The Man With A Plan

My photographer friend Ben refers to me as “the man with a plan”, which I find hilarious and flattering at the same time! I am so happy with my job that I just can’t stop talking about it! And every time that I learn something new or when I find out about an interesting event or even when something that I have applied to my business works out perfectly I just feel the need to share it so that others can benefit from it. That’s just who I am, I believe in the community. 

And when he says that I have a plan it’s because I actually do. I don’t just sit around waiting for someone to come hire me. I actively promote myself via various channels so that my potential clients know that I exist. A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with Marketing Mentor and Business Coach Ilise Benun, the author of the Marketing Plan + eCalendar that I used as a base for my marketing strategy and of which I spoke about in my post ”Your One Person Orchestra”. During our conversation I told her about how I feel that the key elements to a successful marketing strategy are:

• having a plan 
• being consistent with the plan
• managing expectations

Having a clear plan, even if it’s a mental plan, will give you a structure and will help you stay focused on what you want to accomplish. You can’t just do random marketing actions and then complain that you aren’t getting any results. You have to do your homework, research what others are doing, what is working and what is not, talk to people in both your industry and other industries to gather ideas, follow blogs from marketing experts like Ilise, sit down and write down what you have learned and define short, medium and long term goals to keep track of your progress.

Your plan must include at least:

• What: What is your goal? What do you want to accomplish? More new clients? More returning clients? More visibility?
• Why: Why would others want to know about you? What is your contents? What is your message? What do you want others to know about yourself and about what you offer?
• Who: Who is your target? Who is the recipient of your message? Who are you talking to? Are they all alike or do you have to segment them?
• When: When are you sending your message? Once a year? Once a trimester? Will it be the same message or will you adapt it to the time of year when you are sending it or to the target that is receiving it?
• Where: Where are you applying your marketing efforts? What are your channels? Are you doing mailings? Email or print? Are you using social media? 
• How: Do you have a budget? Are you doing this alone? Do you need guidance?

It might sound a bit overwhelming at first but once you start asking yourself all these questions you will realize that you know most of the answers. You just need to put them in order and create a structure that you can follow. I know that as creatives the business side of our jobs is boring and sometimes confusing. But if you take your time to create a plan that you can realistically stick to you will not have to worry about not knowing which steps to take in the future. You just follow the plan.

In my following posts I will talk about consistency and managing expectations.

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“It’s Not Personal, Sonny. It’s Strictly Business.”

This famous line by Al Pacino from the movie The Godfather exemplifies perfectly the struggle of every freelancer. There is a very fine line dividing personal life from work life. And it gets even worse for creatives. Everything we create is an extension of ourselves so when someone dislikes what we make or speaks badly of what we do, we take it very, very bad. Our creations are our babies and nobody wants to hear that they have an ugly baby!

We must learn to separate ourselves from what we create if we want to survive in the creative industry:

• Managing rejection is key for any creative. We have to be able to see that if someone doesn’t like what we do or how we do it, it only means that they are not our target. It’s not us, it’s them. You can’t please everyone; someone out there will like what we do, we just need to keep on looking.

• Learning to see ourselves as brands and as businesses makes it easier for us to sell ourselves. We are no longer trying to sell how good we are at something; we are now saying how our client will benefit from hiring our brand.

But even if we achieve to separate the person from the business, we should never forget that this industry is made out of humans. Quoting another movie, this time Jerry Maguire: “The key to this business is personal relationships”, said Tom Cruise. That everything we do is strictly business doesn’t mean that we have to dehumanise our brand. It only means that the person and the brand must live separately but in harmony… like the ying and the yang.

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Copycat… Copycat… What Are They Feeding You?

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I say, imitation is inherent to all animals, including humans. We learn to walk by imitating others, we learn to talk by imitating others, all the skills that we gain in our learning process we get by imitating someone else. But while we are growing up, we take a little bit of what we imitate from one source and a little bit from another source and we build our own personality. And then we become an individual. The same applies to creative endeavours: we see something that inspires us, we replicate it to try to understand it and then we add our own personality and create something new. But, do we?

