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Blog reviews

Livy Dukes is a CU photography student who also did a freelance placement year like myself, so I thought it would be interesting to review her blog. From reading Livy’s blog, it is clear that she has gained a lot of experience and confidence in the freelance photographic field, which I really commend her for, as I’m aware of how hard it can be. I feel like Livy has perhaps gained more from her professional freelance year, as I think she was more prepared in the first place – she knew she wanted to freelance from the start, compared to me, who decided it was my plan B when I couldn’t find a placement/internship with a company. I really enjoyed reading about Livy’s experiences as we have similar interests and experience in music photography, both working for Indie Midlands, so it’s interesting reading her take on the music photography career, which is often hard to make a living from, but she’s definitely made the most of her experiences and has been able to develop a significant portfolio. One thing I would perhaps like to have seen more of is whether Livy developed any other personal ‘artistic’ projects which could be helpful in preparing for final year.

Emma McGarry is currently studying at Academie Minerva in Groningen, The Netherlands. I found Emma’s blog particularly interesting as she’s studying Fine Art, whereas the majority of the other CU photography students are studying Media/communications (or something similar) at their host universities. I found that I was often incredibly jealous whilst reading her blog, and wondered if I should have perhaps done a year abroad instead. Emma was able to explore her artistic side more, and was able to develop her skills but as an artist and a photographer, which I think is something that I have lacked from my placement year. Seeing all of Emma’s images were great, but the post I enjoyed reading about most is her 3rd Year Expo, where Emma had to curate a showcase of her work alongside all the other students and had to talk to industry professionals about her practise. It’s clear to see how much she has grown in confidence, and how valuable her time at Academie Minerva has been.

Joe Scotting’s was probably one of the blogs I looked forward to most each time. Joe decided to vlog his time and experiences whilst in China and Germany, which is think is great because Joe’s character really shines through the videos, plus he gains experience in video editing which is a great skill to have in the creative industry. Joe started studying Journalism in Hangzhou, China in his first semester and then moved onto Stuttgart, Germany for his second. Joe’s most recent blog post (this time written, not vlogged) was a true and heartfelt take on his time whilst in China. From his vlog’s Joe seemed to be living it up in Hangzhou, but his written piece evidenced his struggled in adapting to a life in China. Although it was upsetting to read about the stressful times Joe experienced, it was also enlightening to read how he overcame his feelings of isolation, a feeling I’ve also experienced this year. Having known Joe for a couple of years now after living just a block above him in first year, I can see how much Joe has grown as a person, especially in confidence and it’s great to see that he’s come out of a frankly sh*tty situation, and is now happier than ever in Germany.The only thing I wish Joe has done was vlog/blog more about his time in Germany, he mentioned to me that I’d love it in Stattgart, but it would have been nice to see all the things he did whilst out there. 

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My year of freelancing and being self supportive (A summary)

I haven’t really deadicated a full blog post to my life as a freelancer and being self supportive, so that’s is exactly what this post is going to do!

Freelancing has been one of the hardest, but most rewarding things I’ve done during university. Although before this placement year, I had done the odd few jobs on a freelance basis, I never really considered trying to make a career out of it, but I’ve so glad that I’ve challenged myself to do it this year. 

The first thing I had to do before even starting my freelance venture was to create a business plan and time schedule. Now, this sounds simple, but let me tell you, IT. WAS. NOT. I tried to be as realistic as possible when it came to how much time I would spend freelancing, I planned on attaining at least one freelance job a week (4 a month) but due to the unpredictable nature of being self employed, this didn’t happen. Some months I would only have 1 freelance job, other occasions I’ve had 3 jobs in a week - this meant I needed to work out my cashflow - to try and ensure I had enough money to tie me over each week. Whilst I’m (VERY) far into my overdraft, I think that I’ve been lucky enough to do my freelance year whilst I still have the comfort blanket of my student loan and university, I would have been royally screwed if I SFE didn’t give me a bit of money each term (even if it is only about a third of what I would usually get whilst studying). This has made me more careful with my money and time, ensuring I have a good work/life balance. 

