Daniel Meadows wrote:
If you network and develop a strong portfolio as your skills increase you should have no trouble, eventually. Until you're ad campaign competent there really isn't that much money in it to be honest, because as you say, plenty of $10 retouchers.

When you're up to a professional standard ad agencies won't blink at a $1000 day rate, just get yourself a subscription to Vogue/Harper's, study the ads and editorials, work with photographers who are on the same artistic path as you and aim for the look and style you see in advertising, because that's where all your money's waiting.

I mean i did some work for an agency Impact Digital, who's through Industrial Color but it was only for a short time since they had trouble working with me remotely even after they said it would be cool, they seemed content with my work at least I never heard any complaints.  I don't know if that helps me at all since it was all work for Victoria Secret and nothing else so it's not like I have any other experience with major brands or editorial work.

And I guess I'm not sure who to network with or how.  I feel like there's very few people on MM that are going to be working for major brands and magazines but the companies that do work for them want me to work on site, which i don't think I can do currently.  Is it just a point of messaging the photographers who do these campaigns and hoping they'll take you on for work or what?  I'm not really sure how to get my foot in the door or what direction to start in

Laura Bello wrote:
I mean i did some work for an agency Impact Digital, who's through Industrial Color but it was only for a short time since they had trouble working with me remotely even after they said it would be cool, they seemed content with my work at least I never heard any complaints.  I don't know if that helps me at all since it was all work for Victoria Secret and nothing else so it's not like I have any other experience with major brands or editorial work.

And I guess I'm not sure who to network with or how.  I feel like there's very few people on MM that are going to be working for major brands and magazines but the companies that do work for them want me to work on site, which i don't think I can do currently.  Is it just a point of messaging the photographers who do these campaigns and hoping they'll take you on for work or what?  I'm not really sure how to get my foot in the door or what direction to start in

What are you doing to GET said dream clients?

This entire post can be summarized with this because this is all you need :

Research.
Practice.
Network.
Practice.
Learn.
Test.
Practice.
Network.
Test.
Learn.
$$$$
$$$$$
$$$$$$$$

Also, get off ModelMayhem for industry related things 85% of the time. And like Daniel suggested, go to your local bookstore/magazine rack and put the names of the photographers you want to work for in your phone or subscribe to the publications. Do whatever you have to do. Make a habit of visiting ***www.fashiongonerogue.com*** and absorbing the HELL out of the styles that are there. I also suggest to join a forum or a blogging site and start following fashion buffs that post editorials all day past and present. You'll start to get a feel for what people are looking for.

L'Officiel
Vogue
Vanity Fair
Elle
Cosmo
GQ
Numero

Visit their sites / grab their publications, eat their shit daily. Follow them on twitter, facebook, instagram, anything to ensure that the only thing your mind consists of is beauty and fashion whether for high end or commercial.

And you probably already know this but I'm going to say it anyway just in case -
- Learn Light/Shadow application for artists (because you're painting with d&b so you gotta know)
- Learn Composition application/theory for artists
- Learn Color Theory

I'm just going to give you a manual because I wish someone told me all of this when I decided to make a living from this -

Okay so after you've done all of that or at least have 13+ links open in chrome/firefox - First thing you need to evaluate is how HUNGRY you are. I remember that I posted up a similar thread back in October and since then I've done a number of things to put myself on the fast track to where I want to be. The market isn't being saturated by $10 retouchers. That's not what's going on. What's going on is that you have a bunch of people wanting to retouch but who have a limited scope of where to go or potentially don't want to take it that seriously.

That's why hunger is super important.

I suggest to read up on Omar Josef's and Natalia Taffarel's personal posts on Modelmayhem. Visit their profiles, and copy and paste their member id's into this site - **** www.sendu.me.uk *****. Read everything (pages and pages) of what they've said, particularly Natalia's for beauty/editorial retouching because both her and Omar dish out industry advice in nearly every single thing they've posted since 2010/2011. You've already got some experience under you belt so some of these things may not be new to you but I think that it's always good to study what those making a living out of it are telling people. Another person (that you can even bug on fb for advice he's amazing) is Krunoslav Stifter. Go through all of his posts as well. It'll be like Natalia's your ball buster, Omar's your editor, and Kruno is your lifecoach.

