Become an Influencer Photographer: Get Paid to Shoot Bloggers and Instagrammers | Claire Petersen | Skillshare
Drawer
Search

Playback Speed


  • 0.5x
  • 1x (Normal)
  • 1.25x
  • 1.5x
  • 2x

Become an Influencer Photographer: Get Paid to Shoot Bloggers and Instagrammers

teacher avatar Claire Petersen, Fashion & Influencer Photographer

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Why Influencer Photography Anyway?

      2:25

    • 2.

      An Easy Win: Change Your Screen Name

      2:59

    • 3.

      Location #Hashtags

      2:44

    • 4.

      White Lies: Tagging Where You Want to Shoot

      3:02

    • 5.

      Identifying influencers

      3:16

    • 6.

      Time to Reach Out

      3:48

    • 7.

      That's a Wrap!

      0:24

  • --
  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • All levels

Community Generated

The level is determined by a majority opinion of students who have reviewed this class. The teacher's recommendation is shown until at least 5 student responses are collected.

454

Students

1

Project

About This Class

In this course, fashion and influencer photographer Claire Petersen will show you her strategy for booking clients.

Bloggers and instagrammers are always on the look out for new photographers to work with. So if you have a flair for photography, and are looking to monetize your hobby, follow these steps to bag your first client.

You'll learn how to:

  • Identify influencers who could need a photographer.
  • Reach out to influencers and convince them to hire you.
  • Build your social media presence so clients come to you.

This course is for amateur or semi-professional photographers who want to get regular clients and start making money from their passion.

Class Resources:

Message Template

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Claire Petersen

Fashion & Influencer Photographer

Teacher

 

I'm Claire, a photographer, visual artist, and Instagram addict. Nice to meet you!

New York City was where I first started taking photography seriously, and realised it was a viable career option. There, I built a niche for myself doing photo shoots for Irish bloggers, and worked with influencers as big as Erika Fox (@retroflame).

Now I'm back in Ireland, and continuing to build my career as a fashion and lifestyle photographer. As I build my portfolio and skills I'll be sharing what I learn along the way, and I would love for you to follow along!

 

"Claire's class has given me a lot more ideas and I have found out about stuff I had no idea about."

... See full profile

Level: Intermediate

Class Ratings

Expectations Met?
    Exceeded!
  • 0%
  • Yes
  • 0%
  • Somewhat
  • 0%
  • Not really
  • 0%

Why Join Skillshare?

Take award-winning Skillshare Original Classes

Each class has short lessons, hands-on projects

Your membership supports Skillshare teachers

Learn From Anywhere

Take classes on the go with the Skillshare app. Stream or download to watch on the plane, the subway, or wherever you learn best.

