Photographers Field

These days most of our professional opportunities come from social media and online, wether we want it to be this way or not.

Creating the right name for photography business is essential, so in this article I will go through on how to choose photography names for Instagram and your business in general.

Social media can be already described as your online portfolio and finding those who are either looking for photographers or just checking your work out can be definitely found on social media platforms like Instagram.

What if you don’t have a social media platform for your work? It’s not something all of us necessarily need since we like to work and promote ourselves in different ways, but it sure won’t hurt you to have a well-built platform where your future clients can find your work.

This can be anything from a website or various social media platforms to even visual search engines like Pinterest – even if it’s viewed to be for inspirational purposes, it actually generates way more traffic than people let themselves to believe.

If you do have a social media following and you’d like to change your overall name and probably even work on your branding, there are some steps you can take to fine-tune them to better communicate what your business is about.

It’s also crucial to already know in the beginning when starting your photography business which words best suit your brand and how you combine them in both your online presence but also your actual business name.

Here are the main things you should consider when choosing the name for your photography business.

1. What Is Your Photography Business About?

Start out with picking out the creative names for your photography business that you’ve heard. The sooner you decide what kind of visual language you have in your images and what are the overall themes you work with, the sooner you’ll be able to really narrow your focus and gain more clients and engaged audience.

When making this decision, ask these questions:

What do you prefer photographing the most ? Look through your images and be honest on what types of photoshoots you enjoy doing.

Look at your work. What kind of themes you work with the most? Are there clearly specific subjects like weddings, children or fashion photography you focus on the most?

How important is the amount of the compensation for you? If you are inclining to choosing a field that is more lucrative, this is a major one to figure out. You will need to have a clear vision on your branding and names; both online and offline.

However, if you’re aiming to just create a photography side hustle, the coherency can be looked into later on.

2. Where are you located as a photographer?

Your clients will most likely be located in a specific area, unless you’re creating a business around travel photography for instance. Fashion photography is also huge in cities like London and Paris, so being able to travel for work is a great bonus.

This is not essential in the beginning of your photography career, but you might still want to think of a name that is international, and clear to understand once you do travel or move for work. Something that is catchy enough and sensible for future clients located in various parts of the world.

3. Is your personal name memorable?

Building a solid brand for your photography company and eventually grow into a one-person business, having your personal name in the final business name is definitely a good decision.

This will straight communicate who is the person in charge of the company and just make it more personal for your clients to reach out to you and know who they are working with.

If you feel that your original name is is not as catchy as you’d like, you can always create an alter ego – something that works for the purpose of naming your business and be memorable enough for your clients to come back and find you effortlessly.

Using your first and second name only will differentiate you from the rest and the possible names that have similar wording to yours.

On Instagram for instance, it is more likely that your full name has already been picked, so you’ll have to be a bit more creative but still cohrent when choosing yours.

4. Underline your expertise

You’ve probably seen names of photography companies that have words like ‘wedding photographer’ or ‘analog photography’ in their wording. This is to clearly state what is their specific expertise and what can the client expect from these businesses.

If you are just starting out and want to create a name that is easily accessible, use one that you can develop into a real photography business name later on.

Using Michelle_shoots_analog might be great for instagram, but how could it be then transformed to a more established business name in the future?

My first company was named Matryoshka – which means a balkan doll, and was supposed to communicate my cultural background.

I later understood that it had nothing to do with my photography practice nor the themes I was working with.

5 . Add words that communicate your practice

Specifying everything that you feel is important to your clients, is something you should also add to your photography business name.

Indeed, you can combine adjectives to your name to better underline what it is you exactly do and what can be expected of your profile, and in other cases – your brand and business.

For example, the name AnalogAperture communicates film photography but is using different wording to describe that the profile is about clearly about photography. Is this name transformable into an actual company name, is something you will want to ask yourself.

Answering these questions and clearly knowing the main points in your photography, you can then start choosing the actual name for your Instagram profile and other social media platforms.

Words to describe your photography business

Adding characters such as underlines, hyphens and dots in between the actual name, lets you have more variety when choosing photography names for Instagram.

Elegant words

• Studio
• Collective
• Moments
• Gallery
• Creative
• Tiny
• Portrait
• Simple
• Royal
• Delight
• Grace
• Eloquent
• Art Nouveau
• Magnifique
• Ephemeral

Play with the wording and add them to complete your name ie. Studio Gallery Ruby.

Powerful words

• Solid
• Vivid
• Allure
• Captivate
• Dream
• Magic
• Aspire
• Capture
• Mighty
• Aperture
• Dynamic
• Golden
• Prime
• Stellar

Photography-related words

• Kelvin
• Light
• Macro
• Expose
• Shutter
• Zoom
• Bokeh
• Candid
• Image
• View
• Canvas
• Focus
• Format
• Lens
• Exposure
• Picture
• Photo
• Reflection
• Ambient
• Flash
• Film
• Analog
• Obscura
• Flare
• Pixel
• Halo

Start by combining words to better see which one communicates your professionalism and underlines your themes.

Still haven’t found the perfect photography name? Try adding your favourite things, colours and other interests to the name, and combine them to make it look like you.

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