>> Look for specific terms if you're curious. For me, personally, I search their posts for the terms "market" / "industry" / "rates" / "money" etc, etc because they usually condense a bunch of advice for everything on one go. Omar has a bunch of technical/behind the scenes bolts and nails style of advice. His is oriented towards fashion editorial. Natalia's, as stated, is more oriented towards his but more favorable towards the beauty market. She also does big commercial ads as well and following a combination of their advice is essential. Her advice gives you the nitty gritty of the nature of the market, where it's going, where it's been, and what you've gotta do. Bookmark any thread where they're both dishing out multiple paragraphs. They're gold. Kruno's posts will also make you feel as if you can accomplish anything with a positive and disciplined attitude it's great. I only suggest this because you might go through a lot of ups and downs emotionally with choosing retouching as a career.

So you've got your gurus. Next thing you need to know is what industry you're comfortable with working in.

There are a BUNCH of little niched areas to work in. For example, I specialize in beauty-editorial-portrait but I have a side job doing catalogue for REVOLVE clothing. One is where my goals are and one pays the bills. However you can also do auto-retouching, stock, food, kids, corporate, you name it. Figure out what you like and shape your portfolio using examples of what top names in that particular industry are looking for. Just always keep this in mind - "You're only as good as your worst image." That's why it's essential to practice and never stop learning. Ever. You have experience here so all you need do is hook yourself up to a job search site (that's free, preferably), subscribe yourself to Craigslist so they can send postings directly to your inbox, and you can find various companies that are hiring retouchers so you can have steady income and direct deposits immediately. You have the experience so it'd be easy for you to get if you don't have it already while posting this.

If you want to make a ***living*** out of retouching the hard reality is that you need a stable source of income/basket to pull from. For people like Calvin Hollywood who make a living out of seminars/webinars, etc, their income comes from making enough of a name for themselves to build a brand doing teach. Natalia and Omar do the same thing, but you don't necessarily have to do that. To have a secure base to pull from you have a variety of options to keep yourself afloat -

1) You can teach photoshop essentials/tricks/etc on the side if you've built a credible rep
2) You can work for one, two, or multiple companies doing lookbooks, catalogue, stock, etc
3) You can hook up with another studio/photographer w/ loads of work to do similar work in bulk
4) You can have a network of supportive photographers/creatives who want to pay you
5) You can work with said studio/another and do ad related work (some sort of blend into the same thing, depending on the industry)

You can do that or a combination of those things and when you're not practicing your heart out, you can work on networking. Networking is crucial. The key to networking is (i call it net 'whoring') is being on every dang site ever to post your work, contact photographers, shmooze, and put yourself out there. For working for companies some of the time they'll let you work remotely. That's what I do. Sometimes they don't even care as long as the work gets done.

Become well acquainted with the communities/niched-photography uses on these sites too :

Instagram
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Tumblr
Google Groups

And while you're on those sites make sure you go through #photography #editorial #beauty-photography #editorial-photography #editorial #editorial-portrait tags too. Fucking go through like 10 tags if you need to and you're going to eventually find a little haven if photographers roaming around posting their work. Find the people you want to work with and contact them. But BEFORE you contact them, I suggest, like SUPER suggest to get acquainted with what kind of STYLE you want to develop by looking at various publications and such and build your portfolio in accordance to it and then offer to TEST for photographers that match that style.

Testing is hella easy. It's like breathing -

> Build gorgeous portfolio or at least have a handful of good sample retouches you've done you can show (note - you don't have to spend $$$ on a website, just have a pretty looking blog/free site with roll over if possible or just make sure it looks decent)
> Use social media to browse photographers you like
> Go on their websites, find their email, and send them a testing inquiry specifying WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT THEIR WORK, WHAT YOU DO, AND HOW YOU BELIEVE THEY CAN BENEFIT FROM YOU.
> Be nice and be a good person
> Don't use internet speech or you're out immediately. Speak coherently.

I said that other thing in caps because unless a photog feels as if they can benefit from you, your words won't mean shit. People also want to know exactly why you're contacting them up front and want the nitty gritty out of the way so they can continue on with their day. Be straightforward but be polite. That's all it takes.

