Photography business tips from ASMP’s executive director Eugene Mopsik.

I’m 11 years old, standing with my family at the rim of the Grand Canyon at sunset. I can’t take my eyes off the landscape, and I marvel at the beauty of the light. What’s my father doing? He’s furiously operating a Super-8 movie camera and an Argus 35mm still camera, racing against the clock.

Fast-forward several years. Inspired by my father’s hobby, I graduate from the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1970 and declare myself a photographer, albeit with no formal photography education and ...