Ask ten photographers: What do you wish you'd known when you started out ?

I had no idea when I started out that I would spend most of my days at home alone in front of a computer. I’ve been doing this for 6 years and there were times when I really struggled with loneliness. A smart friend of mine who just finished a photography degree set up with a group of friends in a shared office/studio and that seems very wise. Another emotional aspect is dealing with constant rejection: pitching ideas and being knocked back again and again takes its toll.

Having working in book publishing for 10 years, I had no illusions about producing work that was uncommercial. I do arty shots sometimes but only for my own pleasure: some students seem to think that a fine-art book of personal work is a realistic and financially rewarding prospect. On a practical note, on my HND course a picture researcher come to talk to us about how things worked from her perspective. I was the only one to speak to her afterwards, get her details and stay in touch. Don’t let contacts slip away from you.

The last practical thing I wish I’d known is the extent you can get things paid for. When I went on my first press trip for a commissioned job the light went on! Since then I’ve started doing travel writing as it’s easier to secure a commission for that and then you scrounge your trip and offer the pix as well. The images then go to stock for extra cash.

Plenty of writers submit their (sometimes not bad) pix with articles so I didn’t see why photographers shouldn’t move the boundary in the other direction, although I do find the writing hard to do well.

After leaving the world of book publishing for that of photography six years ago, Anna Watson has shot extensively for books, magazines and travel companies. She thanks her lucky stars that her first commission didn’t come from a sewage company

Everyone comes to a specialism differently. I did it having become interested in interiors photography; I analysed the elements making up a typical interiors feature and decided I had the skills, or could acquire them.

The first mistake I made was in not having the courage to aim right at the middle of the market, but offering a potential feature to one of the third-rank title which depend on the too-humble newcomer ripe for exploitation.

I wish I’d known early on it was unwise to accept lower fees from inferior titles on the basis that one is “learning” and will “move on to better things” soon. Either your work is good enough to command a proper fee, or it’s not worth publishing.

Magazine publishing is more flexible than ever, but that makes it more volatile too: titles come & go. I submitted a finished feature to one of IPC’s well-known titles a few years ago, but before it could appear IPC pulled the plug on Homes & Ideas! I was of course paid – but would one of the lesser publishers have been willing or able to pay up? And if I’d known another magazine led a hand-to-mouth financial existence, aggravated by the shysters in charge, I wouldn’t have contributed in the first place.

If there’s one thing I’ve never learned, and wish I’d been able to, it’s the ability to assess with confidence whether a given feature idea will stand up or not. I’ve had some truly stunning homes declined by a string of editors; I’ve had proposals accepted that truly surprised me, one of which provided a short trip to the Costa del Sol recently to cover an architect-designed villa. Even with detailed guidance from mags, some of which have very well specified requirements, I find it impossible to predict a “sure thing”.

Anthony Harrison wants your house. Literally. He’s always looking for potential feature homes: contact him at info@houseshoot.com

I don’t think I was ever going to square editorial photography with earning a good living, but a better understanding of income and expenditure would have made a considerable difference throughout my life as a photographer.

I had an incredibly lucky start to my career. In 1975 The Telegraph Magazine began giving me freelance assignments whilst I was still a student at the London College of Printing. It was in the days when students got grants and The Telegraph supplied film and advance expenses for commissions.

One day Tom Hawkyard, the magazine’s Picture Editor asked me if I had submitted any invoices for the work I had done. I said no.

Tom then asked if I knew what an invoice was. When I said I didn’t he replied “let me show you” and on the top of a blank piece of paper wrote the word “Invoice”. Below that he wrote the Telegraph’s address and my address, a date and then “For photography of …”.

Graham Harrison worked as a freelance photographer for the Telegraph Magazine for over ten years shooting portraits, travel stories, royal weddings and documentary projects. Although he also worked for Vogue, The World of Interiors and Car magazine and has had two books published by the British Museum he still hopes that earning a respectable income from editorial photography will be possible, one day.

