The question I get asked the most is “How do I find my first food photography client?” Maybe you’ve been shooting for your blog but want to transition to paying clients. Or maybe you’ve been shooting in another genre like weddings or family portraiture and have discovered a passion for food photography.
Whatever the case may be, here is your roadmap to finding your first food photography client.
Step One: Identifying Your Ideal Client
Before you can do anything in your business you need to identify your “Ideal Client”. This is marketing speak for your dream client. Who do you dream of working for? If you don’t know this, you can’t market yourself to anyone. You won’t know what to say in your marketing efforts. You won’t know how to pitch to them or what your marketing collateral should look like?
The building block of any business is to know you want to serve, who you want to speak to. If you don’t know, how can you expect them to hire you? They won’t know you’re speaking to them.
The first stage of getting hired is to now exactly who you want to hire you. Everything else you do going forward hinges on this target audience.
The great thing about shooting food photography is that there are so many potential clients in a variety of sectors—from agriculture to hospitality, to publishing and small business. Identify the sectors you are most interested in and narrow it down to a list of say, ten clients in each sector to start. For example, my ideal clients can be found in high-end hotels and restaurants, working with advertising agencies, or have niche food businesses. There are hundreds of restaurants in my city, but I market to high-end chains and luxury five-star hotels that have the budget for commercial quality food photography. I work with many types of clients that come my way via my website, but I specifically market to my ideal clients at companies and agencies that I’ve researched and worked to connect with.
If you don’t know who your ideal client is, take the time to define them, to research them, and write down a list of who you want to hire you. You should know who your message is targeting. Perhaps you only want to work with vegan and vegetarian food brands, or you really enjoy shooting social media content for the hospitality sector.
Knowing this will inform everything else that you do.
Build a Portfolio to Attract Your Ideal Client
Before you can market to the brands you want to work with, you need an online portfolio that speak to them. Clients need to see evidence that you do what you say you do—and do it well.
You’ll have a hard time convincing someone to hire you if they don’t see what they want in your portfolio, on your Instagram, etc.
Be sure that you have a professional looking website with your own domain address, preferably using your own name. This makes it easier for potential clients to remember you and has more impact from a branding perspective than a name such as, “Foodies Photography”.
Also, take the time to look through your portfolio and identify any gaps. What is missing? What do you need to shoot for your dream client to see that you’re the right photographer for them?
For example, do you need more beverage photos or chef portraits? Or maybe your portfolio is heavily weighted to sweets and not speaking to your target audience.
You may need to buy new props, ingredients, backdrops, and linens to execute the images that will attract your ideal client and get you hired. Don’t be afraid to invest in these items to ensure you are showcasing the exact kind of images that your ideal client will be looking for. I’ve often spent upwards of two hundred dollars on props and food to create a certain set-up I had in mind and have never regretted it because I always made tenfold the money back whenever I’ve done so.
Note that if you have a mishmash of different kinds of images on your site, it can be confusing to your client what it is that you actually offer. If you want to focus on food photography only, have your website geared strictly to that. I often get asked to shoot other genres of photography through my network, but only my food photography lives on my website because that is really what I want to shoot.
Finally, once you have your website ready to go, try to get some outside perspective on what is missing. This can be as simple as asking a friend for their feedback. If you have the budget, you may want to invest in a photo consultant for a trained and more experienced eye on your work.
Note that portfolio building is ongoing. It’s not something that you do once, and you’re done.
So, start planning some shoots!
Research the Industry
As a beginner, you need to learn as much as you can about the industry in order to get hired. The reason people will hire you is because they want to drive sales of their product, magazine, or dining establishment etc. Someone who is hiring a food photographer to take photos of their product are hoping to make money out of those images.
It’s a commercial world and you need to understand licensing, copyright and usage rights, and how to price and estimate your photography services.
I have a lot of posts on the blogs that will give you an inside look at the how the industry to works. Here are some posts you may find helpful:
How to start working as a food photographer
What I wish I knew on my first photoshoot
What you need to know about pricing your food photography
These days there is a lot of information out there that can help you understand the industry so you can find your first food photography client. You can watch YouTube, read industry blogs like Peta Pixel, and join Facebook groups, or hire a mentor.
When I first got started in photography, I spent six months building my business before marketing to my first client. I hired a photography coach who helped me determine my pricing. He even shared some of his contacts with me, which led to my working with an agency in my first year of business.
Some outside perspective and encouragement can go a long way to help you feel more confident and present yourself as a professional. Your first client can be a lucrative one and they’ll never actually guess that you haven’t been in business for years.
Build a Team
For the most part, food photography requires a team effort. Sure, there are some photographers that do commissioned shoots from their home studio, mostly working for popular food bloggers or small local brands.
Usually however, most projects will require that you surround yourself with talented people who can help you get the job done. A great food photo takes a village. The photos in your favourite foodie magazines take a whole team of people to execute. You’ll need a team of people as well, and a food stylist will be your most important ally.
You might really like styling, you might like editing, and enjoy every step of the process of shooting beautiful food images but bringing in a team to help you will be a necessity in most cases. No matter how good you are at going it alone, having help will up your game on any food shoot. If will free up your time and allow you to focus on what you’re best at—which is taking photos of food.
Going at it alone never works out as well as it does when you have a team. Even for my restaurant shoots I bring in one or two assistants. It’s the only way that I can work quickly enough to get all the shots required.
To build your team, start small by finding a food stylist that you can work harmoniously with. Then find an assistant who can help you with your lighting and tethered capture.
Once you find one team member, it can be easier to find others, as they can give you recommendations of other people they know in the industry. Create a database of people who work well with you, and you’d be happy to recommend to future clients. If someone is not available, you’ll want to have a couple of back-ups that you can call on.
Make Yourself Visible to Your Ideal Client.
The final stage to finding your first food photography client is putting yourself in front of the people who have the power to hire you.
Think about where your ideal client would look for a photographer.
Typically, this involves:
- Google Search
- Friend & Family Recommendations
You need to be as visible as possible to the right people who will require your services. You do this by engaging on social media, networking, and pitching to prospects you have researched via their websites and LinkedIn company pages.
If you wait for the clients to come to you via your website, you’ll always struggle as a photographer.
Take control of who hires you by identifying your ideal client and making yourself visible them. This business—as with any other—is all about building relationships.
In Conclusion
There is so much more to finding clients that can be laid out in a blog post, but hopefully this post has given you some actionable steps you can take to finding your first food photography client.
If you are ready to get started with pitching and going after your ideal client, be sure to sign up for The LinkedIn Workshop happening LIVE on January 31, 2023. I’ll be walking you through my signature six-step process to leveraging LinkedIn like a pro and getting you connected to the client’s that you dream of working with.
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