Blue Ridge Wedding Photography Why Learning & Practice Still Matter. Ongoing Education for the Photographer, why it is critical for your clients Part 2. In our last blog entry we discussed why ongoing education is critical for the professional photographer and your clients. As a professional who has shot from Blue Ridge to the Caribbean, I can qualify how ongoing education can change your business and your life, and how it changes what you provide your clients.

Learning & Practice and how it impacts your clients.

I can’t count the number of times when I have been discussing professional organizations such as the Professional Photographers of America Check them out HERE: The Georgia Professional Photographers Association Check them out HERE: an affiliate of the PPA and the Certified Professional Photographers Program See more about that HERE:

and have them be roundly dismissed.

The rationale and reasoning you hear many times is that ‘it cost too much” or “my clients don’t care about that stuff”. We briefly discussed this in our last blog post which you can find it HERE: 

When we assume that, how then do we develop professionally and artistically? Since maturation in art and business is very rarely known to grow and develop in a vacuum, what does the professional photographer use to learn, to grow, to develop, to mature?

I am of the opinion that your art starts to change when you are exposed to so many who are successful in their business and in their photography.  We all develop at different levels and at various times. The next step in ongoing education is to take advantage of classes. These can be ongoing through the year, some are even available online and of course there is a bonanza of them at Imaging USA as both pre-convention all day classes followed by the briefer classes that run through the convention. Imaging USA just wrapped up for this year. You can check it out HERE:

The Professional Photographers of America isn’t the only association who puts some emphasis on education (Although it is my personal choice for association and education, degrees etc). You can check out the Wedding & Portrait Photographer’s International  also known as WPPI. See them HERE:

The next and what leads to an ongoing final step is print competition. This alone will open up and rapidly expand your art and take it to new heights you hadn’t foreseen.

And it isn’t just your photography that develops. How you structure and run your business can have a huge impact on legal issues, profitability and sustainability, and yes those things do indeed benefit your clients.

So when I hear that there is no need for ongoing education for the professional photographer or that clients don’t care about such things I have to ask, what is your business ,your art and your clients worth to you?

If you genuinely wish to make a living at this, to be the best YOU at this, your chosen profession shouldn’t you be educating your clients as you should be yourself?

They deserve it. So do you.

So does the industry.

Push yourself. Learn. Grow. Be More.

We shoot with our hearts on the shutter and it looks like this.

John & Tamera

Blessings,