Overhead

As my father often reminded me, "Overhead is something that is easy to acquire and very hard to eliminate." Think big, but start small. This is advice I will never forget! With any start-up business, you need to think about how to finance your endeavor. Some people obtain a loan or reach out to find investors. I chose to start out small, using my own savings so I didn't need to worry about repaying debt.

In the beginning of my career as a photojournalist for the New York Times, I had minimal overhead. I lived in a house with friends from college. I had a darkroom in the basement and a photo studio in the garage. I used my car as a mobile office, and I had what was, for the time, a state-of-the-art voice paging system to get my assignments and messages.

If you are thinking about getting into the business, before setting up a fully functioning photo studio with a kitchen, use your home. Purchase some inexpensive plates and napkins to use as props. As a digital photographer, you won't need a darkroom, because your computer is your imaging workstation.