Quoting Iris Apfel: “There’s so much sameness these days. Everything is homogenized. I hate it.” Everywhere you look singers are singing the same songs, designers are designing the same clothes, high street shops are selling the same styles and even we photographers are taking the same photos over and over again. Imitating and getting inspired by others is not bad, it’s part of the creative process. But repeatedly photocopying what sells more or what magazines want more or what made someone else successful or famous is making this world boring.

Vivienne Westwood famously encouraged aspiring designers to copy, copy, copy in order to learn new techniques. But once you have mastered the craft, you have to add your personal touch. You can find inspiration anywhere, even outside of your industry. Like Anna Wintour said “I really think you have to go out and see things - screenings, theatre, exhibitions (…) Every time you go out, even a walk in the street, you have an idea.”

My former boss used to say that trying to be the best at something is the easy path; you just have to do it better than the rest. But the challenge lies in trying to be different, doing what no one else is doing. Instead of offering our clients the same thing that everyone else is offering only at a different rate, our aim should be to offer something different. Let’s all take a few minutes to review our body of work and compare it to what everyone else is doing. Does it stand out? Does it get lost in the crowd? Does it have a soul?

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Are Creatives Sales-Challenged?

Last week I had an interesting chat with Marketing Mentor and Business Coach Ilise Benun, the author of the Marketing Plan + eCalendar that I used as a base for my marketing strategy and of which I spoke about in my post ”Your One Person Orchestra”. She was interested in knowing how had I adapted her plan to my business. And while we were discussing that, I told her that her guidance was much appreciated because I am a really bad at selling myself. This was not the first time that she had heard this statement, and our conversation inspired her post ”Lame Marketing Excuse #1: ‘I’m really bad at selling myself.’”.

The questions that remained in my head after we finished our call were: do I think that I am bad at selling myself because I can’t sell anything or because I haven’t learned how to do it? And if it’s only that I can’t sell myself, is it because I can’t/don’t-know-how-to do it or because i don’t know what to sell? Most creatives struggle with the business side of the craft because there is a lack of business knowledge in the creative industry. But when someone asks you to recommend a good restaurant or a good movie, you don’t need any business knowledge to sell the one that you think is the best. Are we creatives doomed from the beginning because we have made ourselves believe that we are not business people?

All of this made me arrive to the conclusion that most of the times we think that we are so bad at selling that we can’t even sell water in the desert, when in reality the only problem is that we don’t know how to do it, not that we can’t. Take my example of the restaurant recommendation. You like that restaurant that you went to so much that you would speak about it and recommend it even if no one has asked you for your recommendation. And some of the people that you talk to about said restaurant will buy into your pitch and actually go to the restaurant themselves. You’ve sold it! So why not sell yourself the same way?

I think that the issue here is that when we speak about another brand’s benefits we do it in the third person, but when we speak about ours, we do it in the first. It then becomes personal, and by trying to protect our ego from rejection we convince ourselves that we are bad at sales so that we don’t have to be in a uncomfortable position. If the other person doesn’t like my restaurant recommendation I don’t feel hurt, but if they don’t like my pitch on my brand I feel like a failure.

The solution to the “I can’t sell myself or I don’t know how to do it” dilemma might not be an easy one to find, but there are a few things that I think we can start doing to make it easier on ourselves when we have to pitch our brand to someone else:

1. Know your brand to the last detail. The more you know about your offer, your rates, your skills, your strengths and your weaknesses, the easier it will be to talk about what you do.

2. Believe in yourself. I talked about this in this post and I can’t stress it enough. Everyone else’s opinion of our products or services is subjective. Whether others like them or not doesn’t mean that they are good or bad. It just means that they are not the product or service for them. If you believe in what you do go out there and talk about it. The more you sell yourself the more odds you will have of finding those who like what you offer.

3. Ask for clients recommendations and see what they say about you. This might give you ideas of the things that you need to start telling about yourself.

4. Try to speak of your brand on the third person as an exercise and see what selling points you come up with.

I will put these four points in practice and will write about my experience in a future post. In the meantime, do you have any tips that you can share with us on selling ones selves?

