YOU

CAN’T
FIX IT
LATER IN
PHOTOSHOP
HOW TO AVOID
THE 3 MOST COMMON BUSINESS
MISTAKES IN PHOTOGRAPHY
AND THRIVE

DAVID DUCHEMIN
Author of VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography
 THINGSFIRST
FIRSTTHINGS
FIRST FIRST
My name is David duChemin, I’m a
photographer and lifelong creative
entrepreneur, and I want to help you
thrive.
Why? Because I love what I do and
photography has given me an incred-
ible life and I want others to experi-
ence the kind of joy, freedom, and
creative rush I get from making a liv-
ing from my photography.
I know it’s not easy. Being creative
for a living is just damn hard no mat-
ter how you slice it. And there are
no easy answers. But I’ve been on
the edge of bankruptcy wondering
how I would survive. I’ve come out
of the other side of bankruptcy and,
as a 30-year old man,  had to ask my
mother to get a credit card for me in
her name. I’ve been where you are,
and possibly worse-off.
I’ve learned really hard lessons to
get where I am now, and every one
of them was worth what it cost me.
But if you can get there without go-
ing down the harder path, do it. And
I can help with that. 
So why listen to a guy who has so ob-
viously been a financial moron, when
he talks about business and money?
Because I didn’t remain a moron. I
learned. I fell down, took a beating,
then got back up and went on to ap-
ply the lessons I learned (and am still
learning) everyday, to run a business
doing what I love and grossing $1M
a year for the last five years. I may
learn the hard way, but I do learn.  not for a single minute forgetting
When I left college, I was a comedi-
an. If I wanted to eat, I had to learn
to convince the world they needed a
juggler. If you can sell juggling to the
world, you can sell anything. That’s
how I learned marketing. When I
finally went bankrupt it wasn’t be-
cause I was a bad entertainer or a
lousy entrepreneur; I was becoming
increasingly good at both. I had an
agent in Nashville. I had regular en-
gagements in venues with 1,000 to
2,500 people in the audience. I went
bankrupt because I was total crap
with my money.
I learned the financial stuff the hard
way. And then I became a humani-
tarian photographer, wrote some
bestselling books, grew a small but
enthusiastic audience that just kept
growing, sold a $5 eBook that be-
came Craft & Vision (a publishing
company with over 100 titles by 20
different authors), and did it all while
travelling the world, teaching, doing
assignments for clients I love, and
how grateful I am and every day feel-
ing like the luckiest guy in the world.  
I can help you because I’ve been in the
hard places and there’s no reason you
should take the most difficult path.
I believe there’s more than enough
to go around for everyone and that
if photographers would stop screw-
ing around with their cameras long
enough to learn a few basics about
business their lives—and their busi-
nesses—would be richer.
Thanks for trusting me with this. I
know how important it is to you and
I’ll do everything I can to earn that
trust. 
LEARN YOUR CRAFT
Photography is not an easy craft in
which to make a living. We are told
that times have never been harder
for photographers. Bullshit. Times
have always been hard. They’re just
changing. And we can either moan
about how things used to be, or we
can understand the changes and use
them to build an exciting, prosper-
ous, business doing what we love.  ing it, you’re letting me send you The
So why do so many photographers
struggle for so long, only to throw in
the towel and get a “real job”? Be-
cause they’re thinking like photogra-
phers, not entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurialism is a craft as much
as photography is and it’s not learned
overnight.
Most of us would laugh if our neigh-
bour picked up a camera on Thurs-
day and on Friday announced he was
a professional photographer. We’d
all be screaming “You’ve got to learn
your craft!” And that’s exactly where
so many photographers are now. 
This book is just a start. By download-
VisionMongers Dispatch, a month-
ly email with articles and resources
and actionable steps you can take
to change your business and thrive.
I hope what I send you will continue
to earn your trust and make your life
richer. If not, you can unsubscribe
any time.
Photographers often joke about “fix-
ing it later in Photoshop.” Well, some
do; some are quite serious about it.
Which is a shame because just do-
ing it right the first time would save
them a lot of effort later. There’s
something to be said for knowing
your craft, and you can’t fix your busi-
ness in Photoshop.
There’s no File > Undo command.
And there’s no filter to make a failing
business succeed. But there are good
ways to avoid mistakes and make
course corrections along the way.
Here are three of the most common
mistakes photographers make and
how to avoid them.
*If you got this book from some-
one who sent it to you in hopes
it might serve you and you want
to get The VisionMongers Dis-
patch, you can sign up by down-
loading your own copy of this PDF
(click here). It’s the fastest way to
get my monthly articles.
Don’t worry about SPAM—I won’t
send it unless I think it’s really use-
ful. We all get more than enough
email.

