How I Get Commercial Photography Clients

As a commercial photographer, the question I get asked most often is: "How do you get your clients?"

In my experience, commercial photography clients come from a mix of referrals, word of mouth, and direct outreach. But the honest starting point isn't any of those. It's knowing what kind of work you actually want to do.

Define the Commercial Photography Clients You Want

Before you can get the work, you have to define the work. What kind of commercial photography clients do you want to shoot for? What does your ideal project look like? Where do you see your images living: on a billboard, in a magazine spread, on a brand's Instagram?

For me, the answer was always commercial lifestyle photography. I wanted to photograph real people in real spaces, creating images that feel warm and lived-in rather than overly produced. That clarity helped me focus everything: my portfolio, my outreach, and my personal projects, all around the same vision.

If you're trying to figure out where to start, get specific. "I want to shoot commercial work" is too broad. "I want to shoot interior and lifestyle campaigns for modern furniture brands, focusing on warm, lived-in imagery in real homes" gives you a direction. It tells you who to reach out to, what work to create, and how to position yourself.

Share Your Work With Art Directors and Creative Directors

Once you know what you want, the next step is putting yourself in front of the people who hire commercial photographers. Portfolio meetings, cold emails to art directors and creative directors, personal updates to current clients.

I keep a running list of art directors, creative directors, producers, and marketing leads I want to work with. Every time I finish a new project, I send a personal update with relevant work. Not a mass email, but a tailored note. Something like, "Hey, just wrapped this campaign for Chime, thought you'd appreciate the lifestyle approach we took."

That consistency compounds over time. The first email almost never books a job, but the second or third one often does. I wrote more about this approach in The Long Game: Why Follow-Up Emails Book More Work Than Cold Outreach.

Shoot Personal Projects That Attract Commercial Clients

If you don't have new client work to share, that leads to the most important thing you can do for your career: shoot personal projects.

Create the imagery you want to get hired for. A test shoot, a spec project, a self-assigned series. Something that shows a potential client your approach, your style, and where you're headed creatively. This is your time to remove any boundaries and get creative with your craft.

Earlier in my career, I would shoot studio visits with artists, musicians, and other creatives to document their space, craft, and day-to-day routines. A good example is the studio visit I shot with Dashiel Brahmann. These personal projects helped me work on my portraiture and storytelling, and they built the foundation for the way I approach photography. No client brief, no creative director, just me showing up to document someone I found interesting. That work shaped the style and instincts I now bring to every editorial and commercial shoot today.

Personal projects serve double duty. They build your portfolio with exactly the kind of work you want to get hired for, and they give you fresh content to share with potential clients in your outreach. Every new personal project is another reason to email an art director, creative director, or producer.

The Pipeline: Personal Projects to Editorial to Commercial Photography Clients

For me, the progression looked like this:

1. Personal projects: Self-directed shoots that showcased my editorial eye and storytelling approach
2. Editorial commissions: Assignments for publications like Monocle, The New York Times, and Bon Appetit that built credibility and expanded my portfolio
3. Commercial campaigns: Brands like Sonos, Amazon, and Brooklinen who saw the editorial work and wanted to bring that same authentic feel to their campaigns

Each stage fed the next. The personal work proved I had a vision. The editorial work proved I could execute on assignment. The commercial work proved I could deliver at scale for brands with real budgets and real expectations. I wrote more about that progression in How Editorial Photography Builds a Commercial Career.

How to Start Getting Commercial Photography Clients

There's no shortcut. Shoot the work you want, then follow up by sharing it with as many relevant people as you can. The photographers who book consistently aren't always the most talented in the room. They're the most consistent at showing up.

If I had to boil it down to three steps:

1. Get specific about the kind of work and clients you want
2. Shoot personal projects that demonstrate exactly the style and approach you want to be hired for
3. Follow up consistently with art directors, creative directors, and brand teams. Not once. Repeatedly, with new work each time.

The real answer to "how do you get your clients?" isn't a secret. It's the slow, unglamorous work of figuring out what you want, making it, and telling the right people about it. Rinse and repeat.