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We Are All A Work-In-Progress

A few days ago I was watching Linda Cliatt-Wayman’s TED Talk on being a principal in a failing high school and how she managed to fix a broken school. One of the things she spoke about was how failure is not a permanent condition and it got me into thinking about my own life and my journey so far. You see, I left my country 15 years ago today and there has been plenty moments where I felt that I had failed in finding the right country to live in, or finding the right job, or starting a life with the right partner, and it was only through understanding that my whole life was a work in progress that I managed to get myself out of the hole and push myself to keep on trying. Failing in whatever we put our efforts on is not bad; not knowing what to do with the lessons learned from failing is catastrophic.

We are all a work in progress… and that is ok, because it means that there is room for improvement and we can always become better. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge your failures or your deficiencies. Everyone has them! Even the people who you think are the most accomplished persons in the world struggle with them. The difference and what makes them successful is that they act on them, they not just dwell on them.

We are not there… not yet! But we will! If we want to and if we work towards that goal and have the patience and consistency to do it. Repeat in your mind: “not yet”. As long as we let ourselves know that there is a possibility to reach our goal we are automatically giving ourselves the chance to reach it. And when we do reach it, embrace the feeling of accomplishment and let yourself understand that once you reach a new level there is a whole new set of challenges to overcome. And that is ok. That’s life.

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Believe In Yourself

The guy in the photo is me, circa Autumn 2013. I had just finished photography school and was desperately looking for work experience in Barcelona. But we were just at the peak of the recession and the creative industry was badly affected. People around me doubted my decision to become a photographer (except for my husband) and life seemed to be proving them right. But thankfully I am stubborn, and when I set my mind to something there is no going back.

It’s been two years now since that photo… and now I live in a different city, I am a full-time photographer and I am at the happiest moment in my life. And all it took was having a clear vision of my goal, a lot of guts to pursue it and listening to no one except for my inner voice. It’s crazy how much you can accomplish when you believe in yourself and how much can change in such a short period of time.

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I’m A Finalist! 32nd AOP Awards

I’m thrilled to share the news with you all! My photos have been selected as finalists for the 32nd AOP Photography Awards! The Association of Photographers - AOP - was formed in 1968 as the Association of Fashion and Advertising Photographers and is one of the most prestigious professional photographers’ associations in the world. 

All the finalists’ photos will be exhibited at The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, from Thursday 8th October until Sunday 11th October along side ShootLDN as part of photoblock. 

I am so humbled and feel like just by being selected as a finalist I am already a winner… I would love to see you all there during the days of the exhibition.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout my creative path these past few years.

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Shooting An Interchangeable Bra Campaign

A few months ago we partnered with La G Productions and Space Model Management to shoot the summer campaign for The Bra Lab, a California brand that created and patented the first interchangeable bra. This was our first time working with La G Productions and The Bra Lab and we are very grateful for the opportunity they gave us to shoot their designs.

The Bra Lab designs for the sleek and classy woman who’s willing to show off her assets and flaunt her style. A woman who likes a fashion forward and functional outfit. The concept of the shoot was to represent this woman in a very editorial but realistic way. We shot the location part of the photoshoot in a very classic London home in Notting Hill and the studio part in Shoreditch. The models, makeup, hair and styling were provided by Space Model Management.

We can’t wait for the release of the full campaign and are very much looking forward to working with this amazing crew again! As usual, we leave you with a few behind the scenes photos.

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Live The Life You Want To Be Remembered By

This past week my grandma past away. She was a strong woman, a catalan immigrant who alongside my grandpa moved with their family to the other side of the planet during the aftermath of the Second World War. They were looking for a place to start a new life and leave their past behind so that they could give their children a better future. And it was in Panama where they ended up, a small country where they raised their children and where decades later became grandparents to me, my brother and all my cousins. Today I remember her as a hardworking and restless woman from whom I got my passion for cooking, my control freakness and my emigrant gene. She was the one who taught me to be proud of my heritage, who taught me our language and our culture and who always reminded me that I was as much catalan as I was panamanian. Today I can only think of her with love and with admiration, and when my time comes I would like to be remembered for at least half of the accomplishments that she had in her life. Mami, iaia, avia… T’estimo i et trobaré a faltar… molt…

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Shooting A Designer Shoes Campaign

Last week we shot the SS16 campaign for shoe designer Aksha Fernandez. Go check out her beautiful creations! This is the third season that we shoot her collection and we are very thankful to her and her team for trusting their imagery to us one more time.

