Mistakes That I’ve Made as a Fashion Photographer

Photography has been my full time job for about four years now, and in that time, I’ve definitely made some mistakes. I’ve learnt from all of them, and of course I don’t regret anything that I’ve done in the past. But to save you the trouble of the mistakes that I’ve made, I’m sharing some of the biggest ones with you here today!

Without further ado, don’t do these things:

Not Sending Clients a Contract:

For the longest time, I was really scared of sending my clients a contract. I don’t know why, but I thought they’d be annoyed with me for wanting to set some rules and boundaries. I tiptoed around this for such a long time, and it wasn’t until I ran into an issue that it dawned on me just how silly it was to not be sending out contracts, both for my protection and my clients’. Now, I have one contract that I adapt to each job, and send it via Docusign. If you have any questions about contracts, I highly recommend reading my contracts FAQ blog post creating in collaboration with Kemp Little, a London based law firm.

Not Charging for Travel:

I’ve lived in Cornwall for 10 years (recently I’ve moved just outside of London). Cornwall is a HUGE county in the UK and as a result, I ended up doing quite a lot of long distance travel to get to shoots. Cornwall is also really far from everywhere else in the world, so if I had a job out of county, or in London, I would often have to drive for a couple of hours to get there.

Similarly to the contract situation, at first, I was petrified to ask clients to cover my travel costs. This all comes down to limiting beliefs that I had around money, and how much people would value me and my work. But one day, when I was quoting for a job 4 hours away, I realised that it was going to cost me not only fuel, but quite a lot of time to get to the shoot. I hesitantly added a travel fee estimation to the quote and sent it off. To my amazement, the client replied saying it was no problem to cover travel.

Now, I always charge for travel for any job over 30 minutes drive away. There’s no hard or fast rule on what you need to do, but that was what felt right for me, and still does. I charge at the UK standard of 45p per mile, and I’ve never had a single client complain about it.

Make sure that you’re covering your travel and the time you’re spending travelling. This is time that you can’t be working or doing anything else, so you need to be compensated for it!

Spending Too Much Time Looking at Other Photographers’ Work

I’ve spoken about this at length in the past, and I even wrote a blog post about it which you can read here. The truth is, there is little worse for your mindset as a creative than comparison. It is THE thing which will slow you down, derail you off your path, and make you feel pretty crappy about yourself. There’s no easy way to stop comparing yourself to others, but you can help yourself along by simply not exposing yourself to what triggers you.

I found that when I unfollowed or muted most of the fashion photographers that I spent so much time looking at, I was more focused on my work, on my own journey, and got way more done. Suddenly I was more creative too, and it felt like my ideas were coming from myself, and not being influenced by what I saw other photographers doing.

This is hard to do, because we WANT to look at what other photographers create. After all, we all love fashion images. But learn to recognise when something is making you feel worse about yourself. Take breaks from your favourite photographers and just see how it feels. You don’t have to unfollow, you can simply mute people on Instagram, which is what I tend to do. Then, if I want to see what someone is creating, I can make a conscious decision to do so, instead of being constantly bombarded with other peoples work and successes.

Thinking That I Need an Agent to Progress my Career

This is a major one that many of us fall foul to. One of the most common questions that I get is: “How can I get an agent?” and I used to ask that question too. Truth is, I’ve never had an agent. And I’m not totally sure I want one right now. Agents are expensive, and they take quite a significant cut of your earnings, so unless you’re making a lot of money with big jobs, you could lose out more than you think.

The reality is that all an agent will do for you is help you to market yourself. Of course, that is a good thing, but it’s not the be all and end all. You can absolutely build a huge, impressive, successful career as a fashion photographer without having an agent. I’m actually finding that clients are often happy to be able to go straight to me, the photographer, and not have to go via an agent to organise shoots.

I’m also a bit of a control freak (that’s not a good thing) and personally like to know what’s happening within my business at all times.

Does that mean that I won’t ever have an agent? No, probably not. If it ever got to a point where I felt like an agent would be a good fit for me, and would really help me to book jobs, and sort out all the admin side of things, then I’d take one on. But right now, I’m happy doing the work myself, and progressing the way that I am.

Letting Circumstances Stop Me From Going After What I Want

This is is so important: you cannot let your personal circumstances stop you from going after your dreams. The truth is, if you do that, you’re just making excuses for yourself as to why you can’t take action in the direction that you want to take. It sounds really harsh to say that, but it’s true. If you want something badly enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen.

For a few years, I let the fact that I was living in Cornwall hold me back. I told myself that there was no way that I could be a fashion photographer, because I was living in a part of the UK that didn’t have a fashion industry (not true) and no one from a big brand would take my seriously or want to hire me (also not true).

I’m so grateful that I discovered pitching when I did, because it meant that I was finally able to reach out to brands, and prove to myself that the only thing getting in the way of my success as a photographer was me. It had nothing to do with my circumstances, and everything to do with me making excuses.

The sooner you realise that you’re in control, the better! It’s empowering, and wonderful.

Not Having Some Kind of Income Buffer

Almost exactly a year ago to the day of this blog post going live, I broke my right wrist whilst out on a run. Within a matter of minutes, I went from having two months worth of shoots booked, to not being able to do any of them. It was a disaster, and I was really, really stressed about it.

Thankfully, I had already been in the habit of saving for quite some time, so I had an income buffer there to keep me afloat for those 6 weeks where I couldn’t shoot. The same was true when the pandemic hit the UK, and we were forced into lockdown.

However, had any of this happened even 12 months prior, I would not have been quite as lucky.

I know saving is incredibly difficult, but if you can save even one months worth of business and living expenses (but I recommend a minimum of three), you’ll be SO much better off than if you don’t. Take it from me, as someone who’s had to dip into savings twice in less than a year, it will pay off and reduce your stress levels immensely.