.SHOWING THE WORLD YOUR WORK
Getting your work noticed can be very challenging. It can take years to get spotted, or it could be days. Either way, it’s still not an easy process.
Through my own experiences and being a photographer since I was 15, I have tried all manor of things to get my work out in the open and make some money from it. It is always a good idea to start small and work your way up (unless something amazing happens, then GO FOR IT!). I remember exhibiting my GCSE Photography coursework at my high school and a lot of people were talking about it and I ended up making a few sales. This gave me an amazing confidence boost so I went to local hotels, doctors surgeries, and anything with a waiting room to see if I was able to leave some prints on the walls and some business cards. I ended up getting one small doctors surgery to say yes and I sold 3 pieces, and at 15, I was very happy with that!
It’s all about being persistant and keeping the work up to date. After the doctors surgery I totally ran dry on places to show my work and gave up (stupid thing to do), I recommend spreading around to other places around the area you live, you never know, it may prevail and it could lead to bigger things if you find somewhere and someone spots your work. Pushing your work out is one of the most important things to do when starting off as a creative. There are so many successful ways of doing so in this day and age, its just a case of helping people to see it.
SOCIAL MEDIAS
I’m a huge fan of using social media. I think it’s one of the best ways to push work out without having to do too much and not having to mess around walking to businesses (which you will have to do at some point anyway), but for starting off its brilliant! I wish I was using them to their full advantage when I was younger.
Tumblr is by far my favourite as a young creative. I have been on the site since my first year at university (when I was 18) and it’s easy to use and perfect for pushing work out and having a platform to use for inspiration also. There is a LOT of amazing work on there from all over the world which is why I’m such a big fan of it. If I’m having a creative block then I spend a couple of hours trawling through Tumblr and submerging myself in other peoples work to stimulate my mind.
I will say that it does take a bit of time to get a good Tumblr up and running and you don’t want to post too many things in a day or it wont get noticed as much. It took me until just after my 21st birthday to have one of my images really take off and as a result of that I got a lot more followers which means a lot more people are being subjected to my work. It is work sticking too, and even if it nothing comes from your work on there, its still a fantastic platform to use.
Facebook is great for having ‘Pages’ and posting things on there to entice people in. I have a couple of pages (DOTJPEG & my studio) which all link back to myself and I get to build up an audience.
A lot of people get irritated with people self promoting on Facebook, but at the end of the day, yes, they may be getting irritated, but they all know that you are there and what you do. It’s almost like subliminal messaging in a way. I don’t like using Facebook for self promotion, but it kinda has to be done, especially at the beginning as you still don’t know who might see it.
Twitter is also another good one to use, I’m still training myself to use it but its great for pushing things out and telling the world what you are getting up to in your latest projects and stuff. If using twitter, I recommend following local artists/photographers/creatives and create a little networking group so you can see what they are doing and hopefully they will follow you back and see what you are doing. Obviously it sucks when you have 4000 more ‘following’ than you do actual followers, but all in good time my pets! As I said earlier, be persistent and don’t give up! All good things come to those who wait, and this is a motto I try to live by. If it was all so easy, then everyone would be famous and be in some creative spotlight, you will have to work hard and keep producing work so that people are constantly being faced with your pieces online and your name is flashing up regularly.
WEBSITE
Websites are crucial to pushing your work out. It doesn’t have to be an all singing, all dancing website with all the latest technology on it, It just has to be easy to navigate, look professional, and showcase your work and some information about yourself.
I currently use Cargo Collective as my platform for my website, but there are so many other good ones, and it doesn’t even have to be ‘website’ website, Tumblr is just as good as anything else and I know quite a lot of photographers who use it for their website. Below is a list of possible platforms to use that are simple:
Having a website is the key, and then you can use all the social medias to push it out and get people looking at it and knowing exactly what you do. Without a working website then it can make things difficult and sometimes very unprofessional. If you have been spotted by someone and they ask for a business card or what your website is, you don’t really want to say “I dont have one, but I have a facebook page” because it sounds so unprofessional and you will get looked upon differently. The social media pages are great for helping along side a website, but not instead of.
Tumblr, although it is a blog, you can change the web address to be your website name (www.yourname.com) if you want so that it looks and sounds more professional. As long as its easy to use and looks professional then you are fine!
MAGAZINES / PRINT / FEATURES
It’s always worth trawling the internet to find online magazines or print magazines that do your style of photography and seeing if they want any of your images. You most likely wont get paid for it, but its a very good way of pushing your work and website out. A lot of art/photography magazines online and in print look for submissions either under a title or for things that may catch their eye.
If you search in google ‘Photography magazine submissions’ then there are loads of websites you can try. Tumblr is also a good one for this, there a handful of really well known photography pages in the tumblr world that showcase submission work from creatives around the world like Tumblr Open Arts and The Photographers Society which accept peoples submissions. I have used both and found that it helps people to go back to your personal Tumblr page and see the rest of the work that you produce.
Also, there is no harm in emailing magazines and seeing if they are looking for any work and sending a link to your website, or seeing if the magazine has a set title and you can apply to have your work put in. One of my favourite magazines ‘125 Magazine’ is a biannual magazine that sets a title and you can send in your work. It is a very noted magazine with a lot of readers.
It would be better to start with smaller magazines to start with and see what happens there, but still try every now and again with some of the bigger ones. Try local newspapers, local magazines, blogs, etc.
It can never hurt to send emails, the worst that will happen is you wont get a reply or the answer will be no, but at the end of the day, how much time have you actually wasted sending an email? Yes, its sucks, but this is what happens. It’s better to know you have tried than not tried at all, no?
