SWOT Analysis:
· Strengths: Basic photography understanding through art A level, creative, got driving license and car, organised, punctual, hard working, friendly and can work well with others
· Weaknesses: need more confidence, improve photography knowledge, improve knowledge on image files, haven’t got much own equipment as I only have my standard kit lens
· Opportunities: Lots of photographers in Liverpool to potentially gain work experience from, opportunity to try street photography as I don't feel I have had the opportunity to do so.
· Threats: Competitive industry, lots of professional photographers in Liverpool such as Matthew Rycraft and Keyhole photography.
Skills I need for a photography career - Wedding photographer:
Technical skills:
· Understanding of business since working for yourself- need knowledge of business laws and how to successfully set up a freelance business for wedding photography.
· Marketing skills, this has dramatically changed over time as the introduction of social media meant that you can showcase your work for free to thousands of people on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
· Completion of degree programme beneficial- can help show clients that you have an in depth understanding of photography and might help you to stand out against other photographers.
· Creative to generate new ideas for each shoot to make them different in order to have a interesting and vast portfolio that demonstrates creativity and makes the work stand out.
· Understanding of light as some shoots make take place outdoors- need to be able to still capture high quality photos in low lighting conditions such as church, need to have knowledge of lighting in order to understand how to set up a shot so it looks effective. Also, due to advances in technology there is now a wide range of portable lighting equipment which can be used on location therefore an understanding of artificial lighting is crucial.
· Understanding of composition- this need to be used effectively as nowadays, most people take photos on smart phones any post them on the internet, therefore professional photos need to stand out as people will be paying for this service.
· Understanding of lenses
· Legal understanding (e.g is it legal to take photos on private property?)
· Networking skills
People skills:
· Calm under pressure as there is an expectation for wedding photographers to produce the best photos for a couples wedding as it is memories for life.
· Make people feel as ease as they may not be used to having their photo taken
· Assertive to direct people for group shots but without being bossy.
· Confident, need to be able to get people’s attention and take initiate to set up effective shots.
· Good at dealing with children as there may be a lot of children at a wedding and you need to be able to communicate with them and make them feel at ease as they can often be quite shy.
· Likeable and friendly
· Some clients may already have idea to consider and incorporate
· Problem solving, there may be some complications on that day that you have to deal with in order to still get that quality photos
· Create a good relationship with clients
General Skills:
· Attention to detail
· Organisation
· Punctuality
· Patience
· Stress tolerance
· Independence
· Stamina (long days)
Resources:
· Need own lenses
· Editing software
· Need to be able to commute easily with all equipment (drive)
· Lighting equipment
· Backup equipment
· Tripods and lighting stands
Spare batteries and memory cards
My current position is a photography student and my overall aim for throughout my study is to learn as much as I can about the subject so that I know how to take photos that are creative, interesting and of a creative standard, and also how to successfully set up and maintain my own photography business. I am not yet completely sure as to what sector of photography I would like to go into but the thing that most interests me is wedding photography and I would like to learn a lot more about this as it is potentially something, I could see myself doing as a career. Therefore, I am going to research into local wedding photographers who I can email and ask about what they’re job consists of so I can find out more about this career option. I also want to be able to complete some work experience so I am going to make note of local wedding photographers who I like and who I could ask to shadow for work experience.
However, I have completed some very small but paid photography jobs. This year I shot some products as advertisement for a local brewery which I then went on to shoot events for. Being paid for an event really helped me to increase my confidence as I had to communicate with the public in order to get the required photographs for the job as I had to have images to give to the business. I have also completed some work for a local caravan park near to where I live and they wanted some advertisement shots for their website.
Whilst these were only small-scale jobs, I completed it taught me a lot about what working in the photography industry is like. I had to be creative under pressure in order to create interesting and captivating images in a short amount of time, I also had to remain focused on what images the business wanted and the purpose of these images. For example, when photographing an event for the brewery, the client wanted candit images of people enjoying the beer that the brewery produced which pushed me out my comfort zone as I am not very confident approaching people but this helped me improve on my confidence a lot as I had to in order to get the images I needed.
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