Six Figures From Free Portrait Sessions
This post is part of our Pro Tips series bringing you the best inspiration and information from some of our favorite professional photographers and Pic-Time Ambassadors. Enjoy.
In just 57 working days across a three-and-a-half month period between 2023 and 2024, Jeremy Cowart photographed 1012 of his signature micro portrait sessions.
And that means 1012 new photo galleries created inside his Pic-Time account in less than a couple of months (#mindblown), not to mention $122,830.96 in turnover from his gallery store - every cent from photo shoots offered for free.
““Who knew that free photography could make it rain [money]?!””
Jeremy calls his 60-second portrait experience the fastest and most visually diverse photo shoots in the world.
Turns out they also generate a generous amount of income and - perhaps just as importantly - allow him the sense of autonomy and creative freedom he craves most from his craft and profession.
Samples of photos created during Jeremy Cowart’s one-minute micro portrait sessions.
Who Is Jeremy Cowart?
As a self-described experimentalist and discoverer, Jeremy Cowart is known across creative industries as a photographer, artist and entrepreneur.
He’s most famous for his celebrity and musician portraits.
Those he’s photographed include Taylor Swift, The Kardashians, Chris Stapleton, Heidi Klum, Carrie Underwood, Gary Vee, Spike Lee, Keith Urban and Ryan Tedder (to name a few).
Jeremy’s been a photographer since 2005 and after shooting endless portraits on white seamless backgrounds grew artistically boring, he developed a unique creative lighting system (over a 10-year period), which he now utilizes for his famous 60-second photoshoots.
Chris Stapelton, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood as photographed by Jeremy Cowart.
How To Achieve Variety In 60 Seconds
By changing a trio of conditions - fixed position lighting with 8x strobes, a rolling slideshow of projected AI-generated backgrounds on an 11 foot high by 10 foot wide LED screen, and foreground detail - on a per shot basis, Jeremy’s able to offer what he calls ‘a contrived happy accident,’ which delivers an unseen and almost unbelievable level of visual variety.
All from a single photo shoot lasting just one minute.
Each of Jeremy’s micro portrait shoots results in an average of 160 unique frames. That’s more than two unrepeatable shots per second!
And people are clambering over themselves to take part.
Though the entire process from booking to shoot through to gallery delivery and sales, is mostly automated now, Jeremy acknowledges the development process to get to this stage certainly hasn’t been easy.
Jeremy Cowart with a sample of his AI-generated digital backgrounds.
Micro Portraits - How It Works
On shoot days, Jeremy works independently. He has only a general administrative assistant who helps with organizational tasks and Pic-Time flows.
““I could not live without Pic-Time!” ”
Jeremy counts the concurrent multi-gallery upload ability inside Pic-Time as one of his most appreciated functions - given he can be uploading up to 30 galleries at any one time. He also loves the convenience of Email Packages and the Early Bird automations app, which helps to drive clients to his Store.
As well as both high and low-res digital downloads available for purchase either in full gallery or a la carte form, Jeremy also offers a selection of printed products to his clients who receive their photo shoot for free (when sitting as an individual) and pay only for the results.
All current pricing is publicly available on Jeremy’s website.
Jeremy’s looking to increase his initial test prices, which he acknowledges are ‘way too low.’
But if you’re turning over more than $122k in just under 17 hours of total shoot time, that makes your average hourly shoot rate a cool $7,225.35 p/hr.
We think you’re onto something Jeremy and are happy to be your platform of choice for the incredible work you do.
Congratulations!
One minute, a variety of images.
Learn More
If you’d like to learn more about Jeremy’s free portrait system and becoming more free in your own creative practice and lifestyle, you can sign up for his ‘Free Photographers’ movement for ongoing updates and inspiration.
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