Freelance photography today.

I work as a professional freelance photographer in the UK and Europe, and occasionally further afield in Africa, America, Japan or Australia. Much of my professional life is spent answering the creative content call, and offering out corporate photo or video services to clients from every business type. I’ve had to learn to think of myself as a promotional business photo or video creator and having spent a long time doing it, I’ve come to understand the nature of freelance photography more clearly.

These days we need to think of ourselves as more of a visual studio rather than a single skill craftsmen, we are often more multi-skilled artist employing a wide array of learned abilities such as graphics, video editing, web design, music, written content, IT engineer and lighting technician on a daily basis rather than just our original (simple) choice of a lens based career.  Such is contemporary life, and many of those skills are essential if you want to survive long term. If you consider how many of those skills go into making a single corporate video - it’s true, they all inform and feed into it. Photo and video business solutions are what commercial clients want, and you either have to provide them yourself, collaborate with someone that does, or emply someone else to do it for you.

Photography usually involve stages of both art and craft, but isn’t always both because photographers themselves can approach it as a craftsmen and an artist, although often at different stages. If I break down what I mean into a way that I often use when explaining how to progress to photography or videography students, I suggest that photographers (and videographers) are usually one of two types of people - technicals or creatives. Some find lighting, f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO’s make more sense to them and it becomes an area they excel at. Others have some fantastic ideas about how they want their imagery to look and feel, but less of an idea about how to create that - that is a fundamental difference - the former being technicals and the latter creatives.

The medium allows for both artistic and technical experimentation and logical progession, but only comes from being aware of what has come before. Cinema, books, music, exhibitions, shows, and lengthy late night discussions with fellow informed creatives all become a part of that education and should be respected.

The process of an artist allows for experimentation and play, it has no timeline or particular agenda other than to create something and see if it works. It’s not necessarily a linear progression either often involved a lot of back and forth. Craft is more straightforward process that involves knowing your goal and time is spent using specific skills to reach that end result.

As a professional you work for a commercial clients to create bespoke imagery, photos and/or videos that promote or enhance a company through its marketing or advertising efforts - it could be a product, a service or a place. Travel and tourism imagery focusses on the hospitality industry but also impacts other business types such as food and drink and even weddings.

Education is rarely thought of as an industry but its more of an industry than ever before and academies, school, colleges and universities all benefit from unique images that support their business goals and pastoral responsibilities. The images and films become a vessel for their message or brand.

Most photography or video involves people it could be something as simple as a portrait or an interview, or it could be more complex - such as focussing on a service, skill or such as music or fashion. Events such as weddings or business conferences also need documenting. Each areas can become a specialism (and that is a sensible route that many photographers follow) but as a freelancer who has been shooting commercially for over 20 years, my experience many jobs involve a little bit of each of these. Business want people in their photos, and their products but they also want to show off the facilities so interiors and exteriors also become important. Many young photographers start off with landscape as a subject but commercially - this is an area where very little work exists - however, the hard earned skills learned when practicing landscape of various kinds become important as part of skillset at a later date.

Storytelling happens in every family around the world. From childhood, our minds are filled with joy, adventure, mystery, sadness and sorrow and it shouldn’t be underestimated as a powerful idea when related to creative lens based career. Narrative is one of the best words I learned as a photography student in my 20’s… and has gone on to inform so much of what I do and how I choose to practice today. Photojournalism is as important as ever - people on the ground all over the world telling stories t(their or others) through their lenses and empathy.