Where to get some experience?

[Joenail]

I'm 18 & going to be applying for uni in the next few weeks. I don't have any 'professional' experience with photography, all I do is take pictures & develop/print at a local gallery (Street Level).

I'm looking for experience of any kind that can support my application for uni, (Falmouth, Edinburgh Napier & Glasgow School of Art (info about these unis would also be appreciated)) be it exhibiting in a small gallery or being an assistant (or unpaid bag carrier!)

Anyone have any idea where to look, who to talk to, etc?

Cheers,

-Joe.


P.S Apologies for posting this in the general forum, didn't know where else to put it. Feel free to move it.

 

[asphotographymk]

I dont think professional experience will help you with uni at this stage. The key right now is to get out and spend as much time as possible shooting. Try different things, make mistakes and learn from them.

 

[Joenail]

When I say professional experience I mean anything to do with photography that isn't shooting & printing. I should probably say that I'm on a gap year, so I'd like to be able to say I've spent it learning & getting experience in the industry, etc.
Cheers, Andy!

 

[Lindsay D]

When I say professional experience I mean anything to do with photography that isn't shooting & printing. I should probably say that I'm on a gap year, so I'd like to be able to say I've spent it learning & getting experience in the industry, etc.
Cheers, Andy!

Is that going to be a degree in photography? If so, out of interest, what made you want to take that route?

Finding an assisting job is very hard these days I'm afraid. You'll need to be persistent and very personable. What genre of photography are you interested in pursuing? In terms of finding people to help you gain experience, remember they've worked very hard and spent a small fortune to build their businesses and their skills, so you might want to consider what you can offer them in return for the great benefit you will gain from your association with a pro. Just carrying their bags generally doesn't cut it I'm afraid, at least not if you expect to draw on their professional time and knowledge base.

Decide who you'd most like to work with and write a list of all the points which will make you attractive to them. Remember pros get lots of enquiries each week so you'll really need to stand out from the crowd. Then think of a novel way of approaching those photographers. For God's sake don't just send a bland, lazy, generic, two liner e-mail which has clearly been copied to several people - we get those all the time, utter dross. At least learn the photographer's name before you contact them and show some knowledge of their work.

 

[Joenail]

Thanks for that, L, that's been a good help

Yes, it's a B.A. I'm trying everything I can at the moment, but photojournalism seems to be the main thing for me.

-J

 

[itsdavedotnet]

I guessed as much from your choices of unis...

You've got some really, really well observed stuff on your flickr man, great photos. You've clearly put in the hours behind the camera, and that's what really matters...

I'm at derby uni doing commercial photography - I want to work in high end commercial and advertising eventually (but I have a soft, less commercial spot for documentary and I'm working on some stuff I really want to shoot)- experience is always a difficult one. Purely through networking, I do a fair bit of assisting - I'm a pretty useful commercial assistant because I've pieced together experience with lighting, production, all the professional cameras etc - but I don't know how relevant that kind of assisting is to your type of photography or industry. I met the photographer that I regularly assist at a free local creative networking event. Twitter's useful to get and stick in people's minds too.

You say you want experience outside of shooting/printing - picture libraries? Some of the smaller, more specialist magazines? I know that some do internships or the like - maybe get in touch with a few? BAPLA is the association of picture libraries, maybe a starting point?. I think Alamy sometimes take work experience / interns on for short spells too, and they're a pretty small operation in the UK so you'd probably get some good insight. Fair trek for you though, think they're in Oxford...

Regardless of experience with others, go out and do it for yourself - paid, unpaid, or simply wandering the streets or going to anything cool, or finding a story and going and shooting it, so important just to keep shooting really... If you can put together something cohesive into an exhibition or something, that'd be awesome too. Get in touch with your local person from http://www.somewhereto.com , they're a not for profit aimed at helping young people get into spaces - might be able to help you with a location for an exhibition, they have lots of inroads to pretty much everywhere creative, and can help with the blagging!

There's quite a few photo festivals around the UK too, often focussing on documentary photography - check them out and go - we had one on street photography in Derby this april and I ended up (bizarrely) going for a posh dinner and getting drunk with a few Magnum photographers. Surreal.

Edit a very tight portfolio of your very best work, and I'm sure you'll get in to Falmouth. Got a friend who goes there and she's loving it. An unrelated aside, do you know if Guy Martin is back teaching? The fact that he was out there, and previously, egypt, speaks volumes of the pedigree of the course.

What definitely can't hurt is consuming a lot of photography - there's some great books, blogs and galleries out there, keep flicking through them, you'll start to see names emerge repeatedly - check out their work. Will help at interview with the unis too, and the thousands of photos that I look at every month has definitely improved my photos too.


Check out www.IdeasTap.com too, loads of grants, bursaries, and every few months a subsidised Magnum two day 'professional practice' workshop with loads of speakers from all sorts of people - well worth going to, I met some cool people too.


Keep shooting

 

[Lindsay D]

Very good advice from Dave. I will say though that although gaining a photography degree can be a stimulating and rewarding experience, there is very little evidence to support a degree's usefulness in helping the photographer forward, either in terms of camera craft and more importantly in preparing them for the harsh realities of the business world. In that respect the degree-led photographer's I've met have gained no significant practical benefit from all that time and (considerable) expense (and/or an enduring debt). I'd say there is no substitute for getting out in the world and grafting. It's one thing loving photography and making creative imagery - earning a living is quite another and very few photography graduates succeed. I'm not advising you to give up your pursuit of your degree - I'm just saying try and think ahead to the position you'll likely be in when you graduate.

 

[itsdavedotnet]

Very good advice from Dave. I will say though that although gaining a photography degree can be a stimulating and rewarding experience, there is very little evidence to support a degree's usefulness in helping the photographer forward, either in terms of camera craft and more importantly in preparing them for the harsh realities of the business world. In that respect the degree-led photographer's I've met have gained no significant practical benefit from all that time and (considerable) expense (and/or an enduring debt). I'd say there is no substitute for getting out in the world and grafting. It's one thing loving photography and making creative imagery - earning a living is quite another and very few photography graduates succeed. I'm not advising you to give up your pursuit of your degree - I'm just saying try and think ahead to the position you'll likely be in when you graduate.

It is something to think about, and I thought long and hard about it - and I'm still not entirely sure that I made the right decision - however, there is the other side too: a degree is three years where you don't have to worry about making a living from photography, so you can take risks, follow stories and really find what you want to work in. Added to that, you get access to equipment, facilities and professional critique, and also you get the (awesome) life experience of going to uni.

As long as you don't kid yourself that there's going to be a 'job' magically presenting itself to you at the end of it, and work and learn what industry or career you want to go into when it's done, and make significant steps to get there, I'm still on the opinion that for some, self-starting, motivated people, it's well worth doing, only as a catalyst to really help them concentrate and build a portfolio and a career.

 

[Joenail]

Regardless of experience with others, go out and do it for yourself - paid, unpaid, or simply wandering the streets or going to anything cool, or finding a story and going and shooting it, so important just to keep shooting really... If you can put together something cohesive into an exhibition or something, that'd be awesome too. Get in