If you would like to do business with your spouse than this is why photography is one of the best husband and wife business ideas that you can do.
Hi everyone my name is Bima and I’m a husband and wife wedding photographer team since 2008. I develop my business cause I love this photography so bad even I started it since I was graduate from university. I tried various business before it but don’t find any business that way better than photography till today I’m focusing my services in wedding photography only.
Nowadays I shoot wedding and engagement for various couple in this globe, I travel to Bali, Maldives, Hong Kong or even Singapore to capturing every single beautiful moments through my lens. What I love most about it is because I did together with my wife, Nina who belong to my personal assistant and make up artist for over than a decades.
I put all my works in portfolio so in case you wanna see how I shoot and have fun with my couple than you can visit it!
If you think that your spouse is your best partner both in life and business than you can try for what I’m doing here. Photography is always great and this business never die cause there is always couple who want to hire an expert to document their glorious moment in wedding.
How to Start Your Photography Business from Scratch
The easiest way to start your photography business is by using a blog, it’s cheap and powerful and the craziest thing is you can sell your services without any limits, and this is what I did in my wedding photography studio for over than 10 years.
When you wanna make your own photography blog than the most important thing that you have is the mindset. Some photographers only think that they have a studio to start their business, which is great but you have to invest thousand of dollars for it.
But by using a blog than you can start your business for less than $60 per year including having your domain and hosting, perfect right! So always think and be confident that you can sell your photography services WORLDWIDE by using your own blog!
Camera Gears That I Personally Suggest You to Use
If you have a deep pocket than buying the newest camera and lenses is the great thing that you can do but using a second hand photography gears also worth it.
There is NO best camera in this world cause the most important thing is you as a person who stand behind the camera so you may any camera brand (I suggest you to buy medium or high level camera only) than get some prime lenses and some other accessories.
Down here let me suggest you with some references that you can consider, since the first time I work I regularly used Canon or Nikon cameras only, just love them both even there are so many mirrorless camera company at this time. So here are the list:
For Canon Gears
- EOS 5D family – I’ve been using 5D since their first generation and today you can choose between 5D Mark III or even 5D Mark IV, they were great even majority of my works is using it so I bring it around the world for shooting an engagement and wedding
- Wide lens – I love 16 – 35 mm f2.8 so bad especially when put it on full frame camera like 5D had. Within 16mm wide you can explore all the surrounding beauty no matter it’s a landscape or city scape so when you put them all as the background of your couple than it belongs to perfect!
- Tele lens – 70-200 mm f2.8 was superb I bring it on my bag every day I go for photo shooting. It’s sharp and fast lens and still great even you’re not using the image stabilizer feature.
- Fix lens – the most favorite fix lens that I commonly used is 50 mm and I tried both 50 mm with f1.4 and the greatest one 50 mm with f1.2. Once you use it than everything about portrait shots will be awesome
- EOS R – this is Canon’s ultimate mirrorless camera that you should have. it’s handy and this EOS R was absolutely stunning for wedding. If you are Canon user and expect some high end mirrorless camera than EOS R is the best!
For Nikon Gears
- I use Nikon D800 family – here they have family member and all of them are great, you may choose and comparing between Nikon D810 or the brand new one of Nikon D850 all of them are stunning and I used it for some of my art works
- Wide lens – I use 14-24 mm f2.8 Nano lens and it’s extremely wide and wonderful, Nano lens is always perfect and you can bet for it for shooting various niche in photography
- Zoom lens – when you want some medium zoom lens than 24-70 mm f2.8 Nano is your best choice. This 24-70mm range is the most perfect and safest lens that you can use for indoor and outdoor shooting
- Z7 – as the eternal rival of EOS R is the Nikon Z7 which is the brand new high end mirrorless camera that Nikon had on their family member. Z7 is absolutely stunning if you want some smaller camera with high feature for sure.
General Accessories
No matter what camera brand that you use but you always need some accessories that I will suggested below, check these all of them below:
- Camera bag – I personally suggest you to buy roller bag that can be suit on your flight cabin, you can use backpack bag but if you bring it for many years than you will have a shoulder pain just like what I had. If you use roller bag than you don’t need to hold camera and gears weight cause rolling it to everywhere is way easier than put it on your back.
