Photographers Helping Photographers
They say in business you are always competing with other businesses or companies in the same niche or industry as you. Since getting into the business of photography and making this my career, I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and whether or not it truly is always the case.
While I understand the concept - if you don’t get the business, customers will always go somewhere else - I have come to conclusion that photography may be the one unique exception.
Photography is already a very niched down industry, but that doesn’t mean we as photographers need to compete with one another for business. In fact, I will very unashamedly say that I refer other photographers to people regularly.
Just the other day, a former co-worker of mine texted and asked if I did family portraits or not. As you may know from some of the photos I post, I always say my rule of thumb is that I’m not taking a photo of a person unless they are not recoginzable (meaning back turned to me, silhouetted, etc.). When I responded, I explained that I don’t do that type of photography work, but gladly referred them three other local names (shoutout Deny Howeth, Neil Parry, and Eric Reiske) for them to check out to get some family photos done.
This isn’t the first time I’ve given out names for this type of work either - within the last two to three months I’ve had a few real estate clients reach out about new headshots, and I either recommended one of the photographers above or someone else who I knew would do a great job for them (shoutout Joe Otto at Peak Exposure Visuals and Michael Awtry at Awtry Media).
Even outside of portraiture and headshot photography I’ve been known to recommend other local photographers to people.
Earlier this year, for example, I had someone ask if I had any Dewey Beach images to put in their rental homes. I did not, but knew Elliot MacGuire had a good selection from there so sent them his way (and when I later did photos of the rental units, saw his work hanging in them - see one in the photo to the right).
In addition to Elliot, I’ve sent another person to Kim Johnson when they were looking for a hawk photo before I had any good ones, and over the weekend I recommended someone reach out to Kevin Lynam for a calendar purchase as I had sold out of mine.
Never do I ask for or expect any of these photographers to do the same for me - they may not feel the same way as I do about this. However, what I can say is I feel this is the best way for me to run my business and I will ALWAYS do what I feel is right for me and my business. We are all photographers. We are all in this together. We should make sure we try to help one another in any way, shape or form that we can and feel is appropriate.
I suppose I’d be remiss if I also said that I don’t just view this from the business and referral side of things either. It doesn’t happen as often, but if another photographer reaches out to me and asks for advice or help, I do my best to help them as well. Kevin Lynam has done this on many occassions for me, and I’m very grateful for that. Adam Brockett, someone I follow on Instagram, did as well with an editing question I had about one of his photos this year. Now, I’ve had someone reach out to me via Facebook after they purchased a drone that I’ve been giving a few pointers to - I guess you could say this is my way of paying back the help Kevin and Adam gave me!
With that, I’ll finish this post with a word to my fellow photographers reading this post: We are all in this together, and I’m cheering for you all. If you ever need help, don’t hesitate to reach out and I’ll do what I can to give you a hand.
Catch you all on the next one!
- Tyler
Don’t miss this other content from Tyler Smiley Photography:
FOLLOW TYLER SMILEY PHOTOGRAPHY ON SOCIAL MEDIA