a l i s m i s a c r a f t
En t re p re n e u r i
h o t o g ra p hy i s ,
as much a s p
i t ’s n o t l e a r n e d
a n d
ov e r n i g h t .
01
THE BIG MISTAKE:
Asking “What does the
market want?” Instead of,
“What value do I bring?”
ter Contrast, Better Stori
If I had a buck for every time a photogra-
pher told me they were struggling with
their business because they couldn’t fig-
ure out what the market wanted, I’d have
a lot of bucks. It happened to me again
just today.
There is no such thing as “The Market.” It
is not one big hungry homogenous thing
out there just waiting for you to feed it
what it wants. If anything, there are many
markets out there, some well established
and some yet undiscovered. Because a
market is just a group of people and they
gather around a common thing. And that
thing is the value you offer. 
Forget what the market wants. There’s
no such thing. What are you really f*ck-
ing good at? What gives you such joy,
what gets your creative juices pumping
so fast that you spend hours doing this
one thing for free? What do you do so
well that while, yes, there are other pho-
tographers out there, people want you
because no one does it your way? 
The big question that needs to be an-
swered by every person going into busi-
ness is this: what do you bring to the table?
And before you move on, you will benefit
from giving this a long, hard, think.
 YOUR
If your answer is, “I know how to use a
camera really well,” then you need to find

NEXT
a better answer. Everyone knows how to
use a camera now. What else? What dis-
tinguishes you?

When I was more actively serving hu-

STEP
manitarian clients (a niche that is flood-
ed with people clamouring to do the work
for free, which I have no problem with),
my clients chose me over the free option.
Why? Because I understood their needs
better than many. I understood how to
work across different cultures. I had years
of experience working with kids, which
was the focus of much of my humanitar-
ian work. I understood how to tell a story
and create images about hope. And yes,
Read Cal Newport’s book, So Good They
I also made beautiful photographs.  You
Can’t Ignore You (Amazon link).
still have to be good at your craft.
Now sit down and do an audit on your
Know what you are really truly good
particular DNA. What experience do you
at, and then find people that need that.
have that gives you expert-level knowl-
That’s your value. And if you can serve edge with which you can serve a very
that up, you’ll be ahead of most of the particular audience? What other skills do
photographers out there who are still you have? What personality traits do you
writing “Have Camera, Will Travel” on have that would make it easier for some
their business cards, which is meaning- people to work with you? Most photog-
less and of no particular value to anyone. raphers are trying to go too broad and
serve everyone. That’s a losing game.
02
THE BIG MISTAKE:
Not
Charging
Enough
If you want to sink a business fast, then
operate out of fear, compete with the
Craigslist photographer next door, charge
less than he does, and join the race to the
bottom. That’s commodity thinking and
the best thing you can do for your busi-
ness is escape that, think like a brand,
and charge more. The obvious pushback
I get every single time on this is, “Yeah,
but the market won’t pay that.”  Once people think of you as cheap, bud-
What did I tell you in Chapter One? There
is no one single market. If they won’t pay
it, it’s because the value of your offer isn’t
high enough, or they aren’t your market.
No, most often that’s a smokescreen we
create because we’re afraid. We lack the
confidence to simply charge more. At
the beginning that’s somewhat under-
standable, but remember, you can’t start
off appealing to the budget (commodity)
crowd and later easily switch to the luxu-
ry (brand) crowd. Raise your prices now.
get, or discount, that’s what you are and
if it was hard to make a living as a pho-
tographer, try doing it while constantly
lowering your prices. 
This is part of a larger conversation, so
I’m going to expand it a little here and YOUR
say this: many (most?) photographers
are terrible with money. I know it because NEXT
I’ve been there and I recognize myself in
you. STEP
We spend like photographers, not peo-
Get a good accountant. Today.
ple running a business. We spend too
much on things that go obsolete too fast
Next, raise your prices. Whatever they
and have little to no return on investment
are, raise them by at least 20% immedi-
(ROI). We don’t pay attention to cash
ately. 
flow. We don’t save for taxes. We believe
there’s such a thing as a “money lens.”
Now go read Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will
Teach You To Be Rich (Amazon link). For-
If you’re in business, you need to be OK
get the lame title, it’s an excellent book.
with having multiple personalities. The
Money is one of the main tools in your
photographer personality needs to clear
new craft as an entrepreneur; the more
purchases with the VP of Finance per-
comfortable you are with it, the better the
sonality and that personality needs to
chances of you thriving. 
care more about the financial health of
the company than shiny new gear.

