Leaving the studio today and I thought that I would talk to you about something
that really did bother me when I was first getting started.
Jackson shooting 67 weddings last year. Taylor Jackson, welcome.
You are well known in this community are an amazing photographer.
When I was first getting started, it was,
it was pretty obvious that you have to second shoe, you need to get experienced,
you need to actually go to weddings and take images to get a portfolio,
and I was like, ah, no problem.
I'll just email every single photographer in town now.
Pretty quickly I realized that no one was responding to any of the emails that I
didn't know if that was because they didn't want to train their own competition
in their own local area or if they just weren't looking for a second
photographers. To be honest, I never really did figure it out,
but I can give you some tips today that will hopefully make your experience
getting into wedding photography a little bit better.
The first is that you don't actually need a second shoot to get into the wedding
industry.
I actually wrote an entire book about that topic.
It was called musical wedding photographer,
skip second shooting and get right to shoot,
I forgot the title now don't buy that book because it is horribly outdated and
I've been trying to rewrite it every single year.
But writing a book takes a lot of time.
The one main takeaway from that book was the fact that nobody has to give you
permission to get into the industry,
that you can just go out and you can just build your own portfolio right now.
And it really took me years to figure out the following that when you create a
portfolio and you prove yourself the fact that you can take good wedding
pictures,
you naturally form relationships with other photographers and you start second
shooting for them. And by cold emailing,
you're not going to get a lot of opportunities there. I can a lot of jobs,
but by just going out and building your portfolio and showing that you're
somebody that is actually creating good work will actually get people to pay
attention and to actually reach out to you to shoot weddings with them.
So I guess overall what I'm trying to say is that do not rely on somebody else
to build this incredible business for you,
that you have to go out and you have to do it and just by sending other people
emails.
Unfortunately no one got back to me and probably not a whole lot of people are
gonna get back to you either and don't let not getting second shooting jobs
discourage you from the beginning and make you believe that you're any less of
value to the wedding industry. If you want to get into this industry,
this is an industry that you can be completely in control of and you can just,
you can just get into it. I think right now
and now you might be saying to yourself, Taylor,
that sounds like such a simple concept.
How do I go out and just start doing this? Let me give you a few few tips.
My first big piece of advice is to start doing work for the people that you want
to be working for before they're paying you to really start actively creating
your own dream portfolio rather than just sitting back and waiting or expecting
or even worse,
having some sort of expectation that the world owes you something because the
world, unfortunately it doesn't really owe you a whole lot.
And if you want a thing you kind of have to go out and just get that thing on
your own.
So while in the beginning it might've been a little unfortunate that no one
would let me second shoot weddings with them,
it ended up being quite a blessing in disguise that if I would've gone down that
pathway,
there's a pretty good chance that I would have maybe become an associate
photographer or somebody else rather than actually starting my own business and
creating a business that makes me happy for the rest of my life.
Wanting photography really is an infinite game,
which means you don't really know who all the players are.
There's no real official way to win it and you just kinda,
it's a game to be played for the rest of your life.
And while that might seem a little bit overwhelming because there no get rich
quick scheme in this business,
it really is a life worth building and it's worth all of the hours that you
invest into your business to create something that's going to continue to pay
off for the rest of your life.
So while it might seem a little bit frustrating that no one will let you second
shoot for them,
know that it is in your control what you do with your life to go out and just
start creating your own dream portfolio.
And that dream portfolio really is your infinite game for the rest of your life.
If this is the business that you want to be in, thanks for watching.
I'm Taylor Jackson, and if you like this,
maybe you subscribe or don't subscribe again. You control your life.