10 Things Photographers Should Do Between Shoots

Slow periods are part of running a photography business. Photographers should use that time to work on the parts of the business that are often ignored during a shoot: marketing, archives, websites, networking, finances, education, long-term planning, and personal work.

When I started in photography, I thought the work was shooting. Nobody told me what to do when I wasn’t shooting. Do I just polish my gear in a beautiful shaft of light and wait for the phone to ring?

In my early career days, most of my photographer friends spent their afternoons in lazy Hanoi coffee shops venting and complaining, then migrated to bars at night to vent some more. Many of them didn’t make their careers work. It wasn’t because they lacked talent. They lacked direction.

Even busy photographers have more non-shooting time than anyone tells you about. The high of a great shoot can quickly turn into the low of an empty calendar, and I’m not going to pretend everything on this list is fun. But this is the work that helps you build and sustain a career.

Maybe you’re already thinking, “This isn’t what I signed up for. I don’t want to be an office worker. I’m a creative.” Well, great. Hire a business manager, an accountant, a marketing executive, and a personal assistant, and let them handle it.

Can’t afford that? Then listen up until you can.

I did all of this myself for years. Today, we have a full-time accountant, an office administrator, two full-time producers, and an assistant. That didn’t happen right away. Until you can afford to pay other people to run parts of your business, those jobs belong to you.

1. Create a social media strategy

What’s the plan here? Are you posting random photographs from your archive, photos of your camera, or whatever happens to be on your phone that day? How are you using LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Threads, or whatever platform comes next?

Each platform should have a job. For me, LinkedIn mainly promotes my production company, Mott Visuals. It’s focused on Southeast Asia and aimed at the luxury hospitality industry. That’s all intentional. Instagram is now used mainly for my educational brand, AskMott, which points people toward YouTube and my online store. My editorial work is secondary on both.

That exact setup probably won’t work for you, but the point is to know what feeds what and where you ultimately want people to go. Years ago, I hired a friend who worked in social media at Ogilvy & Mather to help me with this. He drew a simple ecosystem chart showing how all the pieces connected. It made sense, it was extremely helpful, and I still use a version of it today.

Don’t just post and hope. Know who each platform is for, what you want to share there, and what you want someone to do next.

2. Organize and protect your photography archive

Your archive is one of the least sexy parts of photography, right up until a client asks for an image from five years ago or one of your drives dies.

You need a file-naming system, an on-location backup routine, and another routine for when you return home or to the office. For me, that means a NAS setup, folders and filenames that make sense to my brain, and cloud backups for client deliverables.

Your system doesn’t need to look like mine. It only needs to be reliable and easy enough that you’ll keep using it. If structure isn’t your strength, ask AI to help you create a system based on what you shoot, how you deliver files, and how your brain naturally organizes information.

The test of a good archive isn’t how impressive it looks. It’s whether you can find and safely deliver an old photograph when a client suddenly asks for it.

3. Improve your photography website

Your website should show the photographer you are today, not the photographer you were three years ago. When you’re starting out, your skills should improve quickly, and you should constantly be producing better images. If the new work is stronger, remove the weaker work.

Look at which categories in your portfolio need help and make a plan to replace those images. Then look beyond the photography. Review your SEO, bio, client list, message, and lead image. Within a few seconds, can a potential client tell what you shoot, how you shoot, where you work, and why they should hire you?

I’m 20 years into my career, and I still update my website several times a year. If you’re starting out, you should review yours at least once a month because your work is changing much faster.

Your portfolio doesn’t need to include every good photograph you’ve ever taken. It needs to make the right client understand why you’re the right photographer for them.

4. Network outside the photography industry

Go out and meet people other than photographers. Yes, I love our breed, and we tend to stick together, but other photographers usually aren’t the people hiring you. Behind your back, they might also be secretly plotting your demise.

Watch the movie Funny People, replace the struggling comedians at the beginning of their careers with photographers, and you’ll have a sense of how some of your photography friends think and behave behind your back.

I live in Vietnam, and early in my career, I went to all sorts of events I didn’t want to attend, including on days when I didn’t feel up to it. During my early journalism years, I went to the bars where writers would commiserate. Guess what? Writers need photographers, or at least they used to, and those relationships landed me jobs.

Later, when I launched my production company and we started focusing heavily on hotel shoots, I would make random trips to Bangkok, where one of my top-tier clients was based. I’d find a reason to meet with them and keep my name fresh in their minds.

I’m not telling everyone to fly to Bangkok. It made sense for me at the time. The question is: Who needs to remember your name, and when did you last give them a reason to?

5. Learn the business skills nobody taught you

Learn new editing skills, video, marketing, finance, or whatever else will make your business stronger. Take courses, watch tutorials, read books, and invest time in the areas where you’re weak.

As photographers, we’re simply expected to know how to run a small business. But did anyone ever teach you how to price a job, calculate profit, negotiate with a client, market yourself, or plan for taxes?

You’re running a small business whether you like that title or not. You don’t need to learn everything at once. Choose one missing skill that would make a difference to your business and start there.

Maybe you need to understand video because clients increasingly expect it. Maybe you need to learn how to estimate production costs properly. Maybe you need to understand contracts, licensing, or how much money you’re actually making from each shoot.

Pick the skill that addresses a real weakness in your business, not simply the one that sounds the most interesting.

6. Analyze your photography business

Feeling busy is not the same as making money. You should have your shoots, quotes, expenses, and profits in a spreadsheet. If you don’t, start one.

