This being our last session has really got me confused and thinking about my future and what I want to do with it.
James shared some advice with us from different artists.
Advice from Jenny Lewis
- You know more people than you think
- Be strategic and focuses, use social media to follow and research people
- Be supportive to others
This was actually quite helpful, and even though this may seem a little obvious, personally I forget how many people I actually know and how easy it is to use social media to contact people, even if they don't get back to you, it is so easy to send follow up messages every now and then.
Advice from Co-founder of Offspring Photo, Mimi Mollica
- Be consistent
- Create, develop and follow your ideas through
- Share your visions
- Be a resource for others
- Connect people together
- Be kind and recognized as a friendly person
Again, advice that seems obvious but a really great reminder of how far you can get just from being friendly and being curious. As long as you have work to show, some people may be interested. Sharing ideas with others I feel is a really great way to get their opinions and their ideas, they may inspire you more.
These are some resources that James gave us to try and keep an eye on for inspiration or even for work.
Photograd - https://www.photograd.co.uk/
- Call out for 2021 graduatesRed eye network - https://www.redeye.org.uk/
- Photo graduate support scheme
- Based in ManchesterSource - https://www.source.ie/index.php
- Newsletter worth signing up to
- Graduate submissions (I have signed up alongside other of my course mates)RPS - https://rps.org/
- Opportunities and competitions availableMartin Parr foundation - https://www.martinparrfoundation.org/
- The Mini Click Photo talksOffspring Photo Meet - https://photomeet.org/
- Portfolio reviewsRevolv Collective - https://revolv.org.uk/
- Workshops
- Newsletters
- Portfolio reviewsPhotoworks - https://photoworks.org.uk/
- Opportunities
- Talks and BlogPhotographers gallery - https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/
- Articles
- Portfolio ReviewsSmallPDF.com to help compress PDF to smaller sizes
Sapphire Stewart
One of past Bath Spa graduates came on to our session to give us some advice based on her experiences after leaving uni. One of the most significant pieces of advice I think she gave us was that we shouldn’t put pressure on ourselves, some work may be better than others. I felt this so strongly as I put so much pressure on myself and expect so highly of myself and then get very upset when I don’t achieve the highest possible. I also compare myself to others a lot which is so so horrible. Something that gave me a lot of hope was that Sapphire said that she didn’t photograph fora few months after finishing uni as she felt she had done it so much within the course, and this is exactly how I am feeling now.. I feel like I never want to photograph again, but she said that when she came back to it, she was reminded of how much she loved it. So i am praying this will happen for me as well. I found her coming into the session to very helpful as it gave us an insight on how life can be after uni and that it might not go straight into having a plan and an amazing job.
After this talk, James went through a few different of spreading awareness of your work and promoting it to different groups of people. Each platform has different potentials and values for different types of work or for different audiences.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Long form video formats
- reached younger audience
Cons
-Organic reach is failing
- Hard to link multiple platforms
Pros
- Info can be shared quickly
- Easy to connect with new audiences
Cons
- Limited on character limit for posting
- Has a negative reputationYoutube
Pros
- 2nd biggest search engine in the world
- Has expanded over last few years
Cons
- Building an audience can be hard
Personally I only just about use Instagram to share my work, but I have never thought of the idea of using YouTube or Twitter to share any work, so I may have a look at this in the future.