How Photographers Get Clients

How Photographers Get Clients

by William Lulow

I attended a seminar quite a few years ago given by a prominent magazine photographer. He brought samples of his work and in his capacity of being a representative for some well-known equipment manufacturers, gave fairly extensive explanations of how some of his images were made. After about a couple hours of his presentation, one of the attendees raised his hand and asked a question! He wanted to know how the photographer got his assignments in the first place. 

This made me chuckle a bit because people can study photography all they want and get enough knowledge to handle almost any photographic assignment. But it remains a mystery to many exactly HOW PHOTOGRAPHERS GET ASSIGNMENTS! And, it is probably the hardest part of a photographer’s job because it mostly relies on things humans do that have nothing whatsoever to do with actually taking pictures. 

What the presenter said kind of underlined what we have all come to know as the most important trick-of-the-trade. If you are looking for commercial assignments, first you have to be prepared to execute them to a high level of quality and creativity. Second, you need to pursue your clients almost doggedly. Third, you need to be where prospective clients can see your talent. (Today this means having a dynamic website that is attractive and showcases what you can do and says a bit about who you are and what may distinguish your work from other competitors. And make no mistake, there are plenty of them).

All of this is an interesting mix of your talent and a great deal of luck. It is also one of the things I have always loved about my chosen profession. You never know what the next assignment will be, where it will take you and who you might meet.

When I was getting started in the early 1970s, I can remember hanging around at the Time/Life building in New York City and showing my new images almost week after week. I worked with an art director at WNBC-TV on a few assignments which were used in advertisements. With some of these added to my book, I finally persuaded the photo editor of PEOPLE MAGAZINE to hire me to do a couple of assignments. I had previously done an assignment for MONEY MAGAZINE, which was in the Time/Life family of magazines, so I wasn’t a complete unknown. ( I had been introduced by one of the art directors at WNBC-TV). I have to say that because of the jobs I had done for MONEY, the photo editor of PEOPLE agreed to let me shoot for him. But although it was great to get those assignments, I knew it wasn’t going to be a long term relationship because at that time, almost every photographer in the world wanted to shoot for them. 

I then made a connection with a company called East/West Network that published quite a few airline in-flight magazines. That art director, who was actually based in Los Angeles, saw a photograph I had made of one of the costumes at the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, the year it opened (around 1974 or so). He was looking for an image of one of the costumes, an outfit by the famous designer Vionnet for a cover of Pan Am Clipper magazine and I had just visited the new Costume Institute at the Met and made a few shots there. He saw them and then commissioned me to make this one:

From seeing that cover, the managing director of the Costume Institute hired me to shoot the public relations catalog of the institute’s Hollywood Show, which was their second show. Today, it has turned into a fashion “gala” every year, complete with current designers and a host of celebrities. I had just learned many new (for me) lighting techniques and applied them to some of those photos, all lit with old-fashioned hot lights because all the costumes were on mannequins and photographed with one of my 4×5″ view cameras. This was actually one of my first really big assignments. As an aside, I was invited to the “gala.” I had to rent a tuxedo and buy a new pair of shoes. I got to meet Mick Jagger and Cher who both attended that early show. 

From these experiences I learned that having a photograph on a magazine cover was important because of the exposure it gets. Art directors almost always look at the credits for images they like that have been used as cover art. 

I then took those images to several corporations that I thought might need photographs for the public relations departments. As I said, I knew that most major magazines weren’t making long term contracts with unknown photographers, so I decided to go the corporate route. One was ALLIED FIBERS & PLASTICS, a division of Allied Chemical Corporation. There I met an art director with whom I began a roughly eight year relationship which was one of the clients that helped me establish my business as an on-going concern in late 1979. These weren’t for magazines, but they used them a lot in their internal corporate businesses. (I actually saw one of my photographs used in an ad in PLAYBILL for a Broadway show). We did many assignments both in the studio and on location around New York and the fact that Allied needed photographs often, helped establish a decent cash flow. 

And, we often had to build sets in the studio for shots like this. And we did many location shots like this:

Some of those images then helped me establish myself with another long-term client, THE AMERICAN SERVICE INDUSTRIES, OR ASI. This company published seven different magazines that served the promotions industry. Here are a few of the cover assignments I did for them and companies like IBM and others, back in the 2000s:

These were some of the assignments I did twenty years ago based on some connections, other people seeing my work and simply knocking on doors. Some clients turned into profitable relationships of many years. (I am still friendly with the man who art directed some of these covers even though he retired over ten years ago). 

There are very few photographers who get contracts to shoot for certain magazines these days. Back in the 1950s or so, there were a few higher echelon shooters who were contracted by CONDE NAST, ESQUIRE, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, GQ, ELLE or other publications. They became well-known names and because of these publications, they became sought after by clients for advertisements. Some, like Avedon, Penn and Scavullo made headlines in the fine art world as well. They often had exhibitions at prestigious galleries and museums. 

Shooting for publications was how many reputations were built, as was mine. But they couldn’t be relied upon to pay the bills for a decent sized photography operation even back then. Today, corporate clients as well as catalog companies who needed photographs regularly became the entities I sought as paying customers. Even today, I do photoshoots for some on-line only magazines for free if I can get a cover credit for it. When I shot for PEOPLE MAGAZINE back in the late 1970s, they often paid $750 per day for shooting plus a “page rate” for images used in an article. My corporate day rate is much more than that today,  but $750 in 1978 dollars is worth over $3,000 today. So, that was good money back then and helped launch my career. 

Today, much of what I shoot is intended for websites. But printed pieces are still more valuable as promotional materials because they stick around longer. Anything online needs to be researched and takes some navigation on the user’s part. 

So from this account you should be able to gather that getting clients has a lot to do with talent, yes. But it is also dependent on making connections with art directors and corporate PR people who need photographs on a regular basis. That’s how to get your photography business off the ground. A studio needs constant work in order to pay its bills and provide the owner with income for him and his family. These are just a few ways I managed to start my business back in the 1970s and 1980s.