family, portrait , landscape, and so on. I was just wandering 1. how do i get the word out about my business. 2. where can i send the film to be developed without taking all the money from the shoot itself. Any help you can give would be great. Thank you Kelly
Answer Kelly
For weddings and portraits you mostly get work by word of mouth. A happy bride tells her friends and you get wrok. Easiest thing then is to get business cards and business labels printed and make sure you put a label on every photo you give a bride or her family and that you pass out business cards to everyone--the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.
As for where to send film. I'd suggest you go digital. You can get film--and I assume you mean negative film--processed at the local WalMart but if you shoot 12 rolls of film at a wedding the cost is easily going to be $200. And afte five weddings you've spent more on film and processing then the cost of a decent digital SLR. With digital you can reuse memory cards and create CDs (that cost pennies). You of course charge for individual prints when the families make an order but then the client is paying you and nto just the lab.
