An office manager needs headshots for a new leadership page. She searches for a photographer in her city, gets a map with three listings, and picks based on rating, recent photos, and whether the business looks like it is still operating. She never opens Instagram once.
You have spent years getting good, and the person who got that job shoots worse than you do. That is the part that grinds. The work is not what decided it. Visibility was, and visibility is the one thing you have never had time to build.
So you go on trading feast for famine. Two solid months, then a stretch where you are editing old work and lowering rates to keep the calendar moving, which quietly sets the price for the next enquiry too.
Then a client mentions they nearly booked someone else because you were hard to find, and you realise you will never know how many did.