The brief aligned perfectly with the ethos of her brand. Aksha designs for the every day woman who ventures beyond her daily life. Therefore, the shoot intended to capture a glimpse of a woman’s life, wearing different shoes and carrying out different activities/chores. Reinterpreting the saying “…wearing many hats” and turning it into “…wearing many shoes”.

The location was a contemporary flat that looked like an everyday woman’s home. Nothing glamorous nor stylish, it had to look realistic. The styling was provided by different designers like Merci Me London who collaborated with Aksha on the making of the campaign. Hair and makeup were done by Lily Rose Gregory, a makeup artist with whom we regularly work and whose makeup looks are to die for!

We can’t wait to see the campaign released next year! In the meantime we leave you with some behind the scenes from the shoot. Enjoy!

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Models: When Applying To Casting Calls…

Being a model is not easy and the market is tough out there. There is a lot of competition, there is a lot of poorly paid jobs, there is a lot of rejection. We know, we understand, we are all in this together and even if we are working from a different side of the industry, we are still in the same industry. But don’t make it harder on yourself, your reputation is at stake and a name is easily tainted.

This week we have been casting female models for a shoe campaign that we will be shooting soon. Hundreds of models applied, but only about 10% matched the criteria specified on the casting call. So we were forced to go through almost 500 applications from which only 45 more or less matched what we were looking for according to our ad. Why would you apply for a casting call where someone is looking for a shoe size 4 girl if you are a shoe size 7? We all need the money, and cities like London are really expensive to live in, but you don’t want to look desperate. Nobody wants to cast a desperate person. And it is also disrespectful, because basically you are telling us that you don’t mind wasting our times at all.

This is why my blog post today is about some best practices to take into account when applying to casting calls:

1. Matching the criteria is important: if we are looking for a shoe size 4 girl, what makes someone think that we are going to cast a shoe size 7 person? How are you going to manage to shrink your feet to make them fit into the shoes? Or if we are looking for a black girl and you are asian, how are you going to manage to change your race for the job?

2. You can’t fit all the sizes: we were casting shoe size 4 and shoe size 6 female models. One girl said that she could fit shoe sizes 4, 5, 6 and 7. Literally.

3. Geography is important: we were casting only female models living in London. If you live in Australia, why would you even apply?

4. The dates are set: if the shoot is on X day and you know that you will not be available on said date, why apply? We are all working to produce a campaign shoot with a date in mind and it is very unlikely that we would change this date because one of the applicants is only available a week later.

5. Show that you care: after filtering the dissapointing amount of almost 450 applications, we were left with a group of suitable applicants from which we shortlisted around 20. We sent emails to all the girls and almost half of them haven’t responded yet. So you are telling me that after all that we have been through to shortlist you now you are not going to even care to reply when we tell you that we want to meet you in person? If you are not available anymore, please have the decency to let us know. Don’t burn any bridges.

6. Show up to the casting: one of the shortlisted girls sent us a text saying that she couldn’t come to the casting day we had given her and asked to be switched to the following day. We let her come the next morning. The next day she sent us another text asking if we could see her in the afternoon instead. We let her come in the afternoon. In the afternoon she texted again to see if she could come a few hours later than we had agreed. Obviously we didn’t cast this girl. If she can’t even come to the casting what guarantees us that she will come on the day of the actual job?

From this casting call we only selected one girl out of 500 applicants. Thankfully, one that we are really happy with. But for the second girl we had to call someone who had worked with us before to see if she was available and luckily she was. So this here is our last piece of advice today: if you are professional and do a great job and leave a good impression, you might get called back for another job again in the future.

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Your One Person Orchestra

Most of us who are freelancers find ourselves constantly wearing so many hats that at times it is really hard to keep up. As a freelance photographer I am like a one man orchestra where I play all the instruments at once and my clients and peers are the audience of my one man show. It is hard work, especially because you always feel like you should be paying more attention to something different from what you are paying attention to, without leaving everything else unanttended. It can get overwhealming at times, but it is also very rewarding.

