Professional Frameworks 3

We had a session in university discussing our 5 year plans with a peer group. I've always been one who doesn't know what I want to do after 1 year never mind after 5, so I found this difficult but after hearing the plans of my peers I started to get some idea of what I should be aiming to do. Most of my peers were talking about updating their websites, portfolios, blogs and CV's, I realised this is something I needed to do too.

I began looking at my current CV's which I created for as the result of a uni module. I created a regular and a creative CV, I will look at the feedback I received from my tutors and see how I can improve the CV's. I need to create both a physical and an online portfolio, I will look through and re-visit my current best images and projects and put them together to create it! A friend told me about a site called 'Behance' which is an online portfolio site, I will look into using this.The last thing I need to improve on is networking so I've decided to make a Twitter account.

Know More Photographers/Artists

Throughout my photographic life my work will be compared to other photographers around the world so I will need to recognize the names of these photographers in order to understand what is being referred to within my work. I admittedly don't know enough about the contextual side of photography and would like to learn more. I am going to set up a 'photographer wall' in my bedroom where every now and again I'll find a photographer that I've not previously heard of and I'll research their work and stick a brief description and example of it onto my wall, I will build this wall up and can use it for referencing and building up my knowledge on a range on different photographers.

I will also take advantage of the knowledge of my peers and tutors in this field and will ask and use reading lists that they give me. throughout the duration of this module and for as long as I feel is needed, after this module, I will continue to research and post information I find about different photographers.

Income Knowledge For Different Photography Jobs

Looking on various websites I came across this one which I found helpful because it not only gives a small amount on info on the income a photography job brings but it gives tips and information on what you need to reach the goal of becoming a professional photographer.

http://creativepool.com/articles/jobdescriptions/photographer-job-description

Salary and other benefits

These figures are only a guide, as actual rates of pay may vary, depending on the employer and where people live.

Junior assistant photographers start at about £12,000 a year.
With experience this may rise to around £20,000.
Some specialists earn over £50,000.

Income varies for freelancers depending on experience and workload, and they can earn between £150 and £600 a day.

As of right now I don't know what job I want when I leave university, ideally I would like a photography related job but I'll have to take up whatever opportunities are thrown my way at first then hopefully progress onto the path that I'm hoping will lead to a successful photography career. The type of photography I think I want to work in would be either freelance or editorial, I know these seem strange as they're both incredibly different yet I do have a strong interest in both. I'm assuming freelance would be harder to earn a living from so I would like to run both of these jobs side by side, at least until I'm earning enough.

http://petapixel.com/2013/07/09/the-economic-realities-of-editorial-photography/

Freelance fees in the editorial space currently range from $1,000 at the occasional high-paying national publication, down to around $65 at some regional newspapers. The average creative fee currently seems to hover between $200-$500 at the national magazines, wire services and larger newspapers. Working for these rates can lead to a decent standard of living if you’re able to shoot regularly enough so that the income is consistent.

For example, if you were to shoot three days per week — one day for the New York Times, one day for Sports Illustrated and one day for the AP — you’d make around $1,050 for that week. If you could do that every week, a 50-week income would be around $52,500 per year before taxes, retirement funding, health insurance costs, equipment acquisition and marketing expenses.

Confidently Working In The Studio

I don't like to work in the studio but this might just be due to the fact that I'm not very confident in how to use the equipment and what each piece does. I tend to like natural lighting rather than artificial but open spaces rather than a compact studio room but learning how to use the studio is something I will benefit from knowing.

I will talk to some of my peers and suggest we book out the studio for some practice sessions, we can share tips and help each other out until we're confident enough to go into the studio alone.

Increased Photoshop Skill

I see myself as a basic Photoshop user, I don't yet know how to use Photoshop to it's full potential, the skills I acquire are not enough to make the most out of what is offered to me so to increase my Photoshop skills I've been watching YouTube videos on how to do certain things and reading online tutorials, this has helped me to gain a wider knowledge of the different things that Photoshop offers.

I've always struggled to manipulate model images in a professional way, I'm used to following my own rules rather than the correct rules and it often ends up looking 'shabby' and 'unprofessional' so I looked online and found a tutorial which has taught me how to do lots of things I never knew how to do before, I'm going to try them out and see if they're beneficial skills to know for the future. http://sixrevisions.com/photoshop/26-professional-photoshop-retouching-tutorials/

The photo below is an image of my which my peer Ana Cunha took of me when doing a photo shoot on Mac make-up. I'll be using this image to manipulate using the techniques I learn from the online tutorial.

I followed some of the steps in the tutorial and realised it wasn't for me, I wasn't keep on the techniques yet I tried to follow them and I produced this:

I did learn some new things with that tutorial although I need to work on my execution! I learn a quick way to smooth out the skin as opposed to going over the whole thing in small clicks with the 'Healing Brush Tool' and I now know how to soften the colour when adding it to something such as my hair.

Confidently Speaking In Front Of A Group

I have a big confidence issue especially when it comes to talking in front of groups of people, I struggle to confidently do so even if they're people I know well and speak to often. In order to help myself with my confidence issues I've always tired to include public interaction within parts of my previous assignments just to get myself used to talking to people, I've done this a lot of times ranging from asking the public to fill out questionnaires, asking them if I can take a photo of them and arranging full on sit down interviews with strangers. I've found that the more I talk to the public the greater my confidence does grow this is why I try to keep up with doing it rather than letting this technique slide away. For my last photography assignment I based it around public opinions so told myself to ask strangers around Manchester to fill out some small questionnaires and I asked them if I could document their answers to the questionnaires on paper, by taking a photo of them and recording their voice reading out their answer, this particular project gave me a massive confidence boost because I felt as though I was asking too much off the public yet most of them agreed to do it for me, I received a couple of no's, it's always off putting but I've learnt to be able to pick myself up and move on until someone else says yes!

I've pushed myself to speak up when I'm in groups of people even if they're just my family or friends, I still feel nervous doing so but each time I push myself to do it I feel better about myself and more confident to be able to speak up in front of peers, colleagues or strangers.

Each time I've been set a presentation to do in front of my tutors and peers I've practiced doing it in front of small groups of family and friends multiple times before hand to get myself used to speaking while looking upon a small group, I feel as though this increases the confidence in myself when it comes to doing the actual presentation which then reflects on my grade at the end.

I'll continue doing these things, plus think of more which will carry on pushing my confidence up so I can then tackle the main objective of being able to confidently speak in front of a group.