Yes, a polished online portfolio and strong social media presence can engender trust in your brand. But the most powerful thing you can do to build a successful photography business is connect with your target client in person, contends Wheatland, Wyoming-based commercial photographer and educator Jeahn Laffitte. “Even now, with AI becoming so prevalent—yeah, it’s a powerful tool, but it’s also kind of scary,” he says. “And I think people are going to hire as they always have. [They’ll] hire the people they trust, who they know. You could have the best portfolio, but if they don’t know you, they’re not going to hire you.”

Face to Face

Like many photography pros, Laffitte’s journey didn’t begin with photography. In college, he majored in audio engineering, which, although “it sounds kind of weird,” he notes, prepped him for photography by educating him on how digital media is recorded, stored, delivered, and processed. “Being able to understand that really lent itself to other aspects of digital art,” including graphic design, animation, filmmaking, and photography, all of which he’s worked in professionally. Photography began as a passion, not a career, he says. “I was able to take all the complexity of the other mediums and distill it down to one singular form, which is a still image. And to me, it was just a lot more satisfying to create still imagery. I could pour all the perfectionism that I have into that one frame rather than over large projects that take much longer to build.”

In 2022, Laffitte was laid off from his job as a video editor for an online education company, which offered the push he needed to start his own commercial photography business. He began promoting himself in the industries he hoped to work with, “companies that aligned with me as a person,” says Laffitte. One of those niche industries was knifemaking, a small, tight-knit community where he began attending industry events and engaging in person with the makers. “I think word of mouth, especially in those industries, is extremely important,” he says. “That face-to-face connection, I think, is extremely valuable. You can’t beat that.” Laffitte also recalls that, since the COVID-19 pandemic, people want in-person connection more than ever before, making local networking even more important.

Eventually Laffitte decided to pivot to other industries and today he has clients in e-commerce food and drink, agriculture, and the industrial sector. He found his clients through tried-and-true relationship-building, both within the industries and as a photographer. Since networking groups are hard to come by in rural southwest Wyoming, he searched “networking opportunities for creatives in my city” and found one in nearby Fort Collins, Colorado. “Maybe 20 people show up once a month on a second Thursday of a month just to chat,” he says about one of his groups, from which he landed a recent job doing headshots for a company in Chicago. The initial search for a group might be the hardest part, but once you attend one meeting, that opens doors to more networking opportunities, Laffitte says. He also recommends joining a local PPA Community Network.

In addition to Jeahn Laffitte Photography, Laffitte runs a separate business called Luma University. Under this brand, in addition to in-person workshops, Laffitte hosts a podcast and creates photography education content. “The education side has been really great because it allows me to have a purpose for developing work that I really love, that doesn’t have a client attached to it, that doesn’t have any stipulations around it,” he says. “And I can just share it with the world and be free to explain my process.” It also helps build his portfolio to attract more of the dream clients he’d like to work with. Also, “What better way to learn than to teach?” he says. “I’m a huge advocate for anyone who wants to get better at their craft to start teaching.” And there’s no need to wait until you think you’ve learned everything, he explains. “Even if you just learned it yesterday, it doesn’t matter. Share that with people.”

Lessons Learned

Laffitte shares lessons learned over the last four years from building a commercial photography business and a photography education business:

Under-promise and overdeliver. “Promise enough that the client feels seen and that they’re getting value out of you, but then go above and beyond for them,” Laffitte says. Video work, such as behind-the-scenes or short reels, is a great unexpected add-on to provide clients, he notes, as is offering ideas on how to position deliverables. “I would caution people: Don’t go beyond the point where you’re actually hurting your business,” Laffitte notes. But politeness, timely communication, and professionalism go a long way.

Get the most out of the slow times. “Entrepreneurship is very up and very down sometimes,” says Laffitte. “And I think that’s true no matter how deep you are into your career.” First, it’s important to price yourself high enough to survive the inevitable slow times, he notes. Second, be proactive and politely persistent. “I think you have to continually just be reaching out,” he says, to past and potential clients. “Not in a salesy way, but just a friendly, ‘Hey, just checking in. Hope you’re doing well. I’ve got availability coming up next month. If you need anything, let me know.’” Third, take advantage of the slow times to set up test sessions and build your portfolio toward the types of clients you’d like to attract. 

To build a social media following, you need to provide value. With over 90,000 followers on Instagram, Laffitte has clearly developed an outstanding social media presence. “My social media was built because I started sharing my processes and started showing people what I know: showing behind the scenes, lighting breakdowns, things like that,” he says. “Just providing value to an audience.” His followers are largely photographers who want to learn. To build the education side of his business, it was paramount to post tutorials to YouTube, where people are keen to dig into longer educational videos.

In the commercial niche, social media is important, but not that important. Laffitte doesn’t receive a lot of cold calls through social media for commercial projects. “You do not need a large following on social media to be successful in commercial realms,” he insists. “I have a lot of friends who do way bigger jobs than I could ever dream of doing at this point in my career who have no social media. Because, again, they are networking with the people they want to work with. They’re in the cities that they want to work in. They are going to events, talking to the people who are running the agencies or companies they want to photograph.” Networking in the right circles is how you win commercial gigs. “You don’t need social media,” Laffitte says. “You need in-person connection.” 

Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.