The one downfall about being a freelance photographer, is that people will often want to pay you in exposure, compared to actual money. Whilst it’s good to build on your experience and develop your portfolio, you can’t buy food or pay rent through exposure. This meant I’ve had to learn to keep a good ratio of paid and unpaid work, even if the paid work is just working part time at a cinema (which is what I’ve had to do). Being in a position so that I can actually accept the unpaid work within the boundaries of university has allowed me to significantly develop my portfolio and CV without having to worry too much about going into my overdraft.

 you also do have a LOT of freetime - which can lead to getting bored, and sometimes alone. I’ve had to deal with a lot of issues of isolation and not being motivated to do anything, something that I’ve detailed in a previous blog post. That being said, one advantage is that I’ve got ownership to decide where, when and who I work with, I’ve been lucky enough to work with some truly amazing people and organisations through my year. As well as this, due to having a fair amount of freetime, so I’ve been lucky to have visited a couple of different countries around Europe, visiting friends who are currently studying abroad and exploring the different cities and cultures.

I’ve worked with a huge number or people since starting my freelance year. In my first ‘term’ of freelancing I worked with companies like Beat, RISING Global Peace Forum and Kenilworth Arts Festival. I’ve always be interested in music photography, so this year also allowed me to pursue my passion of combining Indie music and photography by working with Indie Midlands, Future Sounds Porject and Native Magazines which led me to work and collab with a number of bands and musicians from around the globe. One highlight that’s worth mentioning is that I got about a metre away from Mike Skinner, from The Streets, who I have loved since I was about 14 years old.

 I photographed The Streets and The Manor at the O2 Academy in Birmingham, the biggest venue I’ve ever photographed, which was significantly bigger than the tiny downstairs venue of The Sunflower Lounge. I photographed The Streets on behalf of Native Magazine, it was such an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it, see my images here: https://destinationnative.com/gallery-mike-skinner-returns-with-the-streets-supported-by-the-manor-at-the-02-birmingham/. I’ve also been commissioned by Native to do a number of different articles, including sections that revolves around photographing students of Coventry University and asking their opinions of the city (https://destinationnative.com/i-am-native-returns-to-the-streets-of-coventry-and-asks-what-inspires-you-about-where-youre-from/), and writing an ‘interview’ (on the loosest of terms) about my pals from the band FEET during a party after they finished recording their debut album in London earlier this year. https://destinationnative.com/we-spend-an-evening-with-the-recently-named-essential-artists-of-2019-feet/ 

Another experience that’s worth noting is my time spent with photographer and filmmaker Jonny Bark. I initially I worked with Jonny on the RISING Global Peace Forum, we created a rather lovely friendship which then led to me assisting him on his commission from The Herbert to respond to the Anselm Kiefer exhibition in the gallery. Jonny’s exhibition ‘The Learned Protocols of Truth - A response to ARTIST ROOMS: Anselm Kiefer’ ran from November - January in the Herbert. This experience was incredibly valuable for me, as I initially began looking for jobs in galleries when I started looking for a placement, it gave me a taste of what it would be like, but condensed into just over a week. For the exhibition Jonny ran a 3 day workshop with 11 students from the Blue Coats Church of England School, and involved students taking photographs and deconstructing them in response to Anselm Kiefer and The Learned Protocols of Truth. Myself, Jonny and Brian (who works at The Herbert) were tasked with turning the images created by the students into an exhibition that documented the workshops and the outcomes produced. I learned a lot from working alongside Jonny, and working within The Herbert was very rewarding, it was a great way to network and get my name in the gallery. It made me realise that I love working alongside fellow creatives, rather than being confided to the boundaries of being just a freelance photographer. 

All of these experience have be incredibly rewarding, and I have learnt SO much about myself personally and professionally this year. The biggest thing that I’ve learnt is that after this year, I don’t in fact want to be a freelance photographer when I graduate. Whilst I have loved the experiences I’ve had and met some wonderful people, I don’t think freelancing is for me. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I feel like I’d like to work more with young people from all  creative platforms to help them find their feet in the mess that is the creative industry. I’m currently working on a collective down in my home county, Devon, that gives young creatives a platform for them to share their work, find collaborations and eventually find a job within their desired industry without having to move out of Devon to do so. 

