Ok, I'm 3 and a half months on T and am pre-op and have not had a legal name change yet. I plan on starting a photography business and make a website. I'm worried about meeting with clients and about the name situation. I plan on getting it changed hopefully by the end of the year, but until then I don't know what to do. Does anyone else have any experience with this?

Isn't Nygeel a photographer?

You can present yourself as your new name from the beginning with clients to save the explanation later as long you are comfortable introducing yourself that way if you want....

Pretty sure you can operate as a sole proprietorship and pick a "Doing Business As" business name where you list the name you want to present to your clients. It can just be your new first name/last name or it can be an actual business name you pick for your services. You usually have to register this with your state, most likely the same place you get a business license.

I should add to make sure and check your area's rules and regulations and registration needs for all this stuff, of course, I'm no expert at all

I'm pretty sure that as a business entity, you can give your business any name you want it to have.

Quote from: thefire on June 06, 2012, 07:40:28 AM
I'm pretty sure that as a business entity, you can give your business any name you want it to have.

Pretty much. Depending on how you set up your business you may find, like I did, that the name I wanted was already registered by another company, so I registered my LLC with another name and work under the trade name that I originally wanted. So for me its X, LLC doing business as Y. For contracts and things like that though I do use the registered name (I don't know if it is something I have to do though, I just feel safer doing so)

Regardless of how you do it though, best of luck with whatever you wind up doing!

 If you're naming a business then people will see that name first. When you go on shoots, introduce yourself as your preferred name. If you can open a small business bank account the checks would be written to that.

I agree with what some of the others have pointed out.
Use a business name and go by what makes you happy.
I've had my own photog/web design/publishing biz since the 90's.
I opened a bank account in my biz name, made cheques etc.
The main thing I've found is:
make them feel good, solve their problem, do it for cheaper than others = cash in your pocket
Most potential clients won't care all that much about the person they're doing business with
If you're presentable, friendly... they care about what you can do to help them make money / solve their problem etc.
Focus on that. (and get a business name)
best of luck Believe!

Ok, I AM a professional photographer and have been for the past 14 years, NOW is when I'm starting my transition.  I've had international awards, have been published.. yada, yada, you get the idea.  knowing that I have ALWAYS hated my name since I wanted to be a girl and was born a boy I decided to set up my business with a company name.  You can set yourself up as a LLC or limited liability corporation, AND as a sole proprietor.  This has several benefits, one being you DO NOT need to file two tax returns and the other AWESOME biggie is that as an LLC YOU can not be sued, only your company.  It can really save your ass, as far as your name, tell your clients YOUR name, however you choose to present yourself, but until you legally change it the "business" will have to be under your legal name.  Once you have your name legally changed then you can refile the paperwork to have the ownership amended.  It sounds complicated but I promise you it isn't.  The number one thing is to protect yourself legally.   Trust me I feel your pain, I'm looking to finish out my Master Photographer title soon and I'm freaking that I won't be transitioned since I'm not "out" yet, and I'm going to have to have a ton of paper work to change from pro memberships to certifications to competition entries.  But now I'm rambling, anyway as far as what a client calls you is up to you!  I hope that helps a little.  I'd love to see some of your images! What type of work do you do?

I have done some graphics work for JENN Entertainment in Detroit MI. I used my chosen name with them and my trans status wasn't an issue.

Quote from: Penny Gurl on June 11, 2012, 10:24:29 PM
Ok, I AM a professional photographer and have been for the past 14 years, NOW is when I'm starting my transition.  I've had international awards, have been published.. yada, yada, you get the idea.  knowing that I have ALWAYS hated my name since I wanted to be a girl and was born a boy I decided to set up my business with a company name.  You can set yourself up as a LLC or limited liability corporation, AND as a sole proprietor.  This has several benefits, one being you DO NOT need to file two tax returns and the other AWESOME biggie is that as an LLC YOU can not be sued, only your company.  It can really save your ass, as far as your name, tell your clients YOUR name, however you choose to present yourself, but until you legally change it the "business" will have to be under your legal name.  Once you have your name legally changed then you can refile the paperwork to have the ownership amended.  It sounds complicated but I promise you it isn't.  The number one thing is to protect yourself legally.   Trust me I feel your pain, I'm looking to finish out my Master Photographer title soon and I'm freaking that I won't be transitioned since I'm not "out" yet, and I'm going to have to have a ton of paper work to change from pro memberships to certifications to competition entries.  But now I'm rambling, anyway as far as what a client calls you is up to you!  I hope that helps a little.  I'd love to see some of your images! What type of work do you do?

Hey there! Thanks. I'll look into doing that. That's a good idea. I just got done with school and still need to put up a website. Am I able to link to my flikr? Does anyone know?

