How I get photo clients

04/26/2024

Hey friend!

One of the most asked questions I get is “How do you get photo clients?”

Being an automotive photographer for over 6 years I’ve only ever really gotten photoshoots through friends and family or at local events.

I’d post my work and those friends and family would share my work which would generate leads for me. I would reach out to people and offer to take photos of their cars. Most of the time it didn’t work out and eventually I was tired of constantly chasing people for work.

For those who have been around since the start of my content creation journey, you will notice that early on I wasn’t taking photos of other peoples cars. It was my own (the FRS and the 4Runner) and my brother’s 370z Nismo. My first actual shoot that was not my own doing was a old highschool buddy of mine who owns a 40th Anniversary Ford Mustang.

From there I’ve built up my portfolio as a mixture of event photos and 1:1 private shoots. I see every event I go to as an opportunity to network. To be honest, I haven’t been very good at it recently and that’s because I’m focused on building my portfolio more before my daughter’s arrival. If I book 1:1 shoots now it won’t be for a bit.

Right, so you’re still wondering how am I getting these 1:1 shoots? Well… They come to me.

It’s not the most efficient way and I want to clarify that. I believe networking and reaching out to people is still the best way. I do that when necessary.

I am an introvert (yes, really). All my life I’ve taken the more comfortable path of getting work by having people come to me. So when I post my work consistently and I improve my craft, more people see it and the more people see it the more likely one of those people reach out to me for their own private shoot.

Now I’m not getting supercar owners reaching out to me, I’m getting local car enthusiasts who want to show off their builds ranging from stance builds to street builds. I’ve always gravitated towards locals builds more than supercars and I feel like there are a lot of under-appreciated cars in the area so it works for me.

As I’ve been posting more consistently and growing my reputation in my local community I’ve had more people reach out. It actually only really started in these last few months, the start of this years car season. I’ve personally received more invites to local events as well. I actually was just in a road rally this past weekend because I was personally invited to it.

I want to dive deeper into the “in the last few months” part. Because I’ve been doing this journey for almost 9 months now but I’d say the organic flow of 1:1 shoots didn’t really start until month 7.

I went into this knowing that it will take MONTHS to get to a point where I organically had work come to me.

Building your portfolio should be priority 1.

How do you build it? Well I just gave you a roadmap above. Local events, friends, family. Ask your friends to share your work. At local events be sure to take as many photos as you can and when publishing them tag the event organizer or the owner if you know who they are.

People sharing your work because of how awesome it is will get more people to see your work and recognize you. Eventually people will reach out to you.

Now, don’t feel like you have to do this passively. You for sure should reach out to people and offer your services, free or for a cheap cost, whichever works best for you. I do my shoots for free and no one ever knows until they reach out to me. 99% of the messages I get first are “how much do you charge” which tells me they want to work with me because of my skill rather than my free fee.

No one will want to work with you if you can’t prove that you are worth it, so building your portfolio should be your only focus for the first few months.

There are a lot of things to unpack in this and much more that I have to offer. If you are looking to build your content creation portfolio and social media on the side I am hosting a live workshop in the coming weeks where I break down how I manage my own journey.

If you’d like to learn more about it and sign up for the waitlist, it’s linked below.

Chat Soon,

Joe Granitto

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