REPORT

Starting out as a photography graduate going down the artistic route

As a photographer you can either go down the creative route or the commercial route. The commercial route is where you work for someone else under a set brief like an events photographer or a product photographer. The creative route is the artistic route in which you basically set your own brief for your images and try to get your work noticed by professionals by exhibiting work in a space or at a gallery.

Going down the artistic route as a photographer is a difficult route to take due to lack of career opportunities on offer. I study photography and will be taking this route when I graduate university rather than the commercial route because I like to create my own imagery based on my own imaginative ideas to portray a narrative creatively rather than photographing for a company based on a set brief having to photograph what you are told to rather than what you would like to do. If you go down the creative route you decide everything; where you shoot, when you shoot, what you shoot and how dramatically you edit your images post production so your possibilities are endless and you can enjoy yourself a lot more whilst creating the imagery as you can really express yourself.

The first problem I will face straight away once I have graduated will be making money, a difficult factor whilst starting out in the artistic community so I have already come to the decision that I am going to get a part time job, probably in retail, for the time being whilst I get everything sorted. This is to provide funds for living costs and to later go towards the costs of printing and materials.

Make a portfolio

I feel that most importantly I will need to create a digital and printed portfolio of work as soon as possible, this will contain all of the creative imagery that I have created during my time at university so that I have a collection of work to show my photography and editing skills as well as my creativity to potential clients. They can then further decide if they want to showcase my work alongside others. The portfolio itself needs to look professional so I will take my time organising the layout and make sure to pay for a decent print quality. The benefits of this are that it will not only last a long while due to the quality of the materials but the high quality of the printing will make my images look the best they can in terms of sharpness and colour. I expect the cost of the portfolio to be around £50 or more depending on the type of paper and finish (1).

Getting noticed online

Getting your work online is very beneficial. It is free so it should be taken advantage of. To have your work noticed online is a huge step towards your work becoming circulated and seen by potential clients. The downside to this is that you will need to create multiple accounts on different social media sites which require regular updating to keep people interested. You will also need to take the time to design and create your own website as this needs to look of a professional standard to be taken seriously by potential clients.

The website should contain your best work and be regularly updated with your best work. Social media sites do not have to be updated with just your ‘best’ work but could be updated with every piece you have created that has gone well as this means you can update them more regularly and people often only follow someone on social media if they know they update on a daily/weekly basis. I already have various social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Behance and Twitter. Due to being busy during my university course I do not yet update regularly so do not have many followers. I also have my own website with my best work on, I used Wix.com to create my website as it allowed you to create a professional looking, personalised site for free which meant I didn’t have to spend money and had something to share with potential clients instead of a portfolio (2).

Having an online presence is also beneficial for engaging in conversation with other professionals. Explore other photographers work, directly message them about their work and make a conversation. They could end up inviting you to events and vice versa. This means you could end up with a whole group of professionals who know of your work and can introduce you to other professionals by sharing your work with them.

Networking

This brings me on to Networking. You need to attend industry events if you want to get yourself out there more quickly, you will be face to face with other professionals. There are always events happening in the create industry whether it be the opening of a new gallery, an exhibition at a local university or a fundraising even at a nearby gallery. You need to research local events to keep up to date with what is going on where and make sure you attend some or all of them. Don’t wait for clients to find you, go out and find them. Exhibitions and galleries are a great place to go to converse with other professionals who attend that can give you advice and direct you to others.

You can bring your materials with you to these events also. You can showcase your portfolio here and create business cards to hand out and leave at the gallery/exhibit. Business cards only cost around £9.99 for 250 prints (3), maybe more depending on the thickness and finish which is not too much of an expense. You can put an image/images on a business card to make them stand out as well as adding details like the name of your website and social media accounts as well as adding contact details like a phone number and an email address. Leaving these at events you attend means that they will be more than likely picked up by professionals and if interested in your work they will contact you or share your work with others. I feel that networking like this is the most beneficial way to get noticed in the creative industry.

Exhibiting work

Finding a space to exhibit your work can sometimes be a struggle as I have realised during my latest university project but it is not impossible and can be free of charge excluding printing. The best way to do this is to communicate with the managers of the space/gallery to ask about exhibiting your work and share your ideas with them. You may have a long waiting time due to people having booked the space already but if they like your idea they will more than likely offer you the space for a period of time. Some spaces cost anything between £50 and £400+ for a week and some can be free, for up to a month. It is best to research places in your local areas online to see if they have details about their space and costs if this is going to be an issue. You can sell work that you exhibit which means you could potentially get your material costs back and the price is up to you.

I have currently planned an exhibit of my work in collaboration with a class friend around the theme mental health. We are exhibiting in a local alcohol bar originally set up with recovering alcoholics in mind and thought this would be a good place as it related to our theme. The manager liked our idea and we got the space free for a month after conversing our thoughts and ideas to them via email. This will be a great opportunity to get our work noticed and we can leave materials like business cards and portfolios there. Hopefully over the course of the month we will be contacted about our work.

We are also selling our prints at the exhibit. This is a long shot as we do not currently know anyone interested in purchasing our work but it will help to get our printing costs back if anyone buys our work over the month/at the end of the month.

What next?

I am currently working on making business cards and a portfolio and will be creating flyers to leave at my end of year show for university where I will advertise our exhibition. This will hopefully expand our public audience. I will display my portfolio at the exhibit.

After thinking about what I have already done, what I have planned and what materials I need to create I know that in order to carry on after my exhibition I will need to plan on attending networking events to converse with other professionals as well as regularly updating my social media sites in order to keep my work out there to get noticed by potential clients. I need to make sure I invest in a good quality portfolio to bring to exhibitions and networking events and if Café Sobar enjoy our exhibit I could ask if they would exhibit our future work again and if they agree start planning a new series of images to work on over the coming months. This will all help me towards starting out going down the artistic route.



References:

(1) photobox.co.uk
(2) wix.com
(3) vistaprint.co.uk