I’ve been running my photography business in Paris for ten years. The admin side of things used to eat me alive. Emails piling up, contracts going out late, galleries delivered manually one client at a time. At some point I decided that if I was going to truly grow my business, I needed to invest in tools that will not only automate the admin for me, but also allow me to offer a high quality experience for my clients.

Studio management: Sprout Studio

Sprout Studio is where my entire client workflow lives. Booking, contracts, invoicing, questionnaires, galleries, client communication. I’ve been using it for over four years and at this point I can’t imagine running my business without it.

What I like most is that once a new inquiry comes in, the whole process is mostly automated. The client gets a booking form, then a contract, then an invoice. After the session, I upload my photos directly in the gallery that’s linked to the session and the automatic reminders take over.

As a solo entrepreneur shooting mostly tourists on short Paris trips, this matters a lot. My clients are usually booking from North America (or at least outside of France), managing everything remotely, and often on a tight travel schedule. A clunky back-and-forth booking process would lose me jobs.

I did a full breakdown in my Sprout Studio review if you want the details, and I compared it directly against HoneyBook if you’re trying to decide between the two.

If you want to try them out, I have a discount code here for Sprout Studio (20% off) and one for Honeybook (30% off).

AI culling: Aftershoot

This one I resisted for longer than I should have.

Culling used to be the part of my workflow I dreaded most. Hours in Lightroom going through hundreds of shots to find the keepers. Luckily, Aftershoot changed that. It learns your selection style over time, and now it gets it right often enough that I’m spending maybe 20% of the time I used to on culling.

It’s not magic and you still need to review the selections. But the pile you’re working through is dramatically smaller, which means you get to the editing (the part I actually enjoy) much faster.

If you’re shooting volume, like families, couples, multi-session weeks, this one earns its keep quickly.

I have a 10% discount through this link if you’re ready to try it.

Editing: Lightroom and Photoshop

I feel like I’ve been using Adobe Creative Cloud since I was in diapers and I can’t imagine being a photographer without it. I use Lightroom for the bulk of my editing, Photoshop for detail work and compositing on complex images.

Aftershoot handles culling before the images hit Lightroom, which speeds the whole process up considerably. But the actual editing style I’ve built my brand around happens in Lightroom with my own custom presets.

Canva

I use Canva for Instagram templates, Pinterest pin templates, and for my client brochures. I’m not trying to design from scratch every time I post on social media. I built a small set of templates once that match my brand, and now creating a new pin or story takes maybe five minutes.

If you’re a visual person who finds graphic design software intimidating, Canva is the answer. The learning curve is almost nonexistent, and having consistent templates means your feed and your pins look cohesive without you having to think about it. Plus, Canva has an AI feature that can generate text and even give design advice.

Later

Later is what I use to schedule my Instagram posts. I plan and queue content in batches rather than logging in every time I have something to post, which means Instagram stops feeling like something I have to tend to every day. You can see your grid before anything goes live, which matters if you care about how your feed looks as a whole.

Claude

This one I want to be specific about, because I know the knee-jerk reaction to “I use AI” is that the writing isn’t really yours. That’s not how I use it.

What Claude is actually useful for is getting out of my own head. After a session, I might have a dozen thoughts about what went well, what the light was like, what I’d do differently and none of it is organized. So I do a brain dump, either typed or via voice note, and ask Claude to turn it into a blog post draft and an Instagram caption. The ideas, the observations, the specific details are all mine. What Claude does is give them structure.

The voice note piece is one of the most useful “hacks” I’ve found. While I do enjoy writing, not every Instagram caption needs to be on the same level as Shakespeare. Talking through something is much faster than staring at a blank page trying to find the right first sentence. I still edit everything to make sure that it matches by tone. But I’m editing rather than starting from nothing, and that’s a completely different experience.

It’s also where I do my brainstorming. If I’m trying to figure out what to write about next or how to angle a post, talking it through with Claude is faster than trying to work it out alone. 

One last way that I use Claude is just as a general troubleshooting helper. My website runs on WordPress with a template from Davy & Krista and even though it’s general easy to use for a non-developer like me, sometimes I hit a snag and need some technical help. This is where Claude has been a lifesaver. Instead of spending hours trying to figure out what’s wrong, it can go through my website and give me step by step instructions of how to fix whatever is needed.

Quick Reference

A note on tool overwhelm

One thing I’d say if you’re just starting to build out your stack: you don’t need all of this at once. Start with a gallery delivery tool, then add studio management once you’re booking consistently enough to feel the pain of not having it. The rest builds in naturally from there.

The goal isn’t to have every tool. It’s to have the right ones that run quietly in the background while you actually go do the photography.

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