Thanks for reading!

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John White Photography Class - My experience teaching

Last year, myself and fellow CU Photography student (and bff), Georgia Bond (GB) set up a photography class in Binley to teach children photography. I continued the class this year alongside Georgia Ince (GI) whilst working freelance. We taught the class on Wednesdays from October, and have produced a huge range of work together as a class. This year with GI has been very different to the class with GB.Last year myself, GB and our class produced work that we collated into one body of work, Week By Week, a series of photobooks, where as this year, me and GI really wanted to experiment more with the children to create a wide variety of different work, using different range of different processes.

We utilised the studio a lot more (as GI had a portable one), where we were able to produce more portraits of the kids, as well as experiment with using coloured gels and got the children to think more about the use of colour in photography and portraiture.

 We also delved into more alternative processes, such as using disposable cameras and creating our own pinhole cameras, however, we came to realise that they soon got a bit restless with these processes because they didn’t provide the instantaneous gratification that they were so used to with digital photography. Nonetheless, they still produced some amazing images. 

Myself and Georgia organised a weekend workshop this month, with the help of Ethan and Danielle, who are Year 2 Photography students. In this workshop we taught the kids about cyanotypes (they were a bit more interested in these compared to the other alternative processes because you can see the process), delved a bit more into portraiture and worked with experimented with shutter speed, making light trails from torches. We also attempted (attempted being the main word there) to give them an alphabet task, where they would photograph objects that looked like letters of the alphabets without using any actual letters or making letters out of anything - however about 75% of the images ended up being of sticks that they moved around to make letters, despite our efforts to get them to think more creatively. 

All the work produced from the class this year was collated into an exhibition, put on at the community centre on the 17th. We invited friends, families and other members of the community to attend the exhibition, to show off the work the children had produced. 

The exhibition went really well and we got such a good response from the parents and other people that attended. We would have loved to have a few more people come and see the work, but due to the community centre not being in the centre, it’s a bit out the way, we figured this is the main reason why people may have been discouraged. 

Although I don’t want to be a teacher when I graduate, I really love working with communities to get them to unleash their creativity and think about new ideas within the artistic realm. I think it’s so important to introduce art and creativity to children at such a young age - it would be amazing to see if any of the children we’ve taught go on to pursue a career in photography due to our influence. 

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Exploring The Netherlands and visiting my best friend!

My second visit across Europe this year was to The Netherlands, in which I was lucky enough to visit Emma and all her lovely friends in Groningen, where she’s studying for the year. 

Myself and Tom visited her this year in March, we stayed a few days in Amsterdam before getting a 4 hour coach to Groningen (which wasn’t as bad as you’d expect).

During our time in the Dam, myself and Tom did all of the usual touristy things, like visit the Anne Frank Museum, go on a boat cruise and explored the red light district. It wasn’t my first time in Amsterdam, I visited last May with my course, but I didn’t manage to do all the things I wanted so this was a great chance to explore it all, except this time (although we did get the odd bright spell) rather than it being sunny and 28 degrees like it was in May, it was windy, raining and the highest temperature must have only been about 9 degrees. It was a very different atmosphere, but lovely nonetheless. Everything just seems a lot better in The Netherlands, people are very friendly, the beer is cheap and the vegan junk food is 10/10!

After spending 3 days in Amsterdam, we headed to Groningen to see Emma, she met us off the coach and the weather was truly awful, it hailed like crazy so we got some ‘traditional’ dutch food (veggie of course) and stayed inside to catch up. In the evening, we met all of Emma’s coursemates, played a few drinking games and went out to a club called ‘OOST’ which, although wasn’t my kind of music (I’m just your traditional indie lover), it was far better than a night out in Coventry, even if we did have to queue outside in the cold for what felt like hours (even though it was probably only about 30 mins). 

The next day, we went to the Groningen Museum and had a little explore of the town, which, although it was grey, it was still far nicer than most of the towns in the UK. It was safe to say we were a bit hungover, but it was still lovely spending time with my best friend in a beautiful place! We caught our coach back in the late evening and headed back to Amsterdam for one last night before catching our flight back to London the next day.

