It's amazing how one phone call can really lift up your week. As I was sitting in my car the other day, heading toward a meeting of the Professional Photographers of Cape Cod, I got one such call.
But first a diversion.
My business plan is based on complex actuarial tables, some tea leaf readings conducted in a cozy little room above an antiques dealer and some wild guesses. The core principal, apart from charging an amount of money that reflects the true value and cost of services is that I shouldn't buy things until the business can actually afford them.
One problem with start-ups is that when they get that first jolt of funding they want to go wild and buy everything in sight. After all you need an office building, thre server farms and an old Pac-Man arcade cabinet right away. However, businesses aren't based so much on the ownership of tools but the creation of products and businesses that lose track of this run into trouble.
Photography is partly selling the invisible. It isn't just about getting some 8x10 photographs into the client's hands but creating relationships, and capturing moments that reveal emotion and story in away that few others can.
Like most photographers (male photographers it seems are especially prone to this) I have this incredible desire to own the latest and greatest equipment to support my business. What I actually own is a lot less impressive, so I rent (as I wait to hit milestones marked out by my accountant/astrologer that say it's right to buy that new body or lens).