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Less admin, more scouting.

Run a photography business one shoot at a time. Each shoot is a project with its client, its frames, its license and its invoice. The portfolio reviews and residencies for your own work sit beside them.

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Open calls, fairs and grants for photography

A product shoot is a project with its own canvas. The frames go on it like a contact sheet, the client's picks go on a sticky beside them, and you circle each pick with the Pen before the retouching starts.

The admin around the shoot and the license

A photographer pays for the shoot before the client pays for the pictures. The studio, the rentals and the first assistant are paid that week, and the invoice runs on the client's clock, net 30 at best and sometimes net 90. The license is what you hold in the meantime.

  • The rentals paid before the pictures

    The studio and the lighting rental were paid the week of the shoot. The client pays 60 days after delivery, and a spring shoot gets paid in summer.

  • The picks in a reply-all

    The client's five selects came back in a reply-all with three people on it. Two of them sent different frame numbers, and retouching starts Monday.

  • The usage agreed somewhere in a thread

    Web and social for two years, agreed forty emails into a thread. A year later the client asks about print, and the original terms take an hour to find.

  • The edit promised to a reviewer

    Six reviews in a weekend, and three reviewers asked to see more. By Monday, which three and what each one wanted is on the backs of business cards.

At the product table

Know what's next from the shot list to the selects

Each shoot is a project with a task for each step, from the approved shot list to the retouched selects. The frames and the client's picks go on its canvas, and Today lists what's due across every job, so twelve products get shot and retouched beside next week's editorial portrait.

Hands holding a bounce card beside an amber dropper bottle on a paper sweep

Attach the license to the final invoice

Attach the license to the shoot's final invoice as a PDF, and add one sentence to its notes: the license takes effect when the invoice is paid in full. Your client sees both on the pay page and pays online to your own Stripe. When the invoice reads Paid, tick off your task to release the full-resolution files.

How invoices work

Keep a portfolio review weekend in one note

Write the weekend's timetable into a note and add a line under each reviewer as you go. Afterward, link the note to the reviewers who asked for more, so it shows on each of their records in Network. Then give each follow-up a task with a date: the full edit to the curator in March, prints to the gallery before the spring fair.

How notes work

Tools for the full photographer's year

Residency deadlines, the biennial, the busy season and the review weekends come around every year. Each one has a place in Plya.

  1. January to February

    Residency season

    MacDowell closes in February. Photography residencies, grants and an award are listed in Opportunities with their deadlines, and you mark each one Applying, then Applied.

  2. March to April

    The biennial

    FotoFest's Biennial runs in Houston from March into May, every other spring. The curators and editors you meet there go in Network, each linked to their museum or magazine.

  3. May to June

    The busy season

    Summer shoots and wedding Saturdays stack up. Each one is a project, with the shoot day and the delivery as dated tasks.

  4. July to August

    Critical Mass

    Critical Mass closes in early July and asks for ten images. Choosing them, sequencing them and uploading are tasks dated before the deadline.

  5. September to October

    Review weekends

    Review Santa Fe runs in late October, with about 100 photographers and 45 reviewers. Each weekend of reviews is one note, linked to the reviewers who asked for more.

  6. November to December

    The slow invoices

    Paris Photo closes the fair year in November, and the fall's editorial invoices are still out at 60 to 90 days. Finance shows what's outstanding and what's been collected this year.

Keep your standard licenses in the studio kit

Your standard licenses, web and social for two years and print for one, go in the studio kit's Contracts and agreements slot in the Library, so the current version of each is in one place. When a shoot's final invoice is ready, download the one that fits and add it under Attachments.

Made for every kind of studio

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Keep the daylight for shooting

The shoots, the licenses and the invoices go in Plya, where you can find them.

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