At the start of February I had the pleasure of doing a guest lecture at The Northern School of Art. I graduated from there in 2017 and they invited me to do a virtual talk on my journey as a freelance photographer over the past 4 years.
When writing my presentation it gave me chance to reflect on that journey. It’s been very easy, over the past 12 months, to lose sight of a lot of things and only focus on the work that I’ve not had the opportunity to do. But going back over the past 4 years’ worth of work, I realised how fortunate I’ve been to have worked in some really special places and meet some interesting people. Some of whom have such interesting stories to tell that they’ve inspired me to write blog posts. My job has taken me all over the country and I’ve had the chance to visit some really beautiful towns, cities and villages.
At the start of 2020, a major source of my work closed their doors which was a worrying time. But around that time, I took on a new local client which promised to be the start of something bigger. My business was already in a period of change and then March 2020 all non-essential businesses had to close their doors. Schools were out, my 9 year old daughter was at home for the rest of that school year. My partner is a key worker so the home schooling fell to me. For various reasons, my business fell through the cracks in terms of support from the government, despite the attempts from professional bodies (AOP, BIPP, et al) to lobby those in power, that didn’t ever change. Everything, including my income, ground to a halt.
I don’t need to remind anyone about the ups and downs of the various, confusing lockdowns being enforced, lifted, re-enforced, lifted… eat out to help out stay home but don’t stay home hands face space etc. But there were no real opportunities for me to work, even in the short window when freelance photography was allowed (many photographers interpreted the rules differently and I know some still traded) I couldn’t. Christmas came and went, another lockdown loomed and inevitably started and felt worse than the others; back to home schooling, back to zero financial help from the government, back to no opportunity to work.
But the new year brought the chance to talk to undergraduates studying photography and I jumped at that chance. For one, it gave me something else to think about other than year 5 literacy and maths. It also gave me the chance to shoot new photographs. I approached the talk honestly and openly, I talked about my experiences, how I work, the leg work I had to put in to achieve what I have, my clients and some of the jobs I’ve undertaken. Knowing that the students were stuck at home (with some trying to finish their final major projects, God help them!) I thought it might be useful to show them various easy lighting set-ups using natural light, reflectors, flash, and then studio lights.
From the feedback, it seemed to go down well and hopefully there were one or two points that each student could take away from the talk. Their energy made me feel positive about the future of the industry.
And with this week’s government announcement detailing the ‘roadmap out of lockdown’ (added to the list of terms that irk, along with ‘the new normal’ and ‘unprecedented times’) for the first time in a long time, it feels like we can start to look forward. It is time to start planning and getting my business ready to open and that feels slightly less of an uphill task than it once did.
Photograph of madeleines taken at my kitchen table with a behind the scenes picture taken on my iphone.