One of the best things you can do imme-

diately is get an accountant. What they
save you in taxes and insight into how to
use your money will be worth far more
than they will charge you for their ser-
vices. You wouldn’t hire a plumber to do
your accounting, so why would you let a
photographer do it?
03
THE BIG MISTAKE:
Thinking Like a
Photographer, Not an
Entrepreneuretter Contrast,
Better Stories
If someone asked you how to become
a photographer, what would you say?
Would you put a camera in their hands
and say, “There you go!”?
God, I hope not. You’d teach them the ba-
sics, you’d help them think like a photog-
rapher, show them how different settings
changed the look and feel of the pho-
tograph. You’d introduce them to new
photographers and different techniques.
In turn, they would study those things.
They’d wrestle with it; they’d obsess over
it. I’ve met more than my share of pho-
tographers and man, we can be an ob-
sessive bunch!
We need to bring that same obsession to
our business craft. What new books are
we reading about money or marketing?
How well do you understand internet
marketing and social media? We go to
photography workshops and drop thou-
sands of dollars on that kind of educa-
tion, but when’s the last time you spent
more than a few bucks on learning to be
a better entrepreneur? 
“But I became a professional photogra-
pher so I could make photographs!” No
you didn’t. You became a photogra-
pher  so you could make photographs.
You became a professional photographer
 YOUR
so you could make money. There may be
all kinds of layers of, “Yeah, but...” in your

NEXT
head, but let it go. You need this shift in
thinking. There’s nothing wrong with this.

Making money can be as noble and beau-

tiful and creative as making photographs.
STEP
And you’ll need it to feed your family I’m not exaggerating when I say that Tim
and all the other things you need money Ferris changed my life with his book, The
for. If what you really want to do is make Four-Hour Workweek (Amazon link). You
photographs, you’re probably better off can learn a lot from this book. Same with
doing something else to earn the money, Crush It! (Amazon link), or anything else
and just letting this be a hobby. There’s from Gary Vaynerchuk.
nothing wrong with that, either.
Read them.
There’s no badge of honour in being a
professional photographer. But if you Begin to think like an entrepreneur.
need to shift your relationship to money,
now’s the time. And once you’ve done
that, make a plan for taking the next step
in your craft as an entrepreneur. Be as
aggressive about learning this new craft
as you are about honing your photogra-
phy. You wouldn’t ask a ballerina to think
like a lawyer (not my best metaphor), so
don’t make the mistake of thinking like a
photographer about things for which you
need to think like an entrepreneur. You
can learn this stuff. If I did, you can.
ONE LAST THING

What now? If you did the reading I sug-

gested, you should have more than
enough right now to start being laser-fo-
cused about communicating your value
to your audience, raising your prices, get-
ting your finances in order, and beginning
to think like an entrepreneur.

If you haven’t read my book, VisionMon-

gers, Making a Life and a Living in Pho-
tography (Amazon link), I’d be remiss if
I didn’t suggest you also read that, but
the other books I’ve suggested should be
your first stop.
The next step after that is to watch for,
(and read) The VisionMongers Dispatch
that I’ll be sending you each month with
ideas, sermons, and resources for pho-
tographers and creative entrepreneurs.
er than others. Avoiding the mistakes in
this short book are the start of that path.
Gary Vaynerchuk talks about clouds and
dust: you have to dream as big as you are
willing to work hard, never having your
head in the clouds any more than you
have your hands in the dirt. Forget luck: I
wish you clouds and dirt, friends.

I hope you’re in this for the long haul. ~ David duChemin

Like any craft, it takes time and there are davidduchemin.com
no shortcuts. But some paths are smart-