After almost 5 years of doing photography as a business, I have made many MANY mistakes. It’s ok to make mistakes because there is always something to learn. But it’s never fun making those mistakes.

I’m asked all of the time, “how do you know when you are ready to start taking on clients?”.

This seemed like a no brainier to me, my answer would probably be, when people start asking you to do their photos. That’s when I started doing it. 

As a photographer, you have probably been asked to work for free before. This is a bit strange and beyond insulting, to say the least. After all, you wouldn’t go to the cashier at Walmart with a big screen TV and ask if you can just have it for free now, would you?

As I’m sure you know, I take a very artistic approach with my photos. I also consider myself to be more of an artist than a photographer.

I have a lot of other interests that have helped contribute to my abilities as a photographer. These interests include cinematography, film making, music, CGI, drawing, and even woodworking to name a few.

I have several cameras and lots of different lenses, and I bring multiple setups with me on my sessions so I’ll have back up. But when I get to my location, I almost always only have one camera and one lens on me.

I’m asked all of the time what my main set up is, and that is what this article is about. Because this setup is about 95% the same on every session.