I am a photographer, but I’m also in college for public relations, and therefore have taken many a marketing class. In lieu of a small loan of a million dollars, today we’re performing a reflection of the first quarter of 2024 in the style of a finance bro. That’s right, we’re doing a SWOT analysis.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The model is used primarily in the marketing industry to evaluate the success or failure of a product or service. I’m using it to evaluate three areas of my photography:
Business: marketing, money, the boring stuff
Technical: shooting, editing, and communication skills
Artistic: the creative endeavor of my art form.
Painful as such a process must be, if applied with brutal honesty, this is a great tool to improving your craft and will lead us to some goals for quarter 2.
Strengths
dfn. What you’re good at
Business: Networking and Internships
Since January, I’ve started a photography internship with the sports department of Winona State University, gotten gigs with a sorority and local figure skating club, and met some awesome seniors I’m excited to shoot for.
Technical: Editing Workflow
I’ve really been working on streamlining my editing process, especially when it comes to things like sports and concerts that have high volumes of photos and a short turnaround time. I’ve also written a couple blogs about this process!
Artistic: Themed photoshoots
I have had so much fun doing these creative themed photoshoots, like my 1989 (Taylor’s Version) Inspired photoshoot. They’ve been a great source of motivation and challenge for my skills as a photographer.
Weaknesses
dfn. What you need to improve
Business: Marketing
At the moment, I have a bit of a half-baked marketing and social media strategy that mostly consists of posting whenever I can find a moment between working and being a college student. My poor website is also in desperate need of an update :)
Technical: Grayscale editing
Since I’ve been taking concert photos, I’ve been experimenting more with black and white photos. I definitely need some more practice in that department.
Artistic: Posing diversity
I’ve noticed recently that I tend to drift towards a handful of basic poses when I’m working with portraits. It’s good to be good at what you do, but I’d like to expand my repertoire a little more, especially for senior photos and men.
Opportunities
dfn. What events can you take advantage of?
Business: Summer!!
I am currently in college, which means that in another month I will be on break. I’m hoping that summer break will give me the time and space to practice my skills and really nail down my marketing.
Technical: Weather, Cityscapes
I’ll be moving back home to Kansas City, Missouri, which means new landscapes and new weather. While I’m in the city, I really want to work with busier backdrops.
Artistic: Summer classes
There are so many resources available to artists and photographers. This summer, I really want to study up on how to apply my creativity to my marketing.
Threats
dfn. What things could harm your goals?
Business: Moving home
Because I won’t be in Winona, I will be losing a good chunk of the people I typically shoot with. One of the many woes of living out of state.
Technical: Equipment
I love my portrait lens, but it’s just not cutting it for sports photos anymore. I need a longer lens if I want to do sports professionally, and that costs money.
Artistic: Models
Nozomi has been in so many of these fun, creative shoots with me, but unfortunately she will be moving home to Japan for the summer. Until then, I’ll need to find someone else who will put up with my crazy ideas.
Now that my SWOT analysis is complete, I have a good idea of what I’d like to work on in the next few months. In our next blog post, we’ll look at how to use our SWOT analysis to make a plan of attack for these goals. If all of that sounds incredibly boring, check out my Instagram for some unfortunate behind-the-scenes footage of life as a photographer; my Pinterest for some inspiration for your next Dark Academia photoshoot, and my Portfolio to see pretty pictures I took. Thanks for growing with me!
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