#TravelTuesday is here again! Is it just me or does it seem to be coming around quicker during lockdown, teasing me in that I can’t actually go anywhere! It’s me, Dave Williams, and I’m here today and every Tuesday. Let’s start with just a little thing:
Is the lockdown lending itself to generating stronger creativity amongst us? It could be—just take a look around at all the creatives you follow on social media to see exactly what they’re up to. I’ll pick out a perfect example of someone who’s diverting their creativity from photography towards other things: KelbyOne-instructing, guitar-shredding, drum-smashing, pixel-tweaking legend, Mark Heaps has been getting involved in a socially-distant music festival. There are ways for us to keep occupied, so take some inspiration from those around you and keep safe!
So, here’s the point of today’s post:
Not only are we struggling, but our favourite companies are struggling. We can show our support for them, and perhaps this can lead to bigger things for us. Here’s what I mean:
One way to monetise your photography is through paid or sponsored reviews. These things come in many forms in our digital age, ranging from magazines, both online and offline, through blog posts, Instagram posts, YouTube videos, there are many ways to showcase products that we can get involved in. There is potential to be paid for doing this, but it starts off somewhere smaller where we get recognition, and this is what I’d urge you all to try.
Whatever products or services you use in your photography or creativity, show thanks to the people who made them and show off what you can do with them. If you use KelbyOne to learn photography, show KelbyOne what you’ve learned by sharing the results and tagging them, telling your friends, and even telling KelbyOne themselves. Use this same technique for any company whose product or services you use by simply switching out the word “KelbyOne” in these instructions. For example, if you use Platypod, show them and tell them what you achieve with it. Likewise for Tamron, ProFoto, or whoever else.
There are a lot of people out there in our industry who say you shouldn’t do anything for free, and I understand where this comes from—we should be making money and if we give our service away, we make no money. The caveat here is that we have to start somewhere, and even when we get to that “somewhere” we still need to encourage people to continue to book us. This little giveaway of some words and photos can lead to the bigger things, or to the same thing in exchange for cold, hard cash the next time you do it.
If you’re struggling for things to do with your creativity whilst you’re stuck in the house, grab a photo from the archive and write about what you used to make it or how you learned to make it and go tell that company the story!
Much love
Dave
