Hi, take a few steps without pressure or outlay if you can help it, and see where it goes from there.
1.Take photos. Honestly, of everything. Always have your camera handy. Take art shots, product shots, food shots (do that in a restaurant, see what service you get!), head shots for actors, all that. If you have a digital camera every shot costs nothing.
2. Take good photos. Get in touch with a performing arts college, local sports teams and businesses. Put ads up on Gumtree, do stuff for free and sell them prints at cost. This will build you up a good portfolio.
3. Put stuff up on Flickr, Deviantart, set up a Facebook page, maybe get a Wordpress blog. Announce your best stuff on Twitter. Put your best arty stuff up on Deviantart, or make wallpapers out of some of them and give them away on your blog. Put your favourite stuff on Facebook and everything else on Flickr. Also, if you do run a blog, put photography advice all over it - make tutorials and share tips. You'll look like a professional in no time.
4. Look at stock photo sites. Put your best generic stuff on there. Cars, security guards, traffic signs, all that sort of stuff sells really well up there. They're free to join and you might just make a couple of quid. If you do...
5. Get yourself a domain name and point it to your Flickr or Wordpress. It's only about a fiver a year. Get some business cards printed. You can get a few printed for free from Vistaprint and Moo just to start with. Make a Cafepress or Lulu calendar and sell it on your site for a couple of quid.
6. Take out a Google Ads campaign. Take advantage of as much free advertising as you can - they're willing to give you lots of free credits to get you hooked.
7. Try and land one good, professional gig. You can offer it for free, or try and blag - whatever works. With that on your portfolio, you'll probably land another. If you're good you'll get recommended.
8. One decent paid job, and you can afford a little rebrand, a nice website and some proper business cards. The job after that, all the money's yours!
9. Get all the paperwork sorted when money starts coming in. Register with the tax people, keep all your receipts and make a spreadsheet for your accounts.
10. Keep social networking, get into Dribbble, Linkdin and share tips on photography forums, keep giving away wallpapers etc.
