Business Of Photography Workshop

22/07/2025

FYI, summer sale on publisher's website as well as on Amazon for my guidebook.

Grounded in real-life experiences and scenarios, this practical guide offers editorial, non-profit, foundation, and corporate photographers an honest and insightful approach to running a freelance photography business. Pulling from thirty years of experience as a freelance photographer, veteran Todd...

21/07/2025

My annual summer print sale is now on. Choose any image from this travel gallery & use Summer25 for 30% off.

How To Order
1. Click on gallery link below.
2. Select an image.
3. Click Cart icon below the image.
4. Choose from various print options.
5. Pay via PayPal (no account needed)

White House Custom Colour prints & delivers directly to you.

From active lifestyles in the Sierras to quiet locations near the Arctic Circle, this small selection of travel related images reflect some of the people and places I've been fortunate to photograph for clients including National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, Time, The New York Times Maga...

18/07/2025

Budgeting is alway front and center when you make your living as a freelancer. There's no way to run a business, which is what freelancers do though many don't think of it that way, without knowing what costs you'll endure while estimating what revenue you'll earn.

If you get your healthcare from the public marketplace in your state, you will be paying substantially more when you reenroll in October. ACA premiums are rising. Why?

"Most Obamacare enrollees’ monthly insurance bills will go up substantially next year because of reductions in federal subsidies that help pay for their coverage."

Before you dismiss this info as many do on some perceived party line as "liberal news," understand it's from research requested by the Rupert Murdoch owned, conservative Wall Street Journal to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a behemoth in healthcare research. If you live under a rock and don't know Murdoch, he owns Fox News.

Budget more for healthcare.

Some enrollees could be hit with increases of more than 20% because of federal changes and higher health expenses.

17/07/2025

Whether done on your own via apps or by hiring a CFP (or a combo of both where you hire a fee only planner & then execute on your own), this is absolutely vital to succeeding as a freelance photographer. What dooms most freelancers is the inability to handle the financial side of life which directly impacts a career of freelancing. Obviously, there should be no surprise that I hit on this hard during my workshop.

Learn the basics of financial planning, budgeting, and investing.

15/07/2025

Where to locate as a freelancer is a major topic of conversation in my workshop and just in general with photographers. Making the choice where to call home base is vital to one's finances and overall lifestyle.

This is CNBC's annual ranking that draws on factors such as health care, wages, environment etc. Give it a read because it's good to know these things if you're considering where to live.

SPOILER ALERT: Tennessee is ranked as THE worst, but close behind are Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Alabama.

Quality of life considerations like crime rates, health and child care availability, and air quality dictate where people live, and where businesses locate.

14/07/2025

If you're interested in attending the only workshop on the west coast this year, please register soon. The summer workshop nearly always hits capacity but the numbers are running behind previous years & UCLA is also struggling with numbers so there's a chance they'll cut it. Trust me, I get it that photographers are not exactly swimming in cash which is why I mandate a low fee for the 2 day, 15 hr course. It's a fraction of what most workshops of this magnitude cost. I do it to give back to the community that I love.

August 16 from 9am-5pm
August 23 from 9am-5pm

Visit the site for testimonials or drop a comment and previous students can chime in about the value, topics covered, etc. Registration link on the site as well.

Founded in 2013 by Todd Bigelow, the course has been hosted by universities & professional organizations nationwide.

01/07/2025

The ambivalence shown by most photographers I speak with is reminiscent of when the internet emerged & publishers all placed free content on there without any concern about the future. We saw what that did to journalism and publishers are still trying to figure out how to get people to actually pay for their content.

Photographers should be deeply concerned about how AI is using content without permission to train generative AI models. Learn from past mistakes and if you decided to just shrug now, please don't whine later about lost revenue.

Technology firms say using copyrighted materials to train AI models is key to America’s success, while creatives want their work protected.

23/06/2025

As I plow through nearly a thousand images from recent shoots for my archive and properly keyword and place accurate info on them to leverage SEO, I'm thinking about the freelancers who claim they "can't" generate licensing revenue from their images. In my workshop I spend hours on this topic to show what goes into building a licensable archive. It takes time and effort, but it's also relatively simple to streamline it once you understand what's important to generate interest in your images from photo researchers & publications.

If you're a freelancer and you're just shooting and storing your images on drives, or you're uploading to a site like Photoshelter but not doing any of the necessary work to leverage SEO, then you're going to struggle to license.

20/06/2025

Possibly the largest freshman class in history is entering college at the same time universities far and wide are cutting staff, courses and entire majors while raising tuition.

Parents and aspiring photojournalists & photographers should keep their eyes on what's happening.

Schools say the Trump administration’s cuts to higher education are forcing them to consider extreme cost-cutting measures, even as more students than ever are heading to college this year.

19/06/2025

Two months out for the summer workshop. If you're interested, I suggest not waiting as it's the only Southern California course this year and last year it exceeded capacity. I keep it small for thorough discussions and to be able to engage with your questions at length.

August 16th & 23rd at UCLA
9am-5pm each day

For the laundry list of topics, registration link and more, visit

Founded in 2013 by Todd Bigelow, the course has been hosted by universities & professional organizations nationwide.

14/06/2025

A great article not just for parents of college age kids, but also for a reminder that some universities often ask freelance photographers to volunteer or work for poverty wages. Has it happened to me? Yup, with Syracuse.

A couple years ago Syracuse contacted me to ask if I would teach portions of my workshop to their photojournalism students during their annual 3 day gathering in New York whereby they link professionals and their program's students. It's a well regarded event and many respected colleagues participate to help the next generation.

Syracuse charges over $90k per year in tuition. I asked for a modest fee and they said no because everyone volunteers. So, by their calculation, I was supposed to take my hard earned experience that I've spent enormous time crafting into a book and workshop, fly across the country (they offered to pay for travel!) and spend a combined five days working for free to a university that charges over $90k/year in tuition? 🤔 No, I politely declined since it would be incredibly disingenuous to work for free while standing before eager students and directing them on how to value themselves for a viable career.

As the point of this article is that I'm sharing, parents (and photographers!) should say no to their first offer because if enough people do, as occurred with this year's incoming class, they SUDDENLY find money to make fair offers.

The university seems to have misjudged what some families would pay. Next year, maybe applicants should play their own game of chicken with such schools.