I thought I would share, as a professional photographer in training, what I’ve learned in the past year or so.

1. Make friends with other professional photographers and learn as much as you can. If you have someone you can ask for advice it will help so much. Absorb all you can!
2. Practice on friends and family.
3. As you start to learn and feel like you are getting better start building your portfolio.
4. To build your portfolio take some sessions for very little money or for free or for family. Handle it professionally and make sure they know you are building your portfolio which is why you are doing it for free or so inexpensively.
5. Go to any open houses of photographers or classes, get information.
6. Learn the technical stuff. This can be really hard and takes a lot of patience. Learn to shoot in manual before you start your business.
7. Make sure you have a DSLR and a few decent portrait lenses.
8. Practice editing, it’s not as easy as it seems.
9. Follow photographers online and check out their work, find inspiration.
10. Always try to improve. My goal is to look back on every shoot and feel I learned something new or improved in some way.