2009 A Year of Discovery
December 28th, 2009
Published in
Business, Photography
Tags: 2009, creativity, inspiration, personal, portrait-photography, rasmusrasmussen.com, stock-photography, UGCX
I often have plans that don’t pan out, or that I end up not sticking to for one reason or another, but every now and then one of them will work out better than imagined. My plan for 2009 was to put microstock photography aside and try to shed the rule-set of that particular genre. I had hoped that it would let me dive deeper into developing my own style.
Early in 2009, I broke with my plan to attend the first UGCX conference, where I sat on a microstock panel and got to meet a lot of interesting people. As inspiring as that was, I stuck to my guns upon returning to Seattle. I began looking inwards at my approach to creativity in general, trying to find commonalities between my other interests (mainly writing and music making) and photography. It confirmed an old favorite of mine, the 1:10 Creative Ratio.
All this soul searching also brought to light the many distractions a photographer faces. It led to a post about where good photography comes from. Here’s a hint: It’s not the camera.
Over summer, I allowed myself to dillydally into other fields yet again, writing in particular. By this point it was clear that microstock photography wasn’t my calling, but having dedicated myself to that for the last few years, I now felt lost. There were some tough times throughout the year, where I struggled with direction, doubt and life in general.
As fall crept in, I found renewed energy. In an attempt to kick myself into gear, and at the same time do some good, I ran the Free Headshot Event. Two weeks of preparation, one day of shooting and a couple of days of processing made dozens of people happy, which was just what I needed. Shortly thereafter, I found myself posting ads on Craigslist and Facebook, and sure enough, the clients started trickling in.
In the past, my ‘advertising’ has been of the word-of-mouth variety, which I still believe to be the strongest kind there is. Posting ads like this was new to me, which is why I started with free places to put them. I researched ad prices for local print media as well, but decided not to place any ads just yet. First, I wanted to re-evaluate my business practices. The reason: It was obvious from the beginning that I was selling my services too cheap.
I calculated how much time I spent on a typical job, then divided my fee with the time spent. The result put me just below $20/hour, not taking any shoot-related expenses into account (like transportation or gear wear and tear). No wonder I was struggling to keep up, even though I had enough clients. I have recently tripled my rates in response to this.
Going out on your own is a scary prospect. One of my strongest demons was the notion, that the jack of all trades is also the king of none. I won that fight by realizing that I’m not really selling a trade. I’m in the vision-trading business. What you’re paying for when you hire me is not ‘a photographer’ but ‘Rasmus Rasmussen’. Realizing that difference was a great feeling, though it presented another question: What is my vision?
I went in search of My Own Way, and took a critical look at my work over the last few years. I noticed several things, one being that the photos where I had asked my subject to smile, felt the least like me. So I decided to fine-tune that aspect by not asking for smiles, but get them to come naturally. However, I never spend too much time analyzing my own images. Personal style is constant and ever-evolving at the same time, so all I want to do is foster and promote that growth. The last thing I want, is to turn a few observations about my style into a set of rules.
Looking forward, it’s hard to tell what 2010 has in store. I’m extremely excited about the launch of my new ongoing pet-project, Another Passion. I plan on dedicating a fair amount of time to this, and use it as a platform to both build my network and promote my own brand of portraiture. I’m also going to give some attention to stock photography again. During 2009 I came up with a number of shoot ideas, as well as a new niche to try out for my portfolio. Still, I think it’s safe to say that stock photography won’t have the priority it used to. Whatever awaits, I’m looking forward to another year of both personal and professional growth.