 I’d absolutely love to go back to The Netherlands and spend a few more days exploring Groningen and possibly explore some of the other towns and cities there. Here are a couple of my favourite pictures of the trip!

I found that travelling in The Netherlands and Barcelona (see my previous post) to be extremely beneficial for my professional and personal growth. Going out of my comfort zone and learning to be more curious about different food, cultures and places is something that has definitely happened whilst visiting these places. It’s enabled me to think more creatively, especially whilst visiting a number of different artists spaces - it’s made me realise how passionate I am about photography and art. It’s also made me more ambitious, I’ve realised that I probably don’t want to stay and work/live in the UK my whole life, I’d love a job that allows me to travel - whether it’s to travel whilst working or to have enough time and money to be able to travel independently - I think this might have been one of the most important things I’ve learnt whilst on my placement year. 

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Living like a local in Barcelona with my best friend. (PSA: the photos will make you wish you were there)

This year I have been fortunate enough to have friends who are on Erasmus, studying abroad, meaning I can travel across Europe to see them and explore their temporary new home. 

In February this year I went to Barcelona for 5 days to see my best friend Georgia, who’s studying at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, and living with her lovely boyfriend, Luke, only a short metro ride to the centre of Barcelona. I was lucky enough to visit the week when the UK and Europe had that weird heat wave in the middle of Feb, so it managed to reach temperatures of 22 degrees in Barcelona, which of course was lovely, despite the looming fear of global warming.

On my first full day there Georgia had classes so I ventured into the centre of Barcelona on my own to explore, I walked down La Ramblas to the docks and back up to the MACBA, which is infamous for skaters who travel across the world to visit the area. I then caught the train to the nearest station to UIC to meet Georgia at uni and walk home with her, a nice 40-minute walk downhill, down a path that was filled with Palm trees, and anyone who’s friends with me will know that Palm trees are my favourite type of tree. 

Whilst we were out, Luke packed a picnic for us all, so when we got back, we bought a few beers and decided to take a trip to Badalona. Unlike Barcelonetta, this beach is one of the quieter ones in Barcelona, with less tourists. We listened to music, ate our sandwiches and watched the sky turn pink - it’s safe to say that I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness, sitting on a beautiful beach, sipping cheap beer with my best friend who I hadn’t seen for 9 months.

On the Saturday me and Georgia attempted to do a small workout in her apartment before heading out for the day whilst Luke went for a run – this involved us getting stupidly sweaty, Georgia making some weird grunts (which almost had me in tears) and getting incredibly sore legs. After cooling down on the balcony and getting washed and dressed we headed to Park Guell. It was a very sunny day and the park was absolutely beautiful. We saw an abundance of dogs which was amazing, and spent the morning walking around taking in the sites and snapping a lot of photos. 

We went back to the apartment for lunch, Luke had made up some Tapas for us, which was lovely, then we headed back out to explore Placa d’Espange and the surrounding sites. We went to the old bullring (which is now a shopping centre with a viewing deck at the top), The National Art Museum of Catalonia and finally the Olympic park, in which we stopped on a bench to watch the sunset over the city.

On Sunday we woke up early and headed out of the apartment by 7am. We had booked a trip to Montserrat, a multi-peak mountain range on the outskirts of Barcelona (only about an hour on the coach) with Luke and Cara, Georgia’s friend from home who’s also studying in UIC. The peak we climbed was Sant Jeroni which was 4000ft above sea level. Our legs were still incredibly sore from the HIIT workout the previous day, which made the climb somewhat more difficult, but with ‘just think of the gains mate’ constantly being repeated to each other over the course of the day we kept motivated and looked forward to reaching the top. The view from the Monastery in Montserrat was amazing, but the view from the peak of Sant Jeroni was even more breathtaking. It certainly made the trek up there worthwhile. 

Monday was my last full day in Barca, so it was another day of exploring the city. Georgia and Luke took me to Sagrada Familia, the Gothic Quarter, the Arc d’triomf and Citadel park, all before catching a bus from Barcelonetta up to a place called The Bunkers to watch the sunset over the city. 

