Bloglovin'

Just a quickie to say that you can now follow my blog with bloglovin'.

Paying the Bills

Being a professional photographer isn't easy. There's a lot of hard work involved, and it's not as glamourous as people think... especially in a recession, when there's less work around and more and more people picking up their digital cameras and trying to make money.

A lot of people quote the 80:20 rule... that is, 80% of your work is what pays, and 20% of the work is the fun stuff you actually want to be doing. This is so true. I love taking photos, it's the best part of my job. I get to meet cool people, and hear great stories while I shoot them. I can't stand retouching! I don't mind doing a single image, but when it comes to retouching several sets, I can't think of anything more tedious, and unfortunately, that's the bit that takes the most time!

The other aspect to the 80:20 rule is that especially when first starting out, you can't be too picky about who you work for and what you're shooting. Chase Jarvis once said to me "shoot what pays, but market the work you want to be doing". I want to shoot fashion, advertising, celebrities and high end editorial content, and whilst I do shoot some, it's not enough to pay all my bills. So as Chase says, you need to shoot what pays.

Over the past couple of months I've shot all sorts of things from products shots for footwear manufacturers, to PR images for multinational companies and childrens book authors, and even events for automotive magazines. I generally don't include these images in my portfolio, because it's not the work I want to attract, but it's always important to pay the bills!

Of course there is still work I turn down. I don't shoot weddings or family portraits. I also don't take on any work from the adult industry, despite being offered a lot of money to do so. It's important set limits to the work you're prepared to do. It's never good to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Ultimately, the more you work, the better you get, and eventually the ratio of work you do will hopefully change from 80:20 as you raise your profile and build on your portfolio, provided you keep showing people the great work you're doing! There are photographers out there doing close to 100% of the work they want to be doing... they didn't get there overnight, and these things take time and effort, but if it was easy, then everyone would be doing it! ;)

TouchGlove Promotions

Last week I was really excited to shoot something a bit different. Nina Cranstoun of TouchGlove Promotions phoned me up to say she was organising a boxing match for the Help for Heroes charity and she needed some promotional images of her with the two fighters.

The two fighters taking part were Tony Denham, who starred in Football Factory alongside Danny Dyer, and Carlton Leach, of whom the film Rise of the Footsoldier was based.

Was a busy shoot, and my studio was about as busy as it's ever been with all the associated people attending, a film crew, and a reporter from the Mirror newspaper who was writing a story about Nina. That said, it was a lot of fun, especially when the two guys had to scream and shout at each other in order to create the right look for the shot!

Here's a quick tearsheet of one of the shots appearing in last sunday's Mirror, taking up nearly a full page! :)

Tumblr

Those eagle eyed among you will have spotted another link up there on the right → → →

Following a few discussions with various people, I thought I should set up a tumblr account. Now rather than just duplicate everything I have on every other social networking site, I thought it important to use different sites in different ways. So with that in mind, I shall be using tumblr as a photo blog site for all my random photos of things and places I see from day to day. Some of them will be good, some will be silly, and some will probably just be weird. They will all have something about them of interest... at least to me if not anyone else!