1. Humility is paramount to growth – No matter how good you think you are, you always have a tremendous amount of room to grow. More than in most professions, mentorship can be immensely valuable, but having a know-it-all attitude will not get you anywhere, especially as a freelancer. Mentorship has been the single biggest growth factor for my photography and approach and success in the overall industry. I’ll never forget sitting down at the New York Times offices and going through a recent assignment of work with a mentor of mine. Having someone with experience articulate your own work will help you see your work in a whole new light. You will start to see your strengths and your weaknesses in a new way, maybe even for the first time. For me, mentors told me things that I needed to hear; things that your closest loves ones will never tell you. Mentors have also been able to open doors I never thought possible. For established photogs or editors, it’s simply a phone call or email away to get your foot in the door of a magazine or news agency.

2. Equipment only gets you so far – Most working professionals don’t dwell on gear. What’s funny (a lot of times not) is that hobbyist spend more time focusing on gear and talking about it, than becoming a better photographer. The thing is hobbyist have day jobs and having the latest equipment is more of a fun luxury rather than a cost of doing business. Most professionals are too busy on assignment to keep up on the latest and greatest in the market. Most pro’s can take good photos with pretty much anything. So just a quick word of advice, pro’s hate talking gear with hobbyist, or any one for that matter. Odds are, you know more than they do.

My usual travel set-up

3. Your work will not sell itself – In today’s market, learning how to sell your work is just as important as how to create it. Research shows that it takes 6-8 times for an editor to see your work and correlate it to your name. How often are you hitting the pavement, the phone, and sending emails – don’t hope that some editor is going to call you out of the blue and offer you an assignment because they saw a photo of yours somewhere. You need to be strategic about being strategic. Set goals. Get a mentor. Put in the necessary time and expect way more rejection than support – it’s part of the game.

Hitting the street

4. Experience is key to getting your foot in the door – The point is, get out there and just do it. A friend of mine was a recent J school graduate and didn’t have any real world experience. His solution; he did his homework, saw potential in going to Kenya 2 months before the elections, started writing for local Kenyan papers, next thing he knew he was writing daily for Reuters getting published around the globe. After that experience, he was able to come back to the states and get his foot in the door with editors because of his experience. It gave him a certain ‘field credibility’ that most 23 year-olds rarely have. The older you get, the more field credibility becomes expected. So do it while you’re especially young with nothing tying you down.

Getting experience - Darfur Refugee Camp

5. You don’t have to travel to far away places to take good photos – Subject matter is everything, but exotic isn’t what it used to be. With photographers in every corner of the globe, work in exotic locals are being uploaded all the time. Which means quality storytelling should be your biggest focus, even if it is in your own backyard.

In my own backyard

6. Mistakes are inevitable – Botched interviews, problems on assignment, being naïve, you name it, mistakes are inevitable and we all make them. Recently, I missed an assignment for the NY Times because I didn’t realize my phone was off – I got passed up on a good opportunity. The key to mistakes is learning from them.

Sleeping on the job - Central African Republic

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Opinion, Photography 101, Photojournalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.