We had a bit of a nightmare with the bus as a diversion had started on that day without us realising, meaning we had to walk (what google maps said was) an extra 35 minutes to get there, but we made it in about 20 as we really didn’t want to miss the sunset so basically legged it up the hill. Although it was pretty busy when we got there, we managed to find a great spot that overlooked the city, cracked open a few more beers and watched the city turn dark. I felt so happy to be there, but also incredibly melancholy because I was leaving the next day and wouldn’t see Georgia and Luke until they returned to Coventry in September. We returned back to the apartment later that evening, finished off the remainder of our beers and watched friends before heading to bed – the perfect end to the perfect day. 

My flight was at midday on Tuesday, I woke up at about 6am to say my goodbye to Georgia as she had to leave the house early for work, felt a bit teary-eyed but went back to sleep for a couple of hours before waking up to walk to Sants and get a train to the airport. Luke took me all the way to the airport like a true gent and after we said our own goodbyes, I wandered into the airport to catch my flight back to Birmingham. I was lucky enough to be greeted by a sunny sky when getting off my flight in Brum, which didn’t make returning as bad as I anticipated, if it would have been rainy and miserable I have no doubts I would have booked another flight to head straight back to Barca. 

Living like a bit of a local in Barca was such an amazing experience, and to do it with my favourite people made it a million times better. I can’t wait for them to return back to Coventry so I can have my bff back living just across town, but I hope they both thoroughly enjoy the remainder of their time living it up in the sun! Love and miss you both!!

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My 8 tips on how to regain your motivation and creativity.

Now this post is a bit different to my usual (and dare I say it, boring) posts I’ve done, but during my freelance year, I’ve had a fair bit of free time to say the least. Although I’ve got a part-time job alongside freelancing, I’ve found myself with a lot of spare time, feeling unenergetic, unmotivated and in a big time creative block. Although I do, of course, have some days where I just want to lounge around in bed all day and not do anything, I’ve tried to overcome it through these 8 tips.

1. Move. It’s as simple as that, just move! I’ve found that if I utilise my body just a little bit, I feel so much more energised and motivated. It can be as simple as doing a few stretches in the morning, going for a walk, or smashing a workout at home or in the gym, but no matter what you do, move! I’ve also recently found it motivating to write down how I feel after I exercise, then on days when I feel sluggish and don’t want to do anything, I look at the notes and remind myself how I’ll feel after.

2. Create a to-do list. Sometimes creating a list of things to do can seem daunting because you worry about not completing all the tasks. But by setting yourself a number of small tasks (or goals to make them sound less intimidating) and then ticking them off can be so uplifting. This has helped with my anxiety so much, it really helps you feel more organised and gives you a purpose throughout the day. If I don’t complete tasks I tell myself ‘it’s okay, I can complete it tomorrow’, and then I move on and don’t let it dwell on me.

3. Take your camera everywhere. Okay, so this may not apply to everyone, but taking a camera or some kind of photo-making device is a great way to get out of a creative block, there doesn’t need to have any meaning or purpose behind taking a picture. This advice was given to me from one of my best friends (thanks Georgia!) and it has helped me so much to get out of my creative rut!

4. Listen to some music or a podcast. Spotify will always be my best friend. I use it for the majority of my day, I love listening to music and podcasts. Listening to an album or a playlist (usually) makes me feel a lot more motivated to do things. It’s only been the past month or so that I’ve started listening to podcasts more regularly, my favourites are Happy Place (Fearne Cotton), The Adam Buxton Show and The James Smith Podcast. I also enjoy listening to the H3 podcast when I’m in the mood to listen to some comedic rambling. This may sound a bit bizarre, but I love falling asleep listening to The Ricky Gervais show (or the XFM radio podcast). It gives me something to concentrate on so my mind doesn’t drift and I start stressing about things.

5. Remind yourself why. Simply looking through images or work that you have created to remind yourself why you invested in this course/career/opportunity is such a good way to regain motivation to be creative again. I’ll often scroll through my photography instagram or flick through albums on my laptop and list reasons why I like an image, and sometimes what could I do to improve it - looking at things constructively can be a helpful tool when looking for motivation.