How many quotes did you send? How many jobs did you land? Who did you lose the other jobs to? How much profit did you actually make? Did you bid enough? Could you lower your costs without lowering the quality of the work?

Look beyond individual shoots. Is your website traffic going up or down? Where are your inquiries coming from? Which marketing efforts are working? Who is getting the jobs you want, and why?

You don’t need a complicated dashboard filled with beautiful graphs. You need enough information to stop guessing.

A calendar full of shoots can make you feel successful, but if the jobs are badly priced or the production costs are too high, you may simply be working harder without building a healthier business.

7. Protect time for personal photography

Don’t turn every free hour into administration. Leave some time for creative thinking and shooting without a client.

Give yourself an hour, an afternoon, or a full day to walk, read, visit a museum, or think about a personal shoot. Look at other photographers, but also look at painters, filmmakers, writers, designers, and other artists.

Most client jobs don’t give you much space to explore your creative side or grow creatively in real time. You work for yourself, so you need to protect that space. Maybe it’s a daily walk, one day a month at museums, or an annual retreat where you can think deeply about new concepts and new directions for your work.

That isn’t wasted time. It can lead to better portfolio images, new ideas to pitch, and sometimes an entirely new direction for your career.

Personal work has always been important to me because it gives me the freedom to explore stories without a client’s expectations. It also reminds me why I wanted to become a photographer in the first place.

8. Prepare your photography business for the future

We can’t predict the future, but we should be paying attention to it.

Is AI going to damage part of your studio photography business? Are you splitting your time between weddings and another area of photography that AI is already affecting? Should you double down on work that depends on trust, access, taste, or being physically present?

Should you focus on clients who value the authenticity of photography, or should you embrace AI and find useful ways to bring it into your business?

Ask yourself a harder question: If you were starting your photography business today, would you build the same one?

You don’t need to predict the future perfectly. You just don’t want to be surprised by something that has been developing in front of you for years.

Photography has always changed. Editorial budgets shrink, visual styles shift, new technology arrives, and clients expect more for the same money. The photographers who survive aren’t necessarily the ones who predicted everything correctly. They’re the ones who noticed the changes and adapted before they were forced to.

9. Identify what is actually holding you back

The goal of this list isn’t to give you more ways to stay busy. Busy and productive are not the same thing. You need to identify what is actually holding your business back.

If you aren’t getting inquiries, you may have a marketing problem. If you get inquiries but don’t land the jobs, the problem might be your portfolio, pricing, or pitch. If you’re landing plenty of jobs but not making money, look at your estimates, expenses, and production costs.

Maybe your photography and website are strong, but you need to get past your discomfort with self-promotion. Maybe you’re constantly promoting yourself, but the work itself needs improvement.

Be honest about where you’re weak. Otherwise, you can spend months improving the wrong thing.

Buying another camera won’t solve a marketing problem. Posting more often won’t fix a weak portfolio. Getting more jobs won’t help if every job loses money.

Find the real problem before you start trying to solve it.

10. Make a plan for slow days

Decide what you’ll do on a slow day before the slow day arrives. When you’re staring at an empty calendar and already feeling low about it, that’s not the best time to decide what your business needs.

I use Apple Reminders to organize tasks for my personal life, Mott Visuals, AskMott, and my editorial website. I keep top-tier priorities as well as smaller jobs for slow days, such as creating a new LinkedIn banner or revisiting an older shoot to see what I could have done better.

I don’t really care which app you use. The important thing is to make the plan before you need it. Keep a list of meaningful tasks that can be completed in an hour, half a day, or a full day. Then, when a shoot is postponed or the calendar goes quiet, you don’t have to invent a productive use of the time while you’re already feeling anxious about it.

You don’t need to do everything on this list. Pick the part of your business that needs the most attention and give it a few focused hours. Then move to the next thing.

Frequently asked questions

What should a photographer do when business is slow?

Start by identifying the part of your business that is creating the biggest problem. That might mean improving your portfolio, contacting former clients, reviewing your pricing, learning a missing skill, organizing your archive, or developing personal work. Don’t attempt everything at once. Choose the task that is most likely to move your career forward.

How often should photographers update their portfolios?

Photographers who are early in their careers should review their portfolios at least once a month because their skills and work can change quickly. More established photographers should still review their websites several times a year to remove outdated work and make sure their portfolios reflect the clients they currently want.

Should every slow day be productive?

No. Rest and creative exploration are also part of sustaining a long career. The point isn’t to turn every free hour into office work. The point is to make conscious decisions about your time instead of drifting through slow periods without direction.

How can photographers prepare their businesses for AI?

Pay attention to which parts of your market are becoming easier to replace and which still depend on human access, trust, taste, storytelling, or physical presence. You can lean into the qualities that make your work authentic while also learning where AI might be genuinely useful inside your business.

Final thoughts

Slow periods don’t mean your photography career has stopped moving. They give you time to work on the systems, relationships, skills, and creative ideas that are difficult to address when you’re busy shooting.

If you’ve worked through this list and still can’t identify what is holding your photography business back, that’s exactly the kind of problem I help photographers solve through one-on-one coaching and mentorship at AskMott. My wife, my secret weapon, also offers consulting on pricing, production, and business management.

The coffee shop is fine. So is the bar. Just don’t confuse either one with a business plan.

About me

I’m Justin Mott. I’ve spent nearly 20 years working as an editorial and commercial photographer in Vietnam, photographed more than 100 assignments for The New York Times, and shot campaigns for Fortune 500 companies across Asia and beyond. I write about what it actually takes to build a career in photography, and I teach photographers through AskMott.

An earlier version of this article first appeared on my Substack.