On the Cheap Profile - Strobist

Filed Under: Photography, Profiles

There’s no cheaper way to get a business started than to start and maintain a blog. In addition, with the wealth of options in terms of blogging software that are available and are literally plug-n-play it is also one of the easiest. That brings me to this profile. Strobist is a blog started by the Baltimore Sun staff photographer Dave Hobby about a year ago (at the time of writing). It is a photography blog dedicated to teaching and illustrating how small shoe mount flashes can yield very big results. In the short time he has been running this blog, Dave’s run photo lighting seminars as a result of his reader’s interest and sell advertising space on his blog. I am guessing that his income from the advertising and seminars is not too bad given that he has recently taken a leave of absence from the Sun and is devoting more time to the blog and seminars.

It’s a perfect blog on a number of levels.

  1. He has a rabid audience in amateur digital photographers. Heck, these guys spend as much time online in forums and such as they do actually taking pictures.
  2. His topic is accessible to anyone with a digital camera and a small flash.
  3. His message is deceptively simple, be creative - and that is what allows him to constantly keep his content fresh.
  4. He is able to leverage Flickr to generate more interest in his blog.
  5. He has multiple revenue channels from his blog - advertising and his seminars.

How much did this cost him to set up? Nothing. He is using the free blogging platform blogger. How much technical knowledge required? Nothing (maybe a little just to drop in his ads). What it took is hard work, passion, a niche and Dave’s wisdom (experience, knowledge, whatever you wish to call it). Point is, you have all those things too. Your experience, your hobby, your knowledge is your content.

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