6. Surround yourself with creativity. Alongside looking at my own images, I’ll also look at other people for motivation. I follow a lot of design accounts on instagram, and although I’m not a graphic designer, it does inspire me to be more creative. Being around people who are creative too is a good way to bounce idea off each other - I recently took a trip to Barcelona (which I’ll write about soon!) to see my best friend who’s also a photographer. We went to a tonne of beautiful and inspiring places and between us we probably took way over a thousand photos which we shared with each other.

7. Ask for help. Now, I’m one for keeping my feelings and emotions to myself, not wanting to burden anyone else with how I’m feeling, but talking it out can be so uplifting! Whether its a friend, a colleague, a partner or a professional, it’s always okay to ask for help. I tweeted a couple weeks ago about feeling so exhausted and unmotivated I was feeling and how it was starting to get me down and one friend suggested I looked into the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which in short, is a type of depression that comes and goes in a seasonal pattern, and is usually linked to a reduced exposure to sunlight (vitamin D). I haven’t ‘self diagnosed’ myself, but understanding the symptoms and putting measures in place to ensure I do get more vitamin D has really made a difference to how I’ve been feeling.

8. Have things to look forward to. Having things to look forward to can really make a difference - whether it’s big or small. My boyfriend lives in London, so I only see him roughly twice a month, but I always look forward to seeing him and I get excited to plan what we’re going to do, whether it’s a walk down the canal, or a movie day in bed. I’ve just returned from seeing one of my best friends who’s out in Barcelona studying so that was a huge thing to look forward to, and now in a week I’m going to be seeing my other bestie who’s living it out in The Netherlands, so it’s safe to say I’ve had my fair few things to get excited about! Booking in freelance jobs has also been something that I look forward to , I love to plan things, so organising where I need to be and what I need to do is something that I enjoy. But sometimes, something as simple as making arrangements to meet a friend for a coffee or making your favourite food for dinner can be just as exciting and help you to make it through the day. 

I hope for those who stuck around to finish reading this blog post, you taken something away from this and if you’re stuck in a rut, maybe one or two of these things can help you out!

Thanks for reading!

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Ending 2018

So this blog post is very much long overdue, but I guess it’s better to be late than not at all!

So the end of 2018 was a very interesting time for me. I’ve only just become settled in calling myself a Freelancer to be honest. It’s incredibly nerve wrecking putting yourself out there and calling yourself a professional photographer when you really don’t feel like your experienced enough to call yourself that. However, I’ve been reminding myself about how far I’ve come, and how much I’ve grown as a person and a professional.

One of the last shoots I did in in the midlands in 2018 was photographing an event for Future Sounds Project in Wolverhampton after talking to one of the band performing at a different gig. I met some great people and hopefully will be able to shoot for them again soon. 

My final shoot of 2018 was on New Years Eve in which I photographed a wedding. It was my very first wedding so I was incredibly nervous as I thought I was inexperienced - but as the old saying ‘fake it until you make it’ goes, I pretended I was confident and it became the reality. Although I ridiculously undercharged (let’s call that a learning curve) it was good to finally get the experience and have something to bulk up my portfolio - the bride was so happy she decided to go for the whole shabang and buy all my photos for an additional cost, which I guess kind of makes up for the undercharging. The wedding was at a famous ‘landmark’ in Devon, the Haldon Belvedere (Lawrence Castle) which was a beautiful location with views reaching all across the River Exe and surrounding places. Although weddings aren’t something that massively interest me, it’s always a good way to earn a bit of extra cash. 

Over Christmas I felt a bit of a creative block coming along, so I working on a small personal project with my younger sister who’s an MUA. I live in a small town called Dawlish which has a beautiful coast line only a couple minutes walk from my house. I took a few portraits of Karla, alongside some landscape shots of the beach and although I love Coventry, it’s really not the most picturesque place; so returning home for a couple of weeks really helped me to unleash some creativity that had been building up for a while. 

