Business Plan?

Brief: To put together a 'Business Plan' (or if you like a portfolio about you and how you see yourself operating as a photographer, what clients are you aiming to work with,what services you would like to offer, and for how much.

I haven't really put much thought into a business plan or what I want to do after finishing this course. I have lots of ideas and ways to get business but not an organised straight forward plan, as I'm not 100% sure what path I want to follow.

As it stands, after this course I am considering progressing on to do a third year BA Hons Degree.

After this, I know that I want to be self employed, but I haven't decided exactly what I want to do.

All through National Diploma, I was adamant that I wanted to follow a fashion/commercial pathway and work in advertising free lance, but since starting the degree I have been forced to expand my experience and work style to other areas and have discovered a passion for lots of styles of photography.

At the moment after University I am planning on setting up my own photography business based around portraits, weddings etc because I love photographing people.

My idea is to invest in more lighting equipment, and hire out a studio to begin with if studio work is essential to the shoot I am doing, slowly building up to having a home studio, for which I will need to get insurance to work from home.

Before I finish University I am trying to get as much experience in all types of photography so I have a vast knowledge and understanding before I go on to work for myself. I have recently spoke to Chris about getting the opportunity to photograph upcoming weddings and also plan on contacting local wedding photographers for assisting work or just experience on seeing how a professional photographer would go about photographing a wedding. I am also going to contact two local studios over the summer to see if I can gain more experience of studio photography as I don't use the college's studio as often as I would like to.

I have recently got some images published in Derbyshire Life magazine which is helpful towards my portfolio and a good way to get my work out there and seen by people. I also have business cards which I hand out at any event/job I get within photography and have in the past advertised in the yellow pages which did get me a few paid jobs while I was having a gap year between college and Uni and that was just from a free insert of my name and number so I will follow this route again.

I am also planning to advertise as a student in local newsagents and post offices as it is cheap to advertise and local people can see the adverts and being a student they know they won't be paying out a huge amount for quality work.

I need to spend the next couple of months updating my physical portfolio as that's what a lot of people want to see when you go for interviews or meetings with clients and it hasn't been updated since I left college which is quite unprofessional.