Yvonne Hanson

Y Hanson Photography

IG: https://www.instagram.com/yhanson_photography

A Photographers Digital Toolkit

Like many other millions of folks around the world, I have recently been laid off in the fallout from the COVID-19 Pandemic. Luckily, I have a side hustle to fall back on. I started up with portrait photography in 2018 as a way to make a little income on the side, and I have been pecking away at it ever since. There was a time when I was doing 1-2 shoots per month, putting little to no effort into marketing, and essentially just sitting back and waiting for the (very) occasional job to come my way. However, being unemployed during a pandemic has kicked me into a uniquely high gear of productivity. I am working on my photography business full time, spending 4+ hours per day marketing my services and an additional 4+ doing shoots and editing photos. This rapid shift of mindset has come with a lot of changes and updates to my once-simple digital toolkit. 

I’m not going to get into the specifics on my camera gear, as that would be a whole article to itself. Instead, I’ll tell you about the different websites and software I use to manage the digital component of my business. My current digital toolkit helps me manage three pots of work: Marketing and promoting my business, sorting and editing photos, and getting photos to clients + storing photos after the fact. Marketing is by far the largest consumer of my time and energy.

MARKETING

I do most of my business on Instagram, where I post one photo and one video almost every day. I post photos around 8-9 am, and spend 45 minutes to an hour interacting with similar accounts and browsing similar hashtags immediately afterward, trying to draw an audience towards my new post. The first hour after posting is key- this is when the instagram algorithm is “deciding” how popular your post will be and how much it should be promoted. The more likes and comments you get on the photo in this first hour, the more reach the photo will be given over the next 24 hours. I do this hour of outreach again later on in the evening when I post a Reel - a 15 second video that is essentially instagram’s response to Tiktok. In addition to this, I post to my “story” every two hours or so. I use an app called Unfold to create interesting looking stories. This app has a premium version which comes with many beautiful scrap-book style layouts that are easy to insert photos and text into. I also use stories to promo recently posted photos and videos, and remind my followers to go have a look at them. Another app I use for promotion is Whatsapp, where I am part of a group of other photographers who help each other out by engaging with each other’s recent posts. 

SORTING & EDITING

Sorting and editing photos is the second biggest component of my workload. I import raw photos to iPhoto, sort them there, and then edit them in Adobe Photoshop. Sometimes, if I’m doing batch editing for a client, I will edit them in Adobe Lightroom first and then move them to Photoshop for final touches. Lightroom allows you to apply presets and edit multiple photos in the same way, so it is perfect to ensure sets of photos match each other. For some photos, like quick snapshots taken on my phone, I don’t bother editing in Photoshop. If I’m just going to post a photo to my story and forget about it, I edit it on either the Adobe Lightroom mobile app, or on VSCO, which is one of the most popular and robust free photo editing apps available. If you’re just starting out with mobile photography, VSCO is a great app to start with. 

As many instagram users have probably noticed, IG will crop your photo if it is too long to fit in a square. To get around this, I use an app called Square Fit, which mounts the photo on a square-shaped white background. I also occasionally use an app called Mirror Photo, which flips a photo along a chosen axis and creates a mirror image effect. I am careful not to overuse this look, but I find there are some photos that look more fun and creative when the mirror effect is applied. 

DELIVERY & STORAGE

Finally, there’s the issue of getting photos to clients and storing them afterwards. I generally use Google Drive. I have paid for an extra 100gb of space on the drive, which has been adequate for me so far. Once I have sorted through them and edited my favourites, I upload the jpg versions of a client’s photos to a shared folder on the drive. If they request raw files, I use a website called We Transfer, which allows you to upload files that expire after a short period of time, staying just long enough for the client to download them. 

Once the client has their photos and is happy, I move a folder with all of the raw images and jpg versions onto my external hard drive, and delete them from my computer to clear space for the next shoot. 

And that is just about it. These are the apps and services I use almost every day, for every shoot, for every client. There are a few apps I am looking forward to trying out in the future, such as hashtag managers and extended engagement analytics. If my business continues to grow as it has been these past few months, I would be happy to write an update on these new apps in the future. Until then, happy shooting!