>> I also suggest to stack your hotmail/gmail/w/e account with a bunch of 'draft' emails to photographers you want to work with and get a nice group of them and then personally email all of them with personalized responses (not general 'i want to work with you bye' emails) and send them all in bulk. Spend a couple of hours typing out personal things and shmoozing a little and send them all out at once. It's exciting and it's fun that way. It's like fishing.

The problem that a bunch of people have with doing this is that they don't network enough. That is literally what it is. if you create a web presence that gains a decent enough following where you post work all the time under tags where people can find it, be super social and talk to people you like/want to collaborate with, you'll make money easy. I'm testing with 4 photographers this week alone because I netwhored myself out so much.

Also know that testing doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get paid in cash. If the testing is beneficial to all parties involved, you're being paid in magazine/online publication tears, aka, exposure. You also get bragging rights. When you network the end game isn't being paid necessarily - It's about building a foundation, aka, a network of people that are going to support you and where you want to go. So eve if you do a handful of free publications, those connections might land you a job with some dude who needs a competent retoucher for Elle. It works EXACTLY like that. Natalia landed a campaign with Coke that way a few years ago. It's also how Omar got to create one of the campaigns for Hugo Boss. Similarly I can name a shit load of retouchers (GD-Retoucher is an immediate one/TheVanishingTouch/EvaUbani are others) who started around 2011/2012 who worked their asses off and networked and are now making a damn good living. There's also a number of people from MM as retouchers who've been published in Vogue, have done Chanel editorials, shit's ridiculous.

Also another thing, another thing - Like Daniel said, ad-money will give you the most $$$ but in between you'll be doing editorials/spreads/shoots for a fair bit less but eventually if you work your ass off you can demand a decent rate where you don't have to worry much.

You just need to build a healthy foundation from ongoing networking. Also practice like hell. Never be ashamed to learn a new thing, ever. I'm sorry I gave you more than you asked for/needed, but the answer wasn't a simple one. I hope I helped somewhat ^ - ^

Also, good luck! The very, very best of luck. You can do it if you're hungry enough.

++ Quote from Natalia Taffarel from 2012 -

Natalia Taffarel wrote:
Basic Marketing.

If you're getting too many clients, you're charging cheaper than you should.

If you're not getting enough clients, you're charging more than you should.

Another question is: What are you doing to find clients?

When I had no clients i sent out around 500 emails EVERY WEEK and not copy/paste emails either, I searched for photographers I liked, took a look at their work, wrote to each personally. Always something in the line of "Hello X, I love what you do (specially this and this), this is what I do (links to appropriate samples according to the style of the photographer) Lets do something together.

Out of every 1000 I might get 1 answer but it was a keeper. Why? Because I made sure to show them they couldn't keep working without me and that I was worth to keep. Gave more than they paid for, worked based on trust, was easy to reach, kept them involved in every step of the process and delivered in time and form.
Word of mouth is worth a million times more than google ads.
Being honest, straight forward, efficient and smart. Even more.
Being a good person will help you in the long run.

Now I don't send 500 emails a week, I send 2 and get 2 answers.

paulkris wrote:
Laura, just email *spam* the photographers
I'm planning to do that too soon...

Kami! What a long post Thanks!
But really 500 emails per week?? I was planning to send like 10... LoL...

Some valid points and a few of mine are in other forum here:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/work-j … omers.html

Super cool of you to link something. I checked out the link out of curiosity (I'm nosey!) and I just wanted to point out that said *spam* emails need to be personal. Not just a series of price points. If you send them that, they'll think you're actual spam. You'll also get deleted on sight in some cases.

If you want to go more high end, be personal, talk about what you can offer them as a retoucher individually in correspondence to their portfolio, and attach a few jpeg samples of your work with your portfolio linked in the email as well. Just talk to them like a person, not as a money tree. You go a long way that way.

And I'm not sure if 500 was an exaggeration or not - because it's doable. You can spend maybe 5 hrs emailing 60+ photographers personally and if you do a little more each day you'd get at 500 easy.

I'm glad that thread on retouchpro had some insight into that. It was a nice read I'm sure Laura will think the same.