Transcripts

1. Why Influencer Photography Anyway?: Hello. I'm Claire, and I'm a fashion and influencer photographer, and today I'm going to teach you how you can bag your first influence. Our client, this course is for someone who's quite confident with camera already knows the settings and house. Take good photos on your probably pretty confident already at taking photos off people. But you're looking to level up on you actually want start making money from your photography, so that's one kind of dark, for that should watch this course. But another time type of talk for is perhaps someone who's already started making money from photography. But in fact, you haven't worked with influencers yet, and you want to tap into that market now before I get into it. Also let you know a bit about me. So, as I said, I'm a fashion on influence of photographer. I'm based in Ireland. But when I was living in New York a while ago that I started getting into influence of photography, it sort of started by accident when a friend of a friend reached out for some photos for their blawg. After that initial shoot, I realized that I could make some money from this and I can start building my portfolio as insolence of photographer. That is when I started to be a bit more strategic about it. Andi. I developed these tips and tricks that I'm going to teach you in this course one more thing before we start. And that's why influence of photography. Why are we gonna focus on this type of photography instead of more general portrait photography? Well, that's because of a number of reasons, and firstly, it's a growing market. More, more people are getting into blogging or instagramming on. If you don't have unnecessarily many established influences and bloggers in your area, you are likely to at least have people that are trying to get into this industry, so they will be looking for photos. Another point is that the whole nature of blogging is that they always need new photos to put on their social media platforms and their block. You're almost guaranteed repeat custom if you do a good first shoot. So also again, the nature of blogging is that people are posting these images that you're going to be given them, and they probably already have a following, so people will see your work out of your tag in there. Comments people will reach out to you on. You'll get more clients that way through word of mouth on through the photos that people share off your work. Those are some reasons why you might want to try influence of photography. Andi I will be showing news and tips and tricks of how to get your first client, so let's go ahead with the first tip. 2. An Easy Win: Change Your Screen Name: before we reach out to bloggers directly. What we want to do is make your social media presence work for you on because we're talking about photography here we are, of course, going to focus on Instagram. That's where most of your potential clients will be. You need to make your instagram discoverable. Let's put ourselves in the shoes off the influencer. So if you are the influencer on you're looking for a photographer, how are you gonna go about it? Well, you're very likely to open up Instagram on. Look there. First, you're likely to go to the search bar and search for photographers in your area so you might put in London photographer if you're in London or if you're traveling there. So look at that. When you search for London on the world photographer loads of photographers are popping up for you. How they appearing here? Well, it's really simple. All they've done is changed their screen name to London on the word photographer. How easy is that? It's super simple, but it does work because the way that Instagram's searches when you go to the search bar, it brings up accounts based on the screen name not on the bio. So while it's important for your bio to be clear and show that you're a photographer, the trick is to say that you're a photographer in your screen. Name two. Because that's the way people are gonna find you. So as you can see from the London photographer, a search term, there are loads of instagrammers coming up here on. Perhaps you might not be one of the top instagrammers if this is your area, but it's still good to use this trick, especially if you live somewhere that's not as big as London. It's actually an advantage in this case to be a rural photographer or a small town photographer, because you're more likely to come up near the top off the search results as there's much less competition. Let's look at an example. This is my account. If I put in dairy and don't a gold star for I'm based in Dairy and based in Donegal. On these aren't big cities in Ireland on in fact, Donegal is quite rural, so that's why I'm coming up. I on these search results when you search for either Donegal photographer or dairy photographer, so if you often travel to a nearby city or area. You could potentially add two locations your name like I have here. Also, if you're traveling somewhere to shoot, you might as well change your name for a while to appear as a photographer in that area. For example, if you're traveling to Paris and you'd like to book some shoots, there changes green aimed to Paris to talk for all of these things will help. So using this trick is really simple. But it's a great way to make your instagram more discoverable to increase your chances often influence or finding you on reaching out to shoot when there in your area. So onto the next lesson where we're going to look at what Instagram is known for Hashtags. 