1. Your ability to take photos is secondary to your ability to sell yourself. If you can’t persuade a potential client, you will never get the chance. Unfortunately this penalises honesty. ‘Can I show you some second-rate photos I did for a third-rate magazine?’ never seems to impress.

2. Most of us perfectionists see only the faults in our own work, whilst other peoples’ looks far better. That’s because there are many brilliant photographers in the world and you aren’t one. Learn to lie about that or get an agent to do it for you.

3. Don’t become dependent on too few clients. Their promotion, job change, pregnancy, or accounting squeeze will drop you in the cack just as you thought things were going OK.

4. Flavour of the month is about all photographers can hope for. Newness matters. Once you’re over 35 you’ve had it. You’re too expensive, too shrewd about copyright grabs, and hair dye and GAP clothes just aren’t cool even if you think so.

5. Practice staying awake for at least 48hrs straight doing the post-production clients don’t believe is necessary, or fixing computers so you can (also most weekends).

6. Never sleep with art editors, no matter how drunk you get. Verbal agreements about meaningless shags are worthless here.

7. Learn to enjoy doing book-keeping and accounts. Ignoring this produces similar results to 6. except they’re team handed and use rubber gloves.

8. Don’t use your credit cards to finance your work. You can get in big trouble very fast when you have a slack period. NB when, not if. Buy your own home, then remortgage, remortgage, remortgage. You owe this to EMAP shareholders, apparently.

9. Marry someone filthy rich. Preferably a trustee of National Geographic, who can’t stand the sight of you and wants you out of the house three months at a time.

10. If you have children, take photos and write down their names so you can recognise them when you next see them. If you don’t have children, so much the better, you can’t afford the maintenance anyway given what Adobe charge.

11. That decades of dedication and relentless learning would result in becoming enormously expert at a vast range of skills of almost no commercial value.

Tony Sleep describes himself as a professional epitaph writer and autonomous imaging device for when Nokias just aren’t good enough. With 25 years of commissioned work for magazines, charities and social housing photography to his credit, he is hoping to move up to a Big Issue franchise soon.

After 18 years in this business I’m still killing myself.

So what do I wish I’d known when I started out? Well I wish I’d known that the first warning I was given wasn’t just someone trying to put me off in order to test how much I really wanted to pursue this career, but that it’s actually true.

I wish I’d known that there would come a time when clients and their accountants would forget to remember that good photography is not a cost, but a benefit and investment for their businesses and publications, that quality images would help them attract clients and revenue that would cancel out the cost of the photography.

I wish I’d known that not only does the World not owe you a living (which is something I’ve always believed anyway), but that no one owes you a living even if they commission you to work for them or they use your library images to help them make their own living.

I wish I’d known that digital would kill the professional image. In fact professionals are struggling to compete with amateurs because professionals can’t afford to work for free on account of this being their only source of income, while amateurs already have paid jobs that allow them to earn a living even when their photography doesn’t.

I wish I’d known that digital cameras and computers would flood image libraries with schmaltzy pictures of kittens and dandelions.

I wish I’d known that publishers weren’t interested in supporting and nurturing quality, dedicated professionals rather than using anything they could get away with using for free and that shareholders were more important in the short term than quality publications in the long term.

I wish I’d known that being an electrician has more professional kudos, stability and a higher standard of living.

More images are used in more ways now than at any time in the history of photography, but dumbing down and a general “it’ll do” attitude have left the profession in a mess. There may come a time when someone who wants genuine quality will struggle to find a photographer still in business to undertake their work. If they do, they really will have to pay through the nose for it.

Tim Gander started as a freelance at The Bath Chronicle (when it was a daily!) in 1989 before going to college to get his formal qualifications. He then spent 6 years at The News, Portsmouth (when it was a broadsheet) and left to go freelance again, working for national newspapers, magazines and now pretty much exclusively for corporate clients. He lives in Somerset with his wife, two children, cat, four mice and two rabbits.

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