Accountants for Photographers London
If you have a vivid imagination and are visually creative, becoming freelance photographer or videographer could be the perfect career for you.
What does a photographer do?
A career in photography brings with it various and varied opportunities. You could be a:
- Portrait photographer: Customers could pay you to take photos of individuals or groups people.
- Wedding photographer: You could make a couple’s wedding something to remember.
- Studio photographer: You could work for a company that provides photos for businesses, such as photos of their products.
- Creative photographer: You could take photos that are more artistic in nature and sell them online, or even have them displayed in an art gallery.
- Photojournalist: You could take photos of news events to tell stories with images.
- Paparazzi photographer: You could take photos of celebrities and sell them to tabloids and gossip magazines.
- Stock photographer: You could upload photos onto a stock photo website, such as Getty Images or iStock so businesses can pay for a license to use them in their marketing materials.
- Sports photographer: You could take photos of sporting events and sell them to magazines.
As a freelancer, you’ll have the freedom to either specialise in a particular type of photography, or be more general and work in a variety of areas, depending on your interests and the work available to you.
What does a videographer do?
Like photography, a career in videography brings many opportunities.You could:
- Broadcast live.
- Make videos for the internet.
- Make corporate videos, maybe making a video that shows a business’s new product, or filming a conference.
- Film weddings.
- Work with advertising agencies to make adverts for TV and YouTube.
- Work alone on small productions
- Work in teams with producers, and lighting and sound technicians, on larger productions.
As a freelancer, you’ll get the freedom to choose to specialise in one particular area, or work in a variety of areas.
Becoming a better videographer or photographer – training and qualifications
Having a degree or other qualification isn’t essential to becoming afreelance videographer or photographer.With many areas of photography or videography, clients will only want to see that you are good at what you do before they hire you.
A couple in need of a photographer for their wedding, for example, aren’t going to care whether or not you have a degree in photography. However, attending formal education will give you the opportunity to learn about both the artistic and technical sides of photography, and build your portfolio. You’ll also meet people with similar interests, and maybe some industry professionals. You could always attend more specialist courses later on in your career if you want to move into an area that requires extra training and knowledge.
How to find work as a freelance videographer or photographer
Just like all other artistic industries, there is lots of competition among videographers and photographers. Fortunately, the world is becoming more and more visually-minded – think about how many people use Instagram and YouTube, for example. This means there are more job opportunities than ever before.
However, as a freelancer, you will need to work on marketing your services.
Here are a few ideas to market you videography or photography services:
- Portfolio: Having a portfolio is essential to getting videography or photography work. People will only hire you if they can see that you’re able to do good work.
- Website: Having a professional website is also essential. It will make you look more credible, is a place to display your portfolio, and is somewhere to direct potential clients to in order to see your work.
- Business cards: You can give your business cards to anybody who you think might need your services. As a videographer or photographer, you’ll need to spend extra effort in making them visually pleasing, maybe even incorporating one of your photos.
- Networking events: Attend business networking events to meet business owners or other people who might need your services. They’ll be more likely to trust you and hire you if they’ve met you in person first.
- Social networking: Social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are great places to talk about what you do, and post examples of your work. Instagram and Deviant Art are especially useful. If you’re a videographer, a YouTube channel can form part or all of your portfolio.
Accounting as a freelance videographer or photographer
There are various benefits to freelancing as a videographer or photographer, from the freedom and flexibility to work with a variety of businesses and individuals to more take-home pay.But there is one downside – accounting. As a full-time employee, your tax is usually taken care of on your behalf in the form of PAYE.
As a freelancer you’ll have to keep a range of financial records and then prepare and pay a Self-Assessment tax return at the end of each business
year. Accountancy can be very confusing and can distract you from what you love doing.
Specialist Accountants for Photographers
Getting tax and accountancy advice
With most accountants, you’ll pay them to do your year-end accounts, and then they’ll forget about you until the next year. But for your business to be run smoothly and successfully, you’ll need advice on tax and accountancy throughout the year, especially in the early days.
Citi Accounts is different, we provide an affordable and specialist accountancy service designed just for freelancers.
Throughout the year we’ll be on hand to give you any tax and accountancy advice you might need, including things like:
- Take-home pay
- Which VAT scheme to register for
- Expenses
- Tax allowances
- Choosing between sole trader and limited company
- Running your business in a tax-efficient way
We charge for our accountancy services in a clear and simple way, which means you’ll never receive an unexpected bill, and you can get in touch for advice whenever you want without the worry of being charged a fortune like you would with many other accountants.