3. Location #Hashtags: So in this lesson we're going to look at hash tags. So you may think that Hashtags are old school on. Of course they are. They've been around on Instagram for as long as Instagram's existed, but there's still a great way to get in front off potential clients. The first hashtag you should be using is your location plus the word blogger. So, for example, when I was living in New York, I'd add hashtag NYC blogger on hashtag NYC bloggers to every post. Of course, this is really important because that is how a lot of bloggers find other bloggers to follow on. How a lot of bloggers find photographers toe work with They look through these hashtag and of course, you can use something like hashtag NYC photographer hashtag New York photographer. All of these hashtags will help you gain people in your area that will follow you. Hopefully different bloggers in your area that will one day reach out to you and ask you to shoot them on. This is why I'm saying specifically put in your location. Because if you're just using the hashtag hashtag photographer Hashtag Glauber, so many people are going to see it who might love your work. But they're nowhere new. They're not able to hire you. So you've got to get specific to the location with your hashtag with everything you do on Instagram. And of course, this also works for a rural small town photographers. Now that I'm back home in Ireland, I use hashtag Steri blogger on hashtag and I've blogger which is short for Northern Ireland Blogger doesn't matter where the location off the photo has actually been taken. Use the hashtag of the place that you're trying to build a business. Also look at the lovers in your area and see what hashtags they're using. So other ones that are specific to the area but maybe aren't as general as, say, hashtag NYC blogger. So perhaps you confine hashtag other hashtags that are related to New York that bloggers air using for example hashtag time out. New York. That's something I use when I was living in New York. So you have to of course, spend a little bit of time researching because I don't know what area you live in. I don't know what hashtags are specific to you, but you can pretty much bank on the fact that people in your area are using the name of the town or the name of the city on the word blogger. So that'll get you started. But definitely route through those hashtags and see what other people in your area using now time for the class project. So in the product section, share 2 to 5 hashtags that you're going to test out on your next Instagram post on. Of course, you can drop your instagram handle there if you want to share that as well. 4. White Lies: Tagging Where You Want to Shoot: on to the final tip for making your instagram discoverable. This is about tagging where you want to shoot, not necessarily tagging where the photo was taken. It's another way the influences find people that they want to work with. They will look through photos tagged in assertion location. You should use this to your advantage by tagging every photo with where you're based. Don't get too specific with these tags as a blogger is not likely that they're gonna go searching through a location of a particular road or at a particular coffee shop that you might have taken the photo at. They're far more likely to just look through the location tag for a whole city on again. Not every blogger does. It's not. Every person is going to look through these tags, but it's all about tapping every single element of instagram, making it work to your favor so that when one client is looking through the location hashtag boom, you're the photographer that will appear. Your photos will be there eventually. You can book clients this way, So anyway, you've probably already been tagging your photos on. Maybe, like I say, you might have done a cool photo shoot at a cafe and tagged the cafe as the location off your photo. But in this instance, it would be good to instead just at the cafe in the caption, so the Catholic and still see it, they might re graham it. So you're still getting views that way. But then you could be more general in your location tag and literally just tag the city that you're in wherever you want to get clients. That's what you should be tagging. And yet, finally, one more thing just to drive it home. You don't have to be entirely truthful in your tagging if you've been shooting in Sydney. But you're moving to Berlin and you want to shoot their tag your photos as Berlin tag your photos of the place you want to shoot as the place you want to get clients on. This goes for all my tips. If you are looking to use hashtag but you're going to move out of the city like you're gonna move out of New York. So why don't you maybe use hashtag London chalk for if you're moving to London, for instance, or wherever you're moving? This is what you got to think about. So that's what happened to me. I've got a lot of photos from New York and I'm still sharing them when I'm living in Ireland. But now, of course, I'm looking for clients in Ireland, So I tag my photos as dairy instead. I mean, it's clearly Manhattan on. If you're feeling a bit weird about that, you don't want to look like you don't know where you are. You can always right location in the photo of you want in the caption. So if you really want to include it, you can do that. And of course, if you don't like one of these tips, at least try one or two of them, you know? But try what works for you, see how you get on with it. So those are the three ways to make yourself more discoverable. Instagram, Try out one or more of these tactics, take a screenshot of it and share it in the project section. You can show you at handle as well, and we can all see how we're doing. And we can go and follow each other. Yeah, now onto being more proactive with less and five where I'm gonna tell you how to identify the influences to work with 5. Identifying influencers: Okay, so you've made your instagram more discoverable. It's a great start, but you could be waiting a really long time. If you're just waiting for clients to come to you, you've got to do some outreach, especially when you're just starting in this industry. You really got to be proactive. Get emailing getting that working. You could begin by compiling a list of influencer is in your local area. Who would potentially want to work with you? You want to be looking for influences with followers in the hundreds to the thousands to the tens of thousands. These aren't micro influencers, and the reason I'm pushing you towards people with the hundreds, thousands to tens of thousands followers I'm not saying go for like the 100,000 followers accounts is because the 100,000 plus follower accounts are usually inundated with D. M's with e mails on. They just won't even see you if you send the message. If we go for a micro influencer, you might have a little bit more of a shot in that regard. So how do you find these influencers? Well, we're gonna use similar tactics to how you made your own account discoverable but this time we're going to use it to find other people. So just as you searched for NYC photographer or whatever