---15 year old Photographer---

[joshvine]

I am a 15 year old, and have always held a keen interest in photography, mostly passed on to me from my father.

Recently I have begun to market my services through the use of my website and other online marketing. I have

already received several calls with requests for my service. I am posting here because I would like some advise

from other people. If you have any advice, tips, precautions, or constructive criticism, I would be glad to hear

it. Please view my website and online gallery to see what I am used to photographing. My Website is <a

href="http://www.josh-photography.com">www.Josh-Photography.com</a> Thank you all in advance for you responses.

 

Josh

[howard_m]

my first thought was that as a 15yo, there may be legal 'issues' w/ your ability to enter into a contract w/ someone seeking your services. You may be considered under-age for that and that might have repercussions for your parents.

[jmichaelc]

Good for you Josh....fantastic!

 

I can only wish that i had your drive and technical skills at 15 :) It's apparent that you have an eye for composition, and that you do have some technical skills already. Wow to what the future holds for you.

 

Be careful when you work on your photos in the edit room. Make subtle changes and do not over do it. Learning how to master those subtle changes is hard but this is where you can keep the picture looking real while at the same time bring to life your intended compositional subject.

 

Good luck to you Josh.

[wentzu_chang]

it is wonderful, Josh :) I am not sure about legal issue with ago when signing a contract, but, keep doing what you love...

[maury_cohen]

Josh,

You're off to a great start!

 

I began much like you have and around the same age. I'd think that being fluent in the powers of after-capture techniques would be a neccessity to compete professionally in today's photography environment.

 

Best of luck!

[starvy]

josh,

 

i don't wish to beat around the bush and say that you wonderful in showing such application at a young age. you are not old enough to enter into contracts. large events, in the traditional sense are out if they are looking for a professional outfit. lets face it, those who would come to you for an event would want ti shot on the cheap. there could be several pitfalls for this. firstly, in the event of an accident, there would not be any recourse for action. your parents might get into serious legal problems should something nasty happen. also, and more importantly, let the pro guys make their living through what they are good at. i don't think you should present yourself as a pro photog at all. this would only backfire. at your age there should be plenty of party pictures, cats and proms to shoot. make money out of these as well as getting valuable practice. you are much more likely to get somewhere playing on your age. as for your website, do try to make sure that it reflects your age range. try bright colours, bold statements and facebook linked sites.

[joshvine]

Thank you all for your responses. I will definitely be very careful as to stay away from anything that could lead

to legal issues, or things that could fall as a burden to my parents. In response to Starvy Goodfellows comment.

 

-------"as for your website, do try to make sure that it reflects your age range. try bright colours, bold statements

and facebook linked sites."-------

 

All I can say is that I am doing my best to give my website an over all simple design and professional style, and

I don't want my website to look like the cluttered mess of unrelated content that so many MySpace and Piczo

website look like. My website was originally designed in Piczo and then transferred to freewebs which included

much html editing and revamping, though nothing fancy, and now I am paying a small fee for a domain name and

masking.

 

Does anyone know how old you have to be to register a business? I have had the recommendation by a pro

photographer, (website <a href="http://www.proartphoto.com">www.ProArtPhoto.com</a> that I know to register a

business name, as it can help to save on expenses when I begin to purchase more equipment. He was unsure of what

age restrictions apply. Again thank you all for you posts and I hope to hear more from you.

 

Thanks,

Josh

[brian.]

Josh,

 

Do you live in a market that has professional photographers? Seriously consider assisting one of them, you can learn a lot and apply what you learn to your own photographic enterprises.

[jerry s]

If you're planning to make a career in photography, I'd strongly suggest business courses at the college level (I know it's a couple of years off, but you can start planning and looking at options now!). Many full time photographers spend a good deal of their time running the business versus taking the photos. Also, consider courses in marketing. Much of what I've seen on your site is landscapes; while there is a market for those images, competition is tight.

[jerry s]

Afterthought - took another quick look at your website; I can't see an easy way for potential clients to contact you.

[john_h.1]

"you are not old enough to enter into contracts."

 

In most states minors can, indeed, enter into contracts but such contracts are often voidable by the minor and enforcable against the non-minor.

[joshvine]

Yes, as for contacting me giving them an email and phone number was the best I could do. I have tried adding an email form but I had no luck. I think I probably will take some sort of course on business. Ad for assisting, I am in contact right now with a couple of pros and I'm hoping to accompany/assist them some this coming summer, and maybe on some weekends before that.

[joshvine]

Hmm, thanks for the info John

[jennifer_s3]

you seem to be off to a great start. i agree with the others about soliciting work with a contract. but i would also agree that with your talent,

you should consider shadowing a pro for a while and taking some business classes. best of luck to you!

[rich_evans]

I'm sometimes amused at the knee-jerk responses to serious questions like this.

 

Josh - your stuff is quite good. I would not deter anyone from using your services based on your age - your obvious talent speaks for itself. While there may be some pitfalls to entering into contracts as a minor, the best recourse is to talk to a seasoned business or entertainment attorney. There are literally thousands of minors working under contract in the entertainment industry, very well protected legally.

