Being a photographer is about more than pointing your camera and clicking a button. If you want to turn it from a hobby into something bigger, or you simply want to make others more aware of your work, you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed without the suitable systems in place.
Thankfully, you’ll find an abundance of technology these days that can help in this respect—one of which is an iPad.
While buying an iPad is a pricey upfront investment, it will more than pay for itself if you use it effectively in your workflow. This article identifies 10 ways these devices can help.
1. Keep Track of Deadlines
Setting and keeping deadlines is crucial if you want to grow as a content creator. Keeping track of them is just as important, especially if you work with clients.
While you can keep your deadlines on your laptop, it’s easy to forget about them. And although nothing is stopping you from using your smartphone, it’s wise to keep your work and personal life separate.
With an iPad, you can use several apps to keep track of your deadlines. Google Calendar has several productivity-boosting features, and your native Apple calendar will work just fine as well.
2. Experiment With New Styles
As you become more experienced as a photographer, your style will naturally evolve. But before you post your new photos on your website or social media, it’s a good idea to see what they look like away from the internet beforehand.
With your iPad, it’s easy to quickly edit your shots and try new styles that you previously haven’t done. Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop have extensive apps for this device.
Once you’ve finished editing, you can decide whether your new style is something you genuinely want to further pursue.
3. Edit on the Go
Yes, you can take your laptop everywhere. However, you might not always want to do so—and using your iPad on the go is much easier.
If you’ve got a ton of pictures to edit, doing this on your iPad is a great way to spend a long train or bus journey. You can transfer the images from your camera via Bluetooth before importing them into your preferred editing software.
You’ll only be able to edit JPEGs if you send the photos from your camera to your iPad. However, you can use this opportunity to determine how you’d like to process the RAW files and send prototypes to clients.
4. Organize Daily Tasks
To avoid feeling overwhelmed as a photographer, it’s essential to organize each day in advance. Your iPad is an excellent tool if you don’t want to waste paper or open extra tabs and apps on your computer.
Once you’ve bought your iPad, you can use your Notes app to keep track of your daily tasks. Alternatively, Todoist is worth looking at—especially if you want to break each of them down.
5. Learn New Skills
If you want to succeed in any creative field for the long run and eventually become an innovator, you must strive to learn as much as you can. These days, you’ll find plenty of resources that’ll help you become a better photographer and business owner.
Let’s say that you don’t want to use your computer beyond a particular time each evening; in that case, an iPad is better for taking courses and reading articles than your smartphone. Why? Because it has a bigger screen.
YouTube works well on both the Safari and app versions for iPad, and you can also download specific course platforms—such as Skillshare.
6. Publish Your Work Online
If your primary goal is to build an audience for your photography, you’ve got more tools now than has ever been the case. Setting up a website is simple and doesn’t need to cost a lot, and you can publish your content on countless social media platforms.
The best thing about growing an online presence is that you can do it without a computer. It’s very easy to publish your pictures from your iPad, and writing articles is straightforward—even more so if you buy an extension keyboard.
Keep in mind that Instagram’s app doesn’t work as smoothly on the iPad, so you’ll probably want to stick with your smartphone for that particular platform. The rest are fair game, though.
7. Connect With Your Audience
You don’t need social media to succeed as a photographer, but using it correctly is an excellent way to improve your online presence. One of the best ways to become more known is by creating a genuine connection with your audience.
If you don’t want to use your computer or smartphone, running your social media accounts from your iPad is a great way to do this and stop yourself from mindlessly scrolling elsewhere. You can choose whether you’d like to set aside time each day to check and receive notifications directly.
8. Invoice Clients
If you’ve decided to monetize your photography skills, you must have a system to help you collect payments from clients. But for creators without an accountant, this can become pretty stressful.
Luckily, you can use several bookkeeping platforms these days. Most of them work well on iPad and allow you to send professional-looking invoices with minimal friction. Fiverr Workspace (formerly AND.CO) is one worth looking at, as well as Wave Invoicing.
9. Jot Down Your Thoughts
You probably have hundreds of random thoughts throughout the day when you least expect them. If you don’t deal with them, they’ll take up unnecessary space in your head.
To avoid shifting between tabs on your computer, you can use your iPad to dump all of your business and creative ideas. You don’t need anything special for this; the Notes app will work just fine.
10. Plan Future Content
As you become more comfortable as a photographer, you’ll need to become more strategic by planning your content in advance. If you do this, you’ll save yourself a lot of decision fatigue—improving the quality of your work as a result.
If you use it correctly, your iPad can be an excellent tool for planning your future photoshoots, blog posts, and so on. Again, you can use numerous solutions for this—including Asana and Calendar.
An iPad Can Be a Crucial Investment for Your Photography Business
Becoming a successful photographer requires help along the way, both from people and technology. Purchasing an iPad is an excellent way to create more structure in your workflow and avoid overwhelming yourself in the process.
When you buy an iPad, it’s worth creating a separate Apple ID from the one you use for personal devices. Moreover, you should only use it for improving your photography or running your business. By keeping it strictly for these reasons, you’ll avoid distractions and maximize these tips.
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