I’m looking forward to what the rest of 2019 brings me! 

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5 things I learnt from the Pop Up Business School:

A few weekends ago I attended the Pop Up Business School in Coventry. The Pop Up Business School is a company that has a complete opposite approach to the traditional method to building a business. I went in feeling very sceptical and also very nervous, not knowing what to expect, but I quickly realised how useful this opportunity could be.

Without giving too much away about what Simon from the Pop Up Business School said, here’s 5 things I’ve learnt from attending it:

1. Make sure you’re doing something you enjoy and are passionate about. If you don’t love what you do, why do it? Making your own business and working for yourself can be great, but make sure you’re doing something you like, because if you don’t, eventually you’ll get bored and your potential customers won’t be enthusiastic about it either.

2. You DON’T have to spend money, to make money. This is the number one lie that most people tell you. Sure, depending on what your business is, you may need to spend a bit of money, but there are a lot of things you can get and do for free. For example:

You can build a website for free (weebly, wix, wordpress, etc). Despite some opinions, it’s not unprofessional to use a free website service, in fact, it’s a very smart way of saving money. People spend hundreds on buying a domain name, but then end up hating it after a few months, so it’s best to just use the free services for now and eventually if you feel like you do need to buy a domain, you’ll already have your site up and running to do so.

If you can’t get it for free - you can borrow or barter. Exchanging skills  or services can be a great way to save money - Find someone who has what you need and swap what you have for it.

Social Media is a great way to advertise for free, but you have to make sure what your advertising and who you’re advertising to is niche and unique (I’ll go more into this further down).

Sell your product before you create it - think of amazon, you pay for your product and trust that they will deliver it, you can do the same with your business.

3. You need to know what you’re selling and who you’re selling to. It’s easy to say ‘everyone is my customer/target audience’ but is my 18 year old sister and Jim’s 80 year old grandad who lives in Norway really going to like the same thing? The answer is probably no. If you try to sell to everyone, you won’t sell to anyone. It’s a lot easier to reach specific customers for free using incredible tools on social media, networking and other sales/marketing activities. If your message is too confusing or is too broad, we’ve found it just doesn’t connect with your audience, so you need to think who is most likely to buy my product from me? These are the questions you need to ask yourself?

What is their age range?

What gender do they identify as? (This can be a bit of a tricky question but it’s important to try and narrow down as much as possible)

Where are they from?

What other services/things do they like?

4. Social Media is great, but you need to know how to use it properly. People spend hour on end using social media, often they’re constantly consumed by adverts and people trying to sell things to them, so how can you use it to your advantage and get customers? It’s called social media, not selling media, if you’re constantly asking people ‘buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff’ they probably won’t. Social media is a great tool to engage with potential customers - show them that they can trust you. Using social media can often be a long game, so be prepared. The one thing Simon said over and over again is ‘People are lazy and busy’, but they’re more likely to take action if they see it multiple times. It’s better to spend 30 minutes each day using social media, than 7 hours one week and nothing the next - consistency is key.

5. Trust. Trust is a key thing with potential customers. You wouldn’t buy something if you didn’t trust the seller, so why would your potential customers? Part of that trust can happen when using social media to engage with people - help them to get to know you and your product, get them to like and want what they see and get them to trust you enough to part with their cash.

If you’re really interested about your own business, whether you’re selling products or your services, I would definitely recommend visiting the Pop Up Business School website: https://www.popupbusinessschool.co.uk/ and if you’re serious about it, go to one of their ‘masterclasses’. I’m still not 100% sure if freelance is what I’d like to do after graduating, but either way, they sure taught me a lot about how to work as an artist, how to be more confident in my practice and to know my worth.

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Blog post no.2: How I realised I had changed:

Kenilworth Arts Festival, Kenilworth - September 2018

I said my next post would go more in depth about working with the Kenilworth arts festival, so here it is! 

Working for the Kenilworth Arts Festival has honestly been the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had in my professional life. I met so many amazing people and artists, and it made me realise how much I had changed not only as an artist, but as a person.

