Hello there. I'm 22, been 5 years into photographing hobby, so finally I think I've got enough skill and gear to make this hobby a profession. In this thread I'll post everything related to this decision, including most of a photos that I'll shot commercial. Critique of my works and any advises appreciated (I'm channer for years, so feel free to mock me or advice kys).

My final goal is to raise at least 17K$ for student loans. I hope to do it in a year or two. The first lesser goal is to raise 130$ for a physical server, that will hold my money in form of bitcoins.

For a first stage I'll bomb local TG chats to find a people who wants to be shot for absolutely free. Thus, I'll make a portfolio. I hope to pass this stage and start asking money for my work in month or so. When I do, the early price will be 80$ per photo session.

What I already tried (and failed miserably).

- Invest money into advertising. Well, this is kinda logical to be done sooner or later, but at the point of year ago it was too soon. I've gotten zero clients and some harsh critique of my previous works. So, I learned to obtain a portfolio, and, as you can see from text above, this is what I'll do for a first stage.

- Offering local coffees, restaurants, etc. to shot their location. This was my friend's idea and it revealed to be terrible. I walked into 40 or even 50 locations, everywhere asking for a manager and offering my service, but got rejected in every single one.

- Investing money into «very serious» studio shooting with decorations and costumes. Epic fail because of the gear I had for the moment. What I learned from that attempt is to never trust cheap shitty gear, so now I invested some money into buying more serious stuff.

- Being film-only photographer. A most shitty idea that could came from my mind. What I learned from that is to buy a digutal body, so I did.

With all that experience of doing wrong, I hope I learned enough to finally make it right.