Photographer credited in three magazines says selling is the job

Kayleigh Morin Photography LLC works with influencers, models, brands and designers. The founder also shoots stock photography and runs a street fashion series on her blog.

Morin says her work has been published in three magazines: GMARO, La Modele and French Fashion. She says the credits can be seen on her website, where photographs link through to the magazines.

She built the business while working in sales. On her account, that job supplied the skills she now uses to handle her own marketing, sales and public relations.

That is the unglamorous half of a creative business, and it is the half she says most photographers underrate.

Her advice to other photographers is that the photography itself is a very small part of running a business, and that sales, networking and basic finance matter more than the shooting.

It is a familiar problem in one-person creative firms. The craft is the reason the founder started; the invoicing, the pitching and the follow-up decide whether they are still trading in three years.

Morin has not published revenue figures, client numbers or a founding date.

For a founder reading this with a portfolio and no pipeline, the practical point is narrow and cheap to act on. The skills that win the next commission are the ones taught in a sales job, not a photography course.

More: Kayleigh Morin Photography · her journal, where the street fashion series runs