 

And re: an earlier post "...let the pro guys make their living through what they are good at..." shouldn't deter you. There's lots of opportunities out there for you among those individuals who have Facebook or Myspace or any of a dozen other youth oriented 'self' web-sites that you may be able to market yourself to. You could offer services for photos of individuals for them to post on their sites which are of much higher quality than they could supply on their own. I doubt if you'd be treading on the turf of ANY pro if you went after that. Just an idea........ --Rich

[joshvine]

Hey, thanks Rich for the encouragement, and advise. I like the idea of talking to an attorney, and I think I will try and see if I can do that. Thanks all for the responses ------- ~Josh~

[patrick j dempsey]

Why not focus on creating stock images like the ones you already have and on learning as much as you can about studio lighting? Ambition is great and I'm not saying don't go after your dream, all I'm saying is that if you think you are good enough to get into the fray now.... how much better will you be in five years when you are out of school and maybe even have a 2 year business degree under your belt so you know how to structure and run your own business? I'm gonna go against the pack here and say that your images are pretty good but could be much better. I'm not trying to insult you or your images at all... and you are probably way ahead of most people your age and even older... but at this point when people hear about you they are going to think, "15 year old photographer... is that a gimmick?" and then they look at your work and they say, "well it's pretty good, but we were sorta expecting the Beethoven of photography, so maybe it is just a gimmick." See what I mean? Now on the other hand, if you take this foundation and work hard at learning as much as you can not just about shooting the camera, but setting up lighting, and studying graphic design and art history, then by the time you are 20 you will be WAY ahead of people in your peer group, and possibly ahead of many of the local start-up "professionals" in your area. 20 is still very young to be getting into photography on a professional level considering most 20 year olds will have little experience beyond high school Year Book and maybe a college level Intro to Photography class.

[ObiWon]

My only comment is that as you have a domain for your Web Site, are you not able to take email on that address? If so it will look so much better than using gMail. Also have a blank gallery does not send the righ message, get a couple of flower pictures up there pronto :-)

[matthewwilson]

Great work! Keep it up and don't let age stop you from anything. Many times people will use different excuses to keep

them from doing things that they are perfectly capable of doing. I do agree that it would be a good idea for you to shadow

a pro though, but be sure it is someone who has good work that is in keeping with your basic style. I have seen many

"pros" who's composition and creativity was not even close to as good as yours. I apologize for those who's attitudes are

such as Starvy Goodfellows, he seems to have a lens stuck up somewhere. He doesn't have a single picture

post, can't capitalize his sentences, and while I am a horrible at spelling I at least, nose hows two yews a spell

checkers. Keep up the good work, stay dedicated, and have fun. If your not having fun your pictures will provably suffer,

at least that seems to be the thoughts of Gordon Hutchings. Personally, going to a class that taught me old school

darkroom developing techniques helped me tons. If you ever have the option to learn to develop your own film and

prints you should. By the time you are older you will provably be one of very few whom have that knowledge. Best of wishes

Matthew Wilson

[nogub]

So, here I'm holding a photographybook, It tells you to make a contract which you make the person that is being photographed to sign. In the contract stablish that this person wants, or lets you commercialize this pictures. Otherwise, they may demand you and lend your parents in to political stuff and that's not good. Here's another advise that comes inthe book, avoid making pictures in private properties or public places like theaters, museums etc. (inside them) They could acuse you of invading private property and take your camera and lenses for some time. (If the privatepropertie is property of the one that signs the contract, modify the contract so you also include that. Other thing that comes here is that in some places like France, you can't take a picture of someone's house with out its permission, so, If you see an interesting house ask for permission to take apicture of it and commercializate it.

 

You have a great talent, I saw your pictures and some of them are really nice, I'm 13 years old, and I would wish to have those skills at your age :) Oh remember that the advices I gave are in a book and don't think they come from my imagination just because im 13 ;) Bye

[joshvine]

Thank you Noel Gutiérrez for the advise. What photography book did the info come from, because I have a book and has some similar content. So I'm just curious to know what book you have. Thanks ------- Josh

[nogub]

The title of the book is: The 35mm photographer's handbook and it was written by Julian Calder and John Garrett.

I wonder, why haven't you uploaded any photo here to photo.net?

[john-stricklen]

Josh,

I started assisting a pro photographer with weddings and portraits when I was 13, and was shooting on my own by the time I was 15. That was many years ago. :-) After about five years of successful shooting, I got very burned out by the whole "money making" process that spoiled the joy of photography. Since then I've pursued photography as art and stayed away from the profit motive. You might want to consider what photography really means to you and how vigorously you want to pursue the business end of things.

 

As for the contracting part of things, you might want to consult an attorney. It shouldn't take very long or cost very much to get an opinion on the potential problems in your particular situation. Another possibility is to include your parents in the business and have them sign the contracts with you. This would be another line of questions for the attorney. Apparently you live in Canada, so I really know nothing.

 

Mostly, I agree with the other posters here that say GO FOR IT! Have fun and don't let anyone tell you you can't do something because there "might be trouble".

 

John