Doing Photography For A Living Tips~ Yan Preston.

Dr Yan Wang Preston, is a photographer who has a certain interests in landscapes which she captures on a large format camera. Preston has curated numerous solo exhibitions, and has two major photo-book publications, Mother River and Forest, her photographs and writing have been published on many academic sites such as The Guardian.

Between the years 2005 and 2010, Yan was figuring out how to do photography for a living, within this period she used it as a time to try everything, saying yes to every opportunity she was given. To begin with she started by looking at where photographs were presents, books, magazines, calendars, billboards etc. She then took/emailed her pictures to these places to see if they had any opportunities for them. From doing this she was given the opportunity to do work for postcards and got asked to go to the national park and take pictures in the Yorkshire Dales, she profited off this job. Yan also did work for a college on their prospectus and gained six-hundred pound a day for it.

Tips For Starting Out Doing Photography For A Living

• Say you’re a photographer as each opportunity leads to another, people may have work they need doing.

• Be determined and go out and do it yourself, ask for opportunities (you do not know unless you ask).

• Never give up if it does not work out first time, if they don’t see the first email, email them again.

• Always put your website on the bottom of email so that people can view your work.

• Have a terms and conditions form (always include a time period that they have to pay by).

• Get Public Liability Insurance.

• Always do research on how much you should charge for jobs if unsure.

• Send work to student competitions and exhibitions, this helps to get your name and work out there in the industry.

Strategies For Freelancing

• Nothing to lose

• Try everything before filtering things out.

• Run freelancing as a ‘business’, sales target, identifying opportunities and aspirations, strategic plan.

• Be professional; print images to a high standard, website etc.