Quote from: Darrin Scott on June 12, 2012, 10:02:14 AM
Hey there! Thanks. I'll look into doing that. That's a good idea. I just got done with school and still need to put up a website. Am I able to link to my flikr? Does anyone know?

I basically cater for a living so I can't say how it affects a photographer, but I'll second what Penny Gurl said in that setting up an LLC is huge for the protection it provides. You should be able to link to your flikr without too much hassle, if you go to share on each photo there's a place for you to grab the html code for the links to embed them in a site.

Hi Darrin, one note about flickr, it's almost a kinda facebook type deal of once the images that are posted  "out there in on the web" they're almost open game.  Since you can print and share on flickr some photographers have lost some revenue though that medium, if you're building a site I would look into embedding your galleries into your site, granted with HTML type sites people can still pull an image off your site but it would be at a much lower res and not a really useful format.  If you build a flash based site then EVERYTHING is embedding into the flash file and no one can pull your images off, HOWEVER flash is not an entirely friendly medium to the mobile market.  SO... some people, such as myself have two sites with a splash page where people can choose.  But overall HTML plays nice with pretty much any and every phone browser and tablet.  You can do some pretty cool and nice looking HTML coding, but not as much with animations.  Just a bit to think about.  Best of luck with everything! Oh last note, if you use Adobe Lightroom, you can build a web gallery right in it and "publish" the template and use that for HTML galleries, kinda a neat little trick and it saves SOOO much time.

I just use tubmlr for my portfolio, and there's a print lab I used that provides some pretty quality prints for a good price (they do gallery wrap too). They have a way where you can create events which is pretty much taking a set of pictures from a shoot and hosting them in the same folder. You set a price for people to buy prints and when they view the pictures online they can select which sizes they want. Everything goes through the website which is run by the print lab. The lab does all of the shipping, and printing. If you want them to clean up images you can pay an extra charge for that.

Oh I think my lab ACI ha something where they can host your images, you can create client events and they can order like that also.  If you want to get really fancy, they a "boutique" service where they wrap them in nice boxes and tissue paper, they can match your studio colors and even drop ship right to your clients.. The right lab makes all the difference, I'm pretty sure Miller's Lab and White House Custom Color have something similar also.  I'm pretty sure to set up an account with ACI you need a tax ID though.  I can talk shop all day    I'm kinda a photo nerd in that respect. 

LOL We used Miller's.

Hey Penny,

Thanks for the advice. I'm looking to build a website with zenfolio eventually. I do have lightroom. I'll look into that feature.

Does anyone use Mpix for prints? I've made one book with them for school, but don't know about prints or if there is a cheaper option.

Quote from: Darrin Scott on June 16, 2012, 12:53:25 PM
Hey Penny,

Thanks for the advice. I'm looking to build a website with zenfolio eventually. I do have lightroom. I'll look into that feature.

Does anyone use Mpix for prints? I've made one book with them for school, but don't know about prints or if there is a cheaper option.

Mpix is Miller's site. They're sort of the retail version of Miller's so you would be charged more.

I do quite a bit of modeling, and I honestly don't think you have much to worry about.  People in the fashion, modeling and photography industry don't really seem to care too much about what your name is, how you identify and so on.  In fact, I've come across a lot of models and photographers that use made up nicknames.  I do androgynous modeling, and during a shoot I get called Van and Vanna and he and she in the same sentence at least a dozen times... and nobody cares, including me... by the end of the shoot we all leave happy, and as friends.
So, I think you have very little to worry about =)

Quote from: VannaSiamese on June 16, 2012, 07:06:44 PM
I do quite a bit of modeling, and I honestly don't think you have much to worry about.  People in the fashion, modeling and photography industry don't really seem to care too much about what your name is, how you identify and so on.  In fact, I've come across a lot of models and photographers that use made up nicknames.  I do androgynous modeling, and during a shoot I get called Van and Vanna and he and she in the same sentence at least a dozen times... and nobody cares, including me... by the end of the shoot we all leave happy, and as friends.
So, I think you have very little to worry about =)

Thanks!

Quote from: Darrin Scott on June 16, 2012, 12:53:25 PM
Hey Penny,

Thanks for the advice. I'm looking to build a website with zenfolio eventually. I do have lightroom. I'll look into that feature.

Does anyone use Mpix for prints? I've made one book with them for school, but don't know about prints or if there is a cheaper option.

Yup Mpix = Millers, I think if you get a Millers pro account then you also then are "tax exempt" as a business and can set up different billing options.  For some reason I was never really a fan of the way their B&W prints came back, they seemed to have a bit of a blueish "cool tone" cast to them.  But they are pretty good with their customer service, a studio a ran used them and they were pretty quick with turn around times on remakes. But I know some other studios had color problems, but I  honestly think that was more of the studio's issues and they never color calibrated ANYTHING.  So how could they expect quality color if in studio they couldn't get colors to at least come close to matching.. sorry about the rant