your location is on photographer justice, you change your user name to that. There are other savvy bloggers out there that have changed their name to New York blogger or London blogger or whatever your location is on the word blogger. So you simply type in the name of your location on the word blogger, and you should get a list all influencers who you could potentially work with so you can drop down the names of the influencers there handle their website or blawg on their email. A lot of implements is will include their email on their profile so that they can receive new opportunities. So jot down what you find. Another way to find influences to work with is by looking through the location hashtag just as you've been using the name of your location on the word blogger in a hashtag, you can look through these hashtags now to find bloggers to potentially work with. And don't forget to look through the top section on the recent section, so influences of any size could be interested in hiring a photographer, so don't ignore the small of bloggers. And if there are very new blogger, it could be true that they don't have many contacts in the industry, so they would need the help of Photographer even more. Finally, simply tap on one of the location tags that you've tagged of your city or town. So this tactic might be as effective as the other ones, as a lot of regular accounts simply add the location to their photos. But they're not bloggers or influencers and have no interest in hard a photographer. But it's still worth trying this, too. From doing this, you should have a pretty long list to work with. But if you'd like even more options, you can, of course, go to Google on Simply search for bloggers in your area. And it could bring up some of the influences that aren't that active on instagram but maybe have more of a presence on Facebook. Or maybe they just stick to traditional blogging. So now that you've got your list, let's go to the next section where we're gonna talk about reaching out to these bloggers on getting your first client 6. Time to Reach Out: Now that you've compiled your list, it's time to get messaging and start reaching out directly to these influencers. So if you are based in the U, you're going to, of course want to be G d. P r compliant GDP are is basically an you law that outlines rules for dealing with personal data. Most off these tips in this section are GDP are compliant. Full disclaimer here. I'm not a legal practitioner, So take the time to do your own research on Don't do anything that you are not sure about. However, GDP, our laws do not disallow you from messaging people through the messaging function on instagram, so we'll focus on this. If you're outside the EU and you aren't worried about GDP, our laws then fill free to apply these tips to emails any emails you collect from instagram . But if you were concerned about GDP, are pops stick to messaging directly on instagram D M's. So use your notes up to write a draft message. You're going to use this message to send to potential clients. It should start with something personal, so perhaps you like their style or the captions make you giggle. So mentioned this on. Give them a compliment. You want it to be genuine, because even though you're going to be messaging a lot of people, you can copy and paste parts of your message. But you will not be sending the exact same message to every single blogger. Now we get onto the power that you can actually draft up on copy and paste everyone. So this is where you say that your photographer say where you're based on. Always finish off by saying that if they're interested in working with you, you can send them your rates, so you always have to mention your rights in the initial message. Otherwise, people may assume that you're looking for a free collaboration. Andi, we're trying to get you your first paying client, so you do want to mention those rates. And it's a simple is that it's a simple is going through your new list of influence. Syria's on messaging, each one individually taking some time to write a personal message of the top so that you're not just completely spamming everyone, and you're making it personal to this influencer that you're reaching out to. But then copying and pasting in your name and your linked your portfolio where you're based your rights. You can copy and paste that in the message on. If you are going to apply this to email outreach, then the same point stand. Always start with something personal. First sentence should be a personal message, saying what you like about their feed or what you like about their blawg on. After that, you can pitch to them on. Explain that your photographer on Duren looking for bookings at the moment. Don't just email a load of longer is at the same time as, well, that's a big no no. Make sure to email or direct message each of these bloggers separately. So it's not a spam anything. Your tailoring, its each message and you're giving them value. Because these influences on blockers do actually need photographers. They need good photos to continue to grow that following on their free to say no. But after you message a lot of people, you'll find that if your photography is good enough, you will eventually book someone. So that's it. It will take a lot of time mastering all these different influencers. And, of course, during the research beforehand, to find them. But this is the great way to actually get clients to book you on. Then, as you get your first client and as you build a relationship and you start getting more clients through word of mouth, that's when all the other things that we talked about earlier will come into play. So the fact that now your instagram a super discoverable you're working with clients, these clients will be tagging you slowly you're gonna build up following. You're gonna build up a reputation as a photographer on, You'll keep getting more and more bookings, so that's it out onto the conclusion. 7. That's a Wrap!: So you've come this far. So please don't forget to share your progress in the project section posted screenshots of your instagram showing that you've implemented at least one of the tips to make your instagram more discoverable. And that's it. Now you have the tactics toe win your first influence our client, and start making money from photography. Good luck.