1 Star vs 5 Star Photographer | #28

Social Media and YouTube are filled with product photography tutorials that require expensive gear, multi-light setups, and a lot of photoshop. You don’t need any of that. In fact, it will hinder your progress when starting your business. The truth is your photos don’t need to be the best, they just need to be good enough.

There are going to be clients with different of budgets that will work with different levels of photographers. Just like you can go get a 7-dollar haircut or a 100-dollar haircut. that 7-dollar haircut isn’t going to look great, but it’ll be passable. And that 100-dollar haircut is going to be perfect. You can apply this to your photography. I’m ranking a photographer’s skill relative to what clients they can get, from 1-star to 5.

Your local coffee shop that’s run by the sweet couple doesn’t have thousands to spend on photography. They want good photos but they don’t care if you use a complex 3 light setup and a bunch of photoshop to get a perfect image. They just want a fun photo of their cappuccino. This is a 1 or 2-star photographer.

Now a brand like Red Bull has a bunch of money, and they’ll want the best of the best in terms of photography. They need these complex shoots. But the competition here is fierce. This is a 5-star photographer.

Then there are thousands of online e-commerce brands that need great photos for social media and marketing but don’t need the best. These will be hiring 3 or 4-star photographers. This is where I’m at and this is where I plan to stay at.

The key here is to match up your photography stars to the company stars. A 2-star company will hire a 2-star photographer. A 4-star company will hire a 4-star photographer.

It’s never too early to start working with brands and building up that real-world experience. Obviously, rates will differ from a 1-star to a 5-star photographer, but getting paid to get better at your craft should be a no-brainer when you’re in that 1-2 star stage.