Pretty exciting week or two. I've been off work for a week back tomorrow. 
I know most people feel the same way but I really wish I could make a living from photography as I absolutely fucking love it, and also, I have some talent for it. If I won the lottery, I would buy shitloads of gear and do it all day, every day and I guess that's when you know you have a passion that you should pursue as a career if money was removed from the equation, would you do it for free?
I've been reading a lot about marketing and watching videos I bought from CreativeLive, buying e-books etc & a lot of what is suggested I'm already doing. Any spare moment I have when I'm not spending time with my family I'm usually reading about photography/business stuff or else watching Netflix or playing videogames while feeling guilty I'm not doing photography/business stuff.
I NEED to make this business work. I can't go on working for someone else for much longer. Unfortunately, although a few gigs have come my way, not many of them have been paying gigs and those that have have been fairly low paid so far. Even more frustratingly, I get calls, but they're from other business, either offering to make me a website, SEO services for my site, or advertising space. So people CAN find me, but not clients.
I know it's a long game and I've been in business less than a year, but it's just frustrating.
On the bright side, I've had a few good shoots recently. Firstly, we went to see Neil Gaiman on his book tour at Ely, near where we live. It was held inside Ely cathedral and I took several shots of Neil during his talk and also while he was signing our books, (I asked if it was ok & he graciously agreed.)
Then on Saturday morning, I woke up to several new comments on my blog about it and when I looked into it, Neil had not only used one of my photos in his journal/blog about the book tour, but had also included a link to my site:
Neil Gaiman's Journal
No prizes for guessing when Neil Gaiman linked to my website.
He also said, for those of you who don't click through the link;
I know most people feel the same way but I really wish I could make a living from photography as I absolutely fucking love it, and also, I have some talent for it. If I won the lottery, I would buy shitloads of gear and do it all day, every day and I guess that's when you know you have a passion that you should pursue as a career if money was removed from the equation, would you do it for free?
I've been reading a lot about marketing and watching videos I bought from CreativeLive, buying e-books etc & a lot of what is suggested I'm already doing. Any spare moment I have when I'm not spending time with my family I'm usually reading about photography/business stuff or else watching Netflix or playing videogames while feeling guilty I'm not doing photography/business stuff.
I NEED to make this business work. I can't go on working for someone else for much longer. Unfortunately, although a few gigs have come my way, not many of them have been paying gigs and those that have have been fairly low paid so far. Even more frustratingly, I get calls, but they're from other business, either offering to make me a website, SEO services for my site, or advertising space. So people CAN find me, but not clients.
I know it's a long game and I've been in business less than a year, but it's just frustrating.
On the bright side, I've had a few good shoots recently. Firstly, we went to see Neil Gaiman on his book tour at Ely, near where we live. It was held inside Ely cathedral and I took several shots of Neil during his talk and also while he was signing our books, (I asked if it was ok & he graciously agreed.)
Then on Saturday morning, I woke up to several new comments on my blog about it and when I looked into it, Neil had not only used one of my photos in his journal/blog about the book tour, but had also included a link to my site:
Neil Gaiman's Journal
No prizes for guessing when Neil Gaiman linked to my website.
He also said, for those of you who don't click through the link;
Some of the best signing photos I've seen
Wow. 
Then the week after I joined a local photography group via the Meetups app/site and participated in a group 'togs session with two models:
and then got a press pass to attend CamCon:
But enough about me, how the hell are you doing?
Glad your photography is doing so well, I remember when you were just starting to try to get into a career with it! I wish you luck on finding more paid gigs, I know you don't need luck with your photography itself, it's always so amazing!