For me the key to not loosing my mind is to delegate or automate those tasks that I feel do not require to be done by myself. Also, being organized and consistent helps me interiorize tasks so much that I just do them without even thinking about them. Here are a few things that I do that help me stay focused on the core of my craft without the distractions of the daily administrative tasks:

• I assign a day of the week for each repetitive or administrative task. For instance, every Wednesday I write on my blog. So I have an alert set up to remind me every Wednesday morning that I have to write my weekly post. I do the same for other tasks like researching for new clients or sending emails to clients with whom I have worked before or finding out about new photography contests. Each day of the week has different tasks assigned.

• When I get up, the first thing that I do is check my social media feeds and notifications and while having breakfast I prepare my daily post. To manage all my social media effortlessly I use Hootsuite and to know which is the best time to post to reach most of my audience I use Iconosquare. I also use this last one to track all those people who like to follow/unfollow because they mess up my statistics.
• I knew since day one that I wanted an affordable online portfolio which was easy to use and which would take all the burden of maintaining a website off my shoulders. I use format.com, it’s the one that works for me.
• I keep track of my prospective and actual jobs with fotoClient. It’s an easy and centralized way to manage your upcoming projects.
• I have alerts set up in different online job boards so that I passively receive job alerts everyday. I use services like ImageBrief, FashionWorkie, StarNow or TheFreelancersClub.
• As a freelancer most of the times you not only have to manage your business but you are also in charge of taking care of your home, especially if your spouse has a full-time job. Because of this, I do all my shopping online. For photographic equipment I trust Calumet, for props I always go to Amazon, I get all my stationary printed from Moo and my go to print lab is DS Colour Lab.

These are only a few things that I do to keep my business up and running as effortlessly as possible. Do you have any of your own that you would like to share?

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The Worst Attempt Is The One You Don’t Make

I used to dread Mondays. And also Sunday afternoons, because they meant that the weekend was almost over. Actually, I used to hate the whole day Sunday, because it was the last day of the weekend and of my break from work. So that means that I would spend 4 days a week longing for Friday to come, but only really enjoyed Friday if I didn’t have to work late, and then I would try to make the most out of the Friday night and the Saturday because once it was already Sunday all the fun was over. It was a terrible way of looking at life. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

But then one day I decided to quit my job, change career paths and finally do what I really enjoyed doing. And now I work almost every day of the week, weekends included, but I have never been happier nor more fulfilled in my whole life. I now love Mondays. As a matter of fact, I love every single day of the week, because when I am working I am happy, and when I am off, I am not despising the working day to come and I can really enjoy my spare time.

I am going to repeat it: I am happy. And all it took was taking the risk to follow my dream. When I was little, whenever I was facing a difficult choice, my dad would always tell me “the worst attempt is the one you don’t make.” What is the worst that can happen? That I fail? That I learn from my mistakes? That someone says “no”? If someone says “no” today, someone else might say “yes” tomorrow. If I am not good enough at this point that means that there is room for improvement and I can always get better.

If you are facing a big decision right now and all that is stopping you from moving forward is fear, I say to you “Jump!”. This world belongs to those who dare.

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gO cRaZy

Create. Go crazy. Let yourself go. There is no right or wrong, no pretty or ugly, everything is subjective. There is only your vision and other people’s vision. Learn the rules, then break them. Research and get inspired by others but create something new, something that it’s yours. Everyone is trying to be the best or struggling to not be the worst; the challenge is being different. Develop your personal style. Be flexible, be receptive, be open to advice and criticism but know that you have the power to decide what to do with those inputs. Don’t let anyone tell you that what you are doing is not good. It’s your work, not theirs. Believe in yourself. Not everyone is going to like what you do and that is ok. Stop believing those who say “this is THE way to do it” and start developing your own way. It’s your life, it’s your style and it’s your work. Create. Go crazy. Let yourself go.

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Rejection Makes You Stronger

Let’s face it: nobody likes being rejected. As much as we dislike to admit it, human beings are like most animals, always looking for acceptance from the pack. But how much rejection can you take before deciding to switch packs or alienate yourself for good? If you are like me and when you started following your dream you knew that quitting was not an option, the answer to this question is simple: you just take it all.

