Thanks everyone for your kind words and wishes:)
Chris, I appreciate this advice as it captures the key behavioural element. Service industry does require a particular mentality. But these days in the IT world everything is becoming service-oriented (pun intended) - even entire IT organizations are being offered as a service...
What I am also curious about is whether photography could land a six-figure income and what would it take to get there. Needless to say, it is much better to be a wealthy artist than a poor one:) Ashely's example is a great illustration of the pricing framework.
My starting conditions:
- As a first step, I've created a simple mobile-friendly website -
http://timelessme.com. Its purpose is for work for commission, while
http://michaelezra.com remains as my personal portfolio.
- I also have a dedicated studio space - 1200 sq ft with 9.5 ft ceilings in my basement, but it is in Staten Island 40 min from Manhattan
- Have equipment necessary - lighting / supports / backgrounds / cameras & lenses / 24" printer
- Would need to enrich shooting sets with props and may be costumes (that's why I love shooting nudes on seamless!!)
- I have experience in giving a master class on sculptural photography to a large audience (photoforum in Moscow 2009)
- Have lots of works that could be published in series of coffee table books
- I have previously sold prints of studio nudes from $100 to $1900 each via ebay or in person and also conducted commissioned studio sessions for $300-$1000
What I find most challenging is how to get the *sustainable* flow of paying customers & orders, as so far commercial realization of what I do was mostly incidental