- Speedlight – Go buy at least one flash or speedlight with the same brand as your camera, you can buy Canon 600 EX or for Nikon SB-700
- Portable LED continuous light – having an LED continuous light is very useful especially if you gonna shoot in indoor area and just need a simple fill in light to your couple’s faces
- Trigger and receiver – have it at least one set which is containing of 1 trigger that put on your camera hot shoe and receiver that you put on your flash. Here you also can learn how to shoot wedding with 1 simple off-camera flash technique!
How to Run The Business at the First Time
Once you have your own photography blog and buy your camera gears than you have to do several things to do such as:
1 – Make your own portfolio
The easiest way to make your photography portfolio is by capturing any family or friends on their wedding or engagement. Ask them polite that you gonna make a simple photo shoot in such nice park or city nearby your hometown than do it perfectly.
2 – Do the right post production
Once you’ve done your photo shoot than you will entering post production work which also called as editing. Today I use Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom to process all of my photography work.
Working with photoshop is quite challenging cause you will do selection, sharpening, or adding some contrast. if you willing to learn more how to using and edit your photos with Photoshop than I could recommend you to learn this 36 Photoshop editing action tutorials.
Just in case you wanna make your work easier than using Lightroom is the best choice cause this program have the presets just like plugin where you can simply click and get your photos done within a second.
Today I use Sleeklens for all my works and this preset even cheaper than your Bic Mac set for lunch, when I use their preset I buy the special presets for wedding even they provide other preset for landscape photos or portraits too.
3 – Creating your photo album
Here is the point, don’t ever miss to print your photos on wedding album because wedding photography must provide an album. You should know that so many photographer don’t deliver album to their client just to reduce the cost but if you wanna work professionally on this business than printing album is really important.
Wedding photography is about story and moments than when you just put it on instagram or social media than it would not tell the true story at all. Print your photos will represent your branding and it respects your client better for sure.
The last, if this gonna be your first album than make it two, deliver it to your friend or family than keep the other one for your own collection so you can show to someone who want to be your client someday.
4 – Build your Facebook and Instagram business page
These two social media are powerful so built it and post all your works on it and once you got any useful information or blogpost that you’ve made than post it too on your facebook and instagram.
Make sure you sign up for facebook and instagram business cause only through this platform you can connect it to digital advertising
5 – Make your own behind the scene and publish it on Youtube
Make your own behind the scene or wedding clip are matter to your client and personal branding. Video is so real and that’s why people love it so much and through this platform your future client will able to know you personally as well.
6 – Attending and joining network or photography workshop
When I was starting my own studio than I join some association like WPJA, AG | WPJA, and ISPWP those association are great even you can’t not joining directly cause there is some tight selection from the committee but once you are in than you will learn a lot of things on it including tips for running your business till photographer etiquette.
WPPI in Las Vegas is one of the best photographer meet up that I personally recommend cause you will learn from the best person on it, let say Yervant, Jerry Ghionis, and other mentors
7 – Set up your pricing and packages
There is no standard to set up your pricing and packages but generally you have to calculate your shooting cost till price of your art.
When you don’t have any idea about it than start to research other local photographer nearby your home and set your price a bit lower than others. Make your own deadline of working, I mean when you are get well experience than you can start to increase your rate.
Communication between you and ‘Ur spouse are matters
When you asking about husband and wife business ideas than communication is the first thing that you should consider cause only through this you can run this business eternally.
Take your time together for every single day and try to do almost every single thing together and let your energy growing up. Get some morning coffee or simply eat for lunch on the street are good ways to maintain your communication.
No matter you or your spouse will always get some mistake or error but it’s totally normal and the only one solution to know each other is communication. Few days ago I wrote a nice article about what you should do if your spouse get tons of mistake, you can read it too for your own inspiration.
One thing I could share here is doing business with your spouse isn’t that easy cause you will meet problem which is containing about business and family. Majority of couple don’t want to do business with their spouse even I met so many photographers or any other businessman doing it with their spouse.
In case you have a problem with your spouse and don’t meet any recovery solution than I suggest you to sop your business for little while and learn tips about how to save your marriage.
My Last Words…
Doing business with your spouse is really interesting cause you can be unity for whole day, I did it since 2008 and get so many joyful experience through this way.
Start to make your own photography blog for less than $60/year, buy camera gears, run your business confidently and maintain your communication are 4 important keys of being succeed in this business.
I hope my story today will give you more inspiration about husband and wife business ideas just write a comment below if you want to ask something about it. Lets keep in touch and I’ll see you soon!