We creatives face rejection every day of our lives. And it hurts, badly. Because for us our creations are like our little babies and nobody wants to hear that they have an ugly baby. We see them as the most beautiful creatures in the world! So when someone says that they don’t like our work or that they think that we should be doing it differently, we automatically feel defeated. But we shouldn’t. Why? Because everyone has the right to have an opinion and opinions are very subjective. This person (client, peer, friend, relative) might not like what you do but the next one coming along might think that your work is the most amazing work in the planet. Learning to deal with feedback is one of the most important skills in the creatives toolset.

So how do you learn how to handle feedback? How do you cope with rejection? Here are a few things that I do that hopefully might work for you as well:

• When it comes to positive feedback I embrace it, I feed my creative ego for a few seconds but I don’t let it go to my head. As I said before, this person’s opinion is subjective. The next person might think my work is rubbish.
• But when it comes to rejection, that’s when I feel that the way you deal with it separates loosers from winners. Negative feedback comes in two flavours and you must be able to identify them. Is it constructive feedback or destructive feedback?
• If it’s constructive, I feel thankful. There are people who are taking their time to help me be better. Then, I analyze the message. Do I agree with what they say? If I follow their advice will my work get better? Do I want to follow their advice? You don’t always have to do what other people suggest you to do. It’s still their subjective opinion. I have had plenty mentors in my career who have given my valuable pieces of advice. Some of them I have followed, some of them I have not. You have the power to decide what to do with the feedback and when to decide to follow it.
• If it’s destructive, I try not to let it affect me. Instead I tell myself that at least my work is not being taken for granted and is causing some sort of reaction. I obviously feel hurt for a moment but then I try to be objective. Is there any true in what this person is saying or are they just being mean? Can I learn something from their words? Either way, I try to find a positive outcome for the experience.

People say that there are only two certain things in life: death and taxes. But I would add a third one: rejection. It’s always going to be there and if you don’t like the idea you might as well move to a deserted island because rejection is inherent to social interaction. Learning to deal with it and to keep on going even after you have heard a thousand “no’s” will only get you closer to the people who will be giving you the “yes”.

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Limitations Are Invitations To Grow

They say that it’s all about the Journey, not the Destination. But for some people, the obstacles that they encounter during the journey are enough reason to not take the journey at all. But what if we stop seeing obstacles as stoppers and start seeing them as challenges or tests that we need to pass in order to move forward? What if we took those limitations and turned them into sources of lessons to be learned to help us grow?

When I started in photography I used to think that I was never going to advance in my career because I didn’t have the latest camera, nor the appropiate lighting equipment, nor I had the contacts in the industry to help me get the jobs. Thankfully, I didn’t let any of those things stop me and I was able to work with those limitations and eventually overcome them. And now that I look back I feel like those limitations were necessary for me to learn that it’s not the camera, it’s the eye, or that if you don’t have contacts then you have to go out and get them.

Accepting your limitations is the first step. And don’t be afraid to admit that you have them, everyone does. The important thing is to do something about them. You can embrace them and work with what you have, work around them and look for alternative paths or overcome them and get rid of them completely. But you should never let them stop you.

Take as an example what happened to me today during London’s heat wave. I accepted my limitation (I can’t stand the heat), tried to embrace it and work with what I have (stripped to my undies, didn’t work), tried to work around it and look for alternative paths (not enough money to fly to Iceland) and finally decided to overcome the obstacle (went out and bought a fan). But I didn’t let the heat wave prevent me from writing my weekly post.

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People Don’t Buy Drills, They Buy Holes

Back when I was working in my previous industry I received from my boss one of those lessons that mark you for life. We were looking for a new software for our production department that would replace the one that we had been using for years. My department came up with various options from industry leaders and major software brands but to our shock my boss opted for an unknown product from a small company that he had previously worked with. His reasoning was that this small company already knew his business and his needs and because of their size they were more flexible and it was easier for them to adapt to the particular way he conducted his company. As he put it: he wasn’t buying a tool, he was buying a solution.

