Today I want to share to you my own photo tips when facing $15,000 of bankruptcy back in 2013. December 2012 is the beginning of my studio’s disaster because I do wrong in money management. I surely know that nobody want to have a problem like me but if you are the real professional or entrepreneur than lack of deal or bankrupt seems to be your common challenge.
Dear photographer friends thank you for stumble upon my photography blog, by the way I’m Bima and I hope you guys doing great in your business. It takes 3 years for me to get regular deal with local couple which asking me to shoot a wedding or pre wedding nearby my hometown or go to other cities. Lately I know that somebody out there are working so great in wedding photography, give the most idealist services, till get better experiences for every session that they had and yes if you asking about the money than those people are earning 5 to 6 figures income every year by working in wedding photography industry.
What Behind of My Bankruptcy
I don’t know it’s common in your city or not but on that day me and my wife have 12 active credit card from several banks in Indonesia, for each card we have limit from $250 to $800 and what we did is using the money to fund my studio and some other new business that we run at the same time.
In the same time I talk to my wife that I really want to improve my market from local into international client which will take me to such wonderful wedding venue and pay in a better fee. If you read my reason here than there is no one that become so false because what I want is become a better photographer who able to serve more client and get a better fee, but there is one thing that I forget about, that is…
Business cashflow will up and down but my banks bills are same!
When you run a business than there is no one can promise you that you are able to generate money in such fix amount, you can made much more than your expectation or even you can made worse than it.
I telling you that improving your market from local into international is so freaking hard, you must start everything from zero especially your branding and marketing than the worse thing from it is it such difficult to get a client from friend referral because there is no friend of mine who able to promote me. In a short words, I don’t get any photo shoot deal for almost 1,5 years while in the same time I must pay my monthly bank bills with come with fix amount.
So how it could be from 12 credit card till US$15,000 of bankruptcy?
If you ever use credit card and only pay at the minimum, let say 10% which is this what bank usually suggest than you bills will increasing so high, due to my problem I was able to solve this situation in 4 years which is mean my primary billy including the tax will also increase till I got the total of US$15,000….it was so bad situation actually!
My Personal 5 Photo Tips to Face This Situation
I could say that it’s gonna be the hardest period of my photographer career but if you have the same situation than I still suggest you to put your effort deeper than before. Im personal opinion and humble suggestion, today I wanna share my personal photo tips that I use to face this bankruptcy situation.
My disclosure are,
Some tips that I will mentioned below are my personal sharing but I can not guarantee that it is applicable in your area or not because you and me are not same.
1 – Sell All My Photographer Gears and Use the Money for Living
Here in my hometown I got several friends who renting their photography gears including, camera body, lenses, speedlite and some other accessories so just in case I don’t have any tools and suddenly I got a client deal than I still can renting some of gears that I need.
Some gears that I sell are:
- Canon EOS 7D
- Canon EOS 400D
- Canon L series 17-40 mm f4
- Canon L series 70-200 mm f2.8
- Canon 50 mm f1.8
Selling all photography gears was one of the best effort that I had because back in 2013 all those gears are still reliable for working so generally I still able to earn few thousand dollars to live and feed my family.
2 – Updating My Photography Blog
Till now, I only had one photography blog, it is the same blog that you read right now but there is separately categories that I dedicate for bride and groom and category for photographer just like you.
What I concern with is category that make me able to get a deal from new international couple so I’m focusing about wedding and pre wedding photography services in such dream place that I really want to visit like Bali and Maldives.
Good thing is I have few portfolio from several overseas client like Jasmine and Arthur that taken in Conrad Bali and some other else. What I concern about is going so deep in SEO or known as Search Engine Optimization till after 1,5 years I got new deal from overseas couple who live in Texas USA and someone in Brisbane Australia.
You also can read my personal photography blogging tips to know more about this topic.
3 – Joining a Photography Webinar and Put Your Self as Someone Who Know NOTHING
Back in 2013 I was joining a webinar from CreativeLive which is come with several photographer mentor like Yervant and Joe Buissink and I still remember that I have to stay awake from 9pm to 6am because I’m here in Indonesia and the webinar is live from Los Angeles USA.
Due to the webinar, Yervant is telling me about how to make a glamour pose, retouching photo with Photoshop, till designing a wedding album while Joe was telling me about how to meet potential couple and show your idealist to deliver the best final photo result.
One thing that you must know is when I joining Yervant webinar than I don’t have any single new photos from the real couple even he taught me about post production, so what I did is using my old photos and re-retouching again and again to learn about photo post production.
One humble tips from me is,
If you put your self as a person who know NOTHING than it’s easier for you to receive a new knowledge from someone who actually better than you!
4 – Do Whatever You Can to Stay Live
Got no photo deals for almost 1,5 years was so hard and even I already try and promoting my services than there is no one come to me and put the money on the table, in the same time I still have to pay my bank bills and feed my family.
So what I did during this suffering period are:
- Become a part time driver and collect money from every trip that I had
- Selling local tour from my Indonesian blog Bomanta.com because I live in a famous cultural city named as Yogyakarta
- Renting my poor room for the first Airbnb property called Boma House
5 – Asking Money from My Wife, LOL
This is true and always be so true!
My beautiful wife, Nina always support me whenever I am so during my suffering period I get the money from her so often. Surely I’m shy and feels like dumb guy but this is me back few years ago because I don’t have any single deal from photography. My wife is running her online baby clothes blog which is sell various of baby clothes and apparels so she still make money from it even not that big.
That’s why once I get my momentum now than Nina will always my personal assistant and the only one person who gonna stand next to me both in seminar and photo session. She knows me so bad how I live and how I achieve my dream so generally it seems like lifetime reward from me to my wife.
What do you think? have you got the same situation like mine?
If you still love photography and want to be a photographer than you must stick to your effort but changing your plan to other business is not that false as long as you happy with that. Dear all my friend I hope I could deliver great inspiration about photo tips today, it might not the best suggestion for photographer but what I concern is I could share my own story about facing the hardest problems in my photographer journey.
Keep working hard and your momentum will coming, cheers!
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