How does an amateur photographer find clients?

You can go to different venues that have weddings and see if they want to use you as their "in-house" photographer. You can link up with wedding planners, offering them something in exchange for sending customers your way. Ditto baby clothes stores. Offer to take pictures of different people, people who have lots and lots of contacts. They can flash the picture around and send business your way. Call DJ's, often they'll get corporate gigs and having someone who can take photos can be a nice compliment. Basically, networking. Go wherever people get married, have babies, or to the ancillary places where these things are celebrated. Churches, florists, Halls, Country Clubs, Caterers, etc. Be prepared to offer something in exchange for the recommendation, free portraits, etc. Word of mouth is the BEST advertisement. Once you get a few under your belt, your happy customers will be your best adertisers.

A friend of mine started shooting family portraits last year; she did a bunch of give-away portrait sessions with moms in her area to build her portfolio and her reputation. I don't know if she asked for testimonials as well or not. She posts one or two photos on facebook, watermarked with her company name / url, I think every single day.

My credit union offered its members a free 20 minute photo session and free 8x10, with the option to buy the CD of all the photos (of course we did, and I'm sure most others did too). It was a good way to get a lot of clients at once (the sessions were held over 2 days, and judging by the response, I think she had about 20 families in all). Maybe team up with a business and do something like that?

If you think you're a http://apracticalwedding.com/advertise/, I'd consider advertising with A Practical Wedding. They have a very active NYC readership and they're always running "amazing deal"-type posts about up-and-coming photographers. (I'm not affiliated with them, just a reader, etc.)

Word of mouth is definitely a hugely important way to get photography jobs. We found our wedding photographer via a personal recommendation from friends, and so did almost everyone I know. I know this can present a chicken-and-egg problem before you have a set of clients who can recommend you. I think saradarlin's suggestion is a good one for bootstrapping this process. You may also want to consider hanging out on photographer's blogs, forums, and wherever else photographers talk and offer your services as a "second shooter" at weddings or other big events. This way you can benefit from the exposure of an established photographer without building up their client list. Then, if they have a schedule conflict some weekend (and eventually, every wedding photographer will), maybe they will recommend you for a couple gigs and you're off to the races.

I think, in a creative field, especially one saturated with individuals who are just as skilled as you, if not more, much of how successful you are comes down to marketing and branding (and, of course, tenacity!). With that in mind, can you find a specialized niche or angle within the photography market? In starting my own creative business, my thought process was really inspired by http://www.annrea.com/pages/1_about_ann.asp, a painter who's got a thriving market painting "relaxing" portraits of vineyards. In finding her buyers, Rea did three things I love -- (1) She has a great story about adversity and redemption through art (2) she found a niche that allows her to ride on the backs of other, already successful businesses by supplementing their product, not competing with them, and (3) her niche market (people buying from vineyards and taking wine tours) consists of people with disposable income who are likely to think of themselves as cultured. Basically, what that comes down to is the ability to gain access to a pre-existing (large) network of (munificent) people who will come to think of you as their go-to photographer? (Also, erm, Rea also seems to be doing quite well teaching other artists how to find and corner their own market, which I'd bet is more lucrative than the art, but that's a whole other thing.)

Taking photos is the easy part - now you've discovered the hard part.

I found my wedding photographer through reviews for local photographers for weddingbee.com. If there's a local wedding blog in NYC that is popular, try working with them to get your best photos shared on the blog and make sure to put a little design with your name in the photo somewhere. Make sure to have a website with a gallery, which was important for me when shopping around.

Fundraiser: A local photographer came to our preschool and took family pictures at the preschool giving each family a cd with their pictures for about $150. The money was split between the school (fundraiser) and the photographer. There were about 30 families who participated. It was a win all around as the photographer didn't have to schedule the families all individually and got all the pictures in 1 1/2 days. She offered touch-ups and prints at an extra price. A couple of the parents helped as photographer assistants -helping make babies smile, twitching collars, etc. There were many details to consider: to minimize light switches the photographer specified what to wear (all white, no white - examples from different years), there were additional fees for more than a couple family configurations (otherwise people wanted every individual and configuration), families were allowed 20 minutes in the schedule although sometimes a crying baby would mess up this schedule.