Our clients are the same way. More often than not they are not looking for the photographer with the latest camera, nor the makeup artist who can draw the straightest winged eye, nor the stylist with the most celebrity friends. Clients are looking for the reliable creative, the one who adapts easily and understands them, the one who is flexible and who can react quickly to the unexpected, the one who is not just a perfect product but the product that satisfies their needs. We spend too much time and energy trying to be better than the rest of our peers instead of focusing on trying to be the best solution for those who actually hire us.

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The English And The Groin

Whenever I talk to my non-Spanish speaking friends about the importance of using accents in Spanish, I always use the same example: it is not the same to write “inglés” than to write “ingles”. The first one, with an accent, means “English” or “englishman”; the second one, without the accent, means “groin”. That tiny little detail when you write in Spanish makes a huge difference in the meaning of the word. And in cases like this one, it can keep you out of trouble. The Devil is in the detail, they say.

The same applies to your daily life, especially your work. Paying attention to details separates the amateur from the professional. I remember when I was starting out as a photographer that I would get really overwhelmed while shooting. I was trying to control all the technicalities of photography (apperture, speed, ISO, depth of field, composition, framing) while trying really hard to pay attention to my subject and their surroundings. It was just too much and of course I would leave so many things unattended that I would spend hours in post-processing trying to correct them. But with practice you get better at your craft and you automate the technicalities leaving you free to focus on the rest of the details.

Here are a few tips to help you pay better attention to details:

• Plan ahead: the more you plan in advance, the more you can concentrate on minor details during the execution of your project.
• Seek feedback: four eyes see more than two.
• Stop, check, continue: no matter how stressful and time challenging the project is, you will not go wrong if you stop for a second and check the progress and quality of your work.
• “We will fix this later”: wrong! Try to get everything as perfect as possible from the beginning. There will always be things that need some tweaking afterwards but the less the better.
• Zoom in / zoom out: as you work on your project, take a look at your progress by looking at your results from far and also from very close. Sometimes things look good from a distance but once you zoom in it’s a completely different story.

These are just a few things to keep in mind to help you pay more attention to details. Do you have any tips or ideas of your own? Share them with us in the comments field below!

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Nobody Is Born Knowing

Do you get an upset stomach every time that you are doing something for the first time? You can relax, there is no need to call the doctor. There is nothing wrong with you, it happens to everyone. Even to those who seem extremely confident, they just know how to fake it better. When you are doing something for the first time, it is not your fault that you have not done it before and that you have no experience doing it. We all have to start somewhere. But it is definitely your fault if you do not prepare for it. We all must recognize our limitations and be proactive addressing them.

My father used to say “nobody learns with someone else’s head”, meaning that only through our own experiences were we able to learn from our achievements and mistakes. And in a way this is true: I can lecture you on photography for days but only when you pick up the camera is when you understand what taking photos is all about. But when you learn how to use the camera and then you decide that you want to be a photographer you will face the reality that taking photos and running a photography business are two completely different things. And, of course, you can google “how to run a photography business”, or even ask your friends and peers, and more times than not you will be able to find answers. But there will come times when the answers that you find do not adapt to your particular situation and those are the times when you need advice from someone with experience in the field.  Those are the times when you need a mentor.

Mentors come in different sizes and flavours. A mentor could be a relative, a friend, your boss, your peer or even someone that you pay for having a mentoring session. In any case, a mentor is not someone who will tell you how to do your craft or who will do the work for you. That’s on you. A mentor is someone who will give you advice from their own experience when you feel stuck or when you face a new challenge that you just cannot seem to find a way to overcome. Do not expect to come to a mentor with a generic question like “can you help me become a photographer?” because that is not the way it works. Instead, you must come after thoroughly doing your research and when speaking to the mentor seems like the last resort. That way you will be able to ask specific questions and you will get your time or money’s worth.

I have had many mentors throughout my career, from the free advisors like friends and peers to the professional ones who offer mentoring sessions in exchange of a fee, and they have all taught me valuable lessons. Being a succesful creative nowadays is not only about knowing your craft; you also need to know the business. If you have doubts that you cannot seem to solve online, if you feel that you are not advancing on your career or even if you just need feedback to know if you are heading the right way, a one on one chat with a mentor might be all that you need.

