Adam Elson's Photography

Lecture: Craig Easton

For this lecture we were introduced to documentary photographer, Craig Easton.

For the lecture we were told on where Craig got his start through working alongside independent newspapers as a starting point for his photography career, he also noted he worked alongside Barclays Bank and small businesses during his career. The other portion of the lecture was more focused around Craig’s development of his photography skills and how he started off from single shots and proceeded to expand his works into more long termed stories, he recommended to always keep an archive of old post work and when doing your own work, always question the source of why you did the work and where the investment originates from.

This was a pretty good lecture, it was interesting hearing the perspective of a professional photographer and how he progressed from working within news media and ended up becoming a full fledged professional photographer who created numerous photobooks such as his series based around teenagers called Sixteen. His works follow the documentary style which what I do for my practices though he focuses on people more often than I do as I like the focus on the environment more often.

Lecture: Wendy Mason and the AA2A

For this lecture we were introduced to Wendy Mason, the national director of a project called the AA2A. The objective of this project is to recognised and help visualise the ideal ambitions of photographers and help them with projects by providing a surplus of workshops and support facilities in institutions supporting further and higher educations.

The presentation we were provided by Wendy focuses on Self Employment as a career choice. The presentation informed us on the percentages of creative artists go down this route of career path and how it can be benefited from by allowing us the freedom of focusing down a path that benefits our personal fields of creative. We were told on what self employment is and isn’t, for example it’s said that a self made business is much more simpler compared to a limited company or a partnership. Its advised to find work that is flexible and can help you keep making self made projects.

In terms of the business side of self employment, the ways we could earn money from this style of business mainly by selling our skills directly, Wendy guided us through the stages of managing money for a self-made business, keeping an eye on things such as business expenses, taxes, profit and the overall turnover. Lastly we covered the different classes of insurance and which class fit which specific type of employee.

This was an interesting lecture for me as it gave me some idea of what to deal with in terms of running a self employed business and how AA2A can offer assistance for after I leave Uni. The business side of things is what I particularly needed to have some more knowledge on for the potential future of self-employment and I was really thankful that the basics were covered in this lecture. I may look into AA2A in the future for some more research.

Catalogue Fundraising: Meeting 1

For our first meeting, we’ve decided on which specific ideas we want to orchestrate for the catalogue fundraising so during session we scheduled a meeting with university staff in order to inform them of what our plan is.

Our main idea was to create a Christmas themed party involving stores, games and Santa’s grotto in order to raise the money for the catalogue. We were weary of what days we could go with based on the availability of certain people as well as which days can guarantee the best attendance in terms of visitors, the weekends are the most ideal days for us to do the Christmas event as there would be less hindrances from work and study for both students operating the event and the visitors.

We wanted to involve the work other students made so we offered up the idea of setting up specific stalls to offer the opportunity for visitors to use arts and crafts to make things of their own and another stall to sell student work, that way we can involve the theme of the campus into our event as well as promoting our own work in the process so we asked if it was possible to put a notice out for people to contribute their work for the stall.

The next subject on the agenda was the requirements we would need from the uni staff, technicians will be required in order to sort out the lighting and we will need a spot for safe storage for things we would be using for the event, and obviously you can’t have a Christmas event without Santa and his elves.

Finally there was the issue with health and safety, we will be setting up free refreshments and selling food so we will need to keep an eye on ingredients used to avoid issues, risk assessments will be taken to ensure this will go easy.

Lecture: Social Media 92

For our first guest lecture of the year we were visited by Josh James Lucy, the managing director of a online marketeer business called Social Media 92.

The start of the presentation focused on how Josh worked his way towards creating and directing this company, starting off with learning in Coventry University, gaining work experience up until his job at the coast where it would be his first job trying to market a business into the world of the internet.

These experiences would lead up to Josh creating the company of Social Media 92, a website that operates as social media marketeers that can be hired by other businesses to help market their business onto the internet offers to teach other marketeers the ins and outs of marketing in social media.

The advice we were given by Josh is to always use the internet to search and identify potential growing markets, be on look at for niches that have yet to be used, expand on your own personal branding among social media and try to be consistent with your brand.

This is certainly interesting for me to learn and good social media marketing is a necessity if you want to be noticed, its certainly relevant to my ideal photography role as a freelancer as I will need to market myself towards any potential companies that wish to hire a photographer in the correct manor in order to guarantee a chance of hiring and social media does offer this potential. I may need to look into specific sites to understand as a photographer how social media may benefit my work and personal brand.

Catalogue Fundraising: The Planning

For our upcoming degree show that’s happening towards the summer term, we were tasked in helping create funds in order to create a catalogue to act as advertisement for show. We were split into groups in order to come up with a list of potential ideas we could do in order to raise money for our catalogue. I joined fellow students Sarah Thornton and Alberto Gonzalez and we had a talk in order to list down some ideas.

We had to take into consideration on what audience we were trying to encourage, the accessibility of the tools needed to obtain and the amount of people who needed to be involved within organising and operating the equipment during the event.

Gift Wrapping
Photo Portraits
Bingo
Christmas themed fair
Mystery Box
Arts sales
Tombola
Quiz
Hunted
DJ
Gigs
Art Workshops

After the ideas were listed down the group gathered in order to determine who would be responsible for which projects. I was handed the task to locate and borrow a Tombola which would be used for an upcoming Christmas sale that should be happening within the month of December.

About Me

I am currently a 23 year old student currently studying BA Honours Photography at the University of Chester, I’m currently at my third year within the course and plan in future to start operating as a independent photographer stationed within North West England. My interest in photography originated from my Dad’s work as a photographer who had been within the business of independent photography since I was little, my interests within the subject increased when I got some experience within the subject when I was studying Creative Media within South Cheshire College.

My primary interests in terms of photography goes with documentation of environments and special events such as cons and historical reenactments , this originates from my personal hobbies of walks and visits to conventions and event where I walk around and observe my environment documenting any visual interests that stand out from the normal. This became more notable during my time at Mid Cheshire College where my main projects were based around journeys and comic conventions. My photography work overtime has started to lean into the journey aspect more as I focused more on exploring and documenting environments during my studies at Chester Uni. My current ideal plans for the future is to have photography be more as a hobby and backdrop by going freelance, during this I would be doing a job to earn income which can help future projects.

Professional Practice

For the third year of my photography course I am tasked in the professional practice module to create a blog to detail my personal plans for when I complete the course. While I may have some ideas on where I want to go, the module offers and opportunity to look into different options i had yet to consider and will be offering guest lectures from current day professionals from a variety of different art based businesses and their experiences on how they proceeded from the end of their education.

To become a professional photographer requires a lot more than being good at taking photos, it will require extensive knowledge on how to promote, price and protect photos that may be published online or printed physically and will require competent business skills in terms of organising my photography brand and potential collaboration with other photographers.

The world of professional photography is also one with great variety as you can offer yourself as a service for hire, work primarily through submitting photos through sites like Alamy or work physically through publishing photo books.