I began being selected to exhibit the work that myself, Georgia Bond and our community class had made in their art exhibition in the library. I then asked if the curator, Jessie, needed any help putting it together as I knew how hard it can be, especially having to put it up only a few hours before it opened. We really bonded whilst putting up the art and I we really connected through art, which is the best type of connection! 

Having helped put together the exhibition with her, and telling her about how I was working on making my own freelance photography business, but still looking for clients, she then passed on my name to the festival director, Lewis.

Lewis was the kindest soul, he was so lovely and really helped me to feel like part of the Kenilworth family. I photographed some really great artists whilst at the festival, I was especially excited about photographing Billie Marten and S.Carey and I really liked their music prior to the festival, and I also had the honour of photographing Josienne and Ben who had performed at a festival earlier that I attended in the summer.

This experience also made me realise how much I had grown as a person since starting university. I was also so scared to talk about my work and what I did, but now I love talking about the type of photography I do and am interested in, I spoke to a fellow photographer at one of the events for almost an hour, and only stopped because I had to catch the train home, but I even noticed a change in myself from the start of the week at the end of the festival, I was a lot more confident in talking to other creatives and actually got excited when telling them about my practice. 

That’s where I’m going to leave it for now, I don’t want to make these posts too long so that people get bored reading them. I’m thinking of doing a post to do with living whilst on a placement, i.e. money and getting paid, but I’m not sure if I’ll do that next or in a couple of posts time, we’ll see!

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RISING Global Peace Forum at Coventry Cathedral

12th - 13th September 2018.

I had the honour of photographing some truly amazing and inspiring Peace activists at the RISING event, including the first elected female president of Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. 

This experience was so humbling, not only was I able to meet some very important people, I was able to use my skills as a photographer to show the nature of the event. Having worked this event alongside another great photographer from Coventry, I gained a lot of confidence and skills that I have and will be able to use in my future work. It made me very excited about the future and what it holds.

My Image was also used on the Coventry City Council Website! http://www.coventry.gov.uk/news/article/2632/city_welcomes_peace_runners

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Beat Walk and Talk Event in the Olympic Park, London.

8th September 2018

Photographs by me.

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My First Post

Usually, I’m great at writing and enjoy it a lot, but what I’m not so great at is talking about myself. I’ve tried starting this post too many times, constantly going back on myself, writing and deleting the same thing over and over, but I’m just going to start writing, trying not to delete everything I say and see where it takes me.

I’ve found the summer quite hard in all honesty, I’ve had been trying to find a suitable placement since March this year but I’ve had no luck. After months of thinking, ‘don’t worry, you’ll find a job eventually, just keep applying and someone will hire you’, August came around and I still didn’t have a placement, which is when I decided to freelance and create my own photography business. It wasn’t my first option, but it was something I had thought and researched about, and I’d done a few freelance jobs working with musicians alongside teaching at a community centre once a week, so I thought, how much harder can it be? 

After a month of living in Coventry working freelance, I think I have an answer to that question. It has been tough, but it’s also been incredibly rewarding! I have enjoyed all of the freelance work that I’ve done, and I’ve built up some really great connections!

I worked with Beat, a charity that helps people with eating disorders for my first freelance gig. It was based in the Olympic park in London, which was very exciting as I had never been there before. For my first freelance experience, it was great, it was really relaxed and the people I met were very kind. They liked my images so much, they used them all over social media, and have even asked me to photograph some more events in November, which I’m very excited about. This gave me the confidence to continue what I was doing and build up a clientele.

My second gig was for the RISING Global Peace Forum, which was very different to the Beat event. It was a very formal event with some very important people. I had the honour of photographing some very important Peace activists, such as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected female president in Africa,  and the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Runners, who were running from Leicester through Coventry and on to Leamington. This experience taught me a lot, I gained a lot more confidence and it allowed me to experience a very fast-paced photography environment, where images had to be taken, edited and sent to a PR company all within a couple of hours. 

I think I’m going to leave it as that for my first post before I ramble on too much, I’ll post some pictures of the work I’ve spoken about later. In my next post I’m going to go more in depth about my experience working for the Kenilworth Arts Festival, and possibly write about how I’ve dealt with my money situation.