Resources:

- Marketing Mentor

- The Freelancers Club

- Crunch

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How To Put Together A Fashion Editorial For Submission?

When I wrote my series of blog posts on everything you need to know before you organize your first photoshoot I received a lot of questions about my process when I am putting together the shoot. If you haven’t read the posts, I recommend you read them first and then you come back and continue reading this post. It’s a series of 4 posts and you can find them by following these links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

I already wrote about my process when organising fashion editorials for submissions when I was interviewed by Rion Magazine at the beginning of the year. You can see the full interview here. The following is an extract of that interview:

“(…) let’s say that
I am shooting an editorial that I want to pitch to a magazine and it’s a
small shoot:

So a couple of months before the actual shoot I think about what I am
going to shoot. What is the story behind the shoot, what do I want the
models to be doing in the photos, where are those models (location),
what will they be wearing that conveys the message that I am trying to
express, etc… and with all this information I would create a moodboard.

Once I have the general idea of the shoot I think about when I will
shoot (I usually give myself 2 months for a shoot like this), what kind
of crew do I need and where will I be shooting this. So I contact my
regular team and if they are not available then I would contact people
that I have met in networking events or that I have worked with at some
point and sometimes even people who have contacted me directly
expressing their interest in doing something with me. While setting up
the team I start quoting locations.

In the meantime, I usually already know which stylist I will be
working with but if I don’t then that would be one of the first crew
members that I would look for. Because the stylist will be the one who
would translate all my moodboard into the actual brands and clothes to
use. It’s also true that at times the stylists are the ones who come to
me with a concept they want to explore and we develop it together. So it
works the other way around too.

The team is complete, the location has been sourced and the date set.
Then I work with each of the team members on coming up with the
different looks for the shoot: the different makeups to do, how many
different hair styles we will use, how will the video look like, etc.

At this point I pitch the whole concept to a magazine that I have in
mind at the moment. I will send them the moodboard (style, makeup, hair,
lighting, type of models) and the whole info on the crew and the date
and time of the shoot.

And meanwhile the stylist is sourcing the clothes from brands and PR
agencies and they show me the different style ideas to see if I like
where they are going.

By then a whole month has gone by and then we start looking for
models. Depending on the type of model we want we then contact the
agency that we feel has what we are looking for.

We are now at two weeks of the shoot and the stylist more or less has
decided the brands and styles we will use. We then put the looks
together and most of the times we will create a couple of looks more
than the ones planned just in case.

One week before the shoot I will confirm crew, location and models
and if anyone or anything fails then we still have one week to react.

Two days before the shoot I prepare a detailed schedule for the day:
when are we starting, when are we wrapping up, how long does hair and
makeup take, how long does each of the photos will take to shoot
including changes in clothes and hair and makeup, etc. This will help
the whole team know exactly at what point in time we are at each moment
during the shoot. I then print this schedule along with the call sheet,
the moodboard, the names and photos of the models so everyone knows
their names and the concept of the shoot. An informed team is key to the
success of the shoot.

The day before the shoot I prepare all my equipment and pack
everything I am taking with me, including the refreshments for the whole
crew and the models. A fed team is a happy team, and a happy team makes
better photos.

The day of the shoot I arrive at least 15min earlier so I am there
when everyone else arrives. I paste the printed schedule and the rest of
the sheets on the wall and when everyone is there I have a 15min
meeting explaining the plan for the day.

The day goes by, we wrap up and the shooting is done. Then I get home
and the first thing I do is backup all the photos to my backup disk.
And then the selection and editing process begins. Depending on the type
of shoot the editing can last from 30 minutes to 4 hours per photo. So
the next few days after the shoot I spend them retouching.

Once the photos are retouched I share them with the crew to see if
they see something that might need correcting and that I haven’t
noticed. Once all the corrections are made, the photos are sent to the
magazine and I hold my breath until they give me their approval. And
then just wait until the release date of the issue.”

I hope this answers most of your questions. If you still have any doubts do not hesitate to comment below or to drop us a line and we will be happy to help!

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