Businesses licensed with the state are required to pay sales tax. (Sales tax is different from income tax.) Like a trip to Target in which the sales tax is passed onto the customer, I collect sales tax on top of every session I book. Each state, county, and city has different requirements, so if you’re a photographer, please do yourself a favor and hire a qualified accountant in your area to walk you through it all.

Some photographers choose to build their sales taxes into their session fees and that’s absolutely acceptable! Just be sure that her business is licensed with the state. Service providers who try to cut corners in some areas will often cut corners in other areas.

If you are handing your newborn baby over to a photographer with no safety training and/or liability insurance, you are taking a huge risk. Qualified newborn photographers should not be cheap, because they have completed numerous hours of training and have set up their businesses to cover them if anything bad happens. This is just one example of why liability coverage is a must.

I’ll give you another example. I was on-location shooting a maternity session last year. There was another photographer nearby who had hung a swing from a tree and had a young girl, maybe four or five years old, sitting on the swing. All of a sudden, we heard a snap! The tree branch broke and the girl went tumbling to the ground, along with the swing and the limb of the tree. Luckily, after some panicked crying, she was okay. But imagine, for a second, if that branch had fallen on her head. Or if she broke a leg, or her back, as she fell to ground below her. Scary, right?

You never know what could happen in any situation. Wouldn’t you feel more at ease knowing that your photographer cared enough to protect herself and her clients in the event of an injury?

3. Does he or she use a contract?

I love using stories so here’s another one. I had a new mom contact me several months ago that she needed a photographer for her newborn as soon as possible. She had already paid another photographer who gave her a deal when she bundled her maternity and newborn session together. Their maternity session went off without a hitch, but when the baby was born and she contacted that photographer to schedule the newborn session, the photographer was nowhere to be found. She ghosted the client. The client had already paid for both sessions.

The baby wasn’t getting any younger—obviously—and Mom knew that she needed to find a photographer ASAP. She hired me and when I arrived the morning of the session, Mom told me the entire story. My first question was, “Did you sign a contract?”

What do you think the answer was? “No.”

Contracts not only lay out all of the photographer’s fees and policies, but they protect the client as well. If my client had signed a contract with her original photographer, she could possibly have been able to seek a refund or legal action against her original photographer.

Never, ever enter into a service with anyone without a contract. I’d hate for you to lose time, energy, and money on someone who decided to take advantage of you.

I also suggest avoiding photographers who ask you to pay them via Venmo, Paypal “Friends and Family,” or who charge you an extra fee for paying with a credit card. These are not professional means for accepting payment. Credit card fees are a cost of doing business and are a tax write-off for businesses. In some states, it’s even illegal to pass on the credit card fees to the client.True professionals will want to do everything by the book, and their work will shine through in every way possible! If you’ve ever encountered one of these red flags–or another–would you comment below and me know how it turned out for you?

I hope this information has been helpful and eye-opening! Let me know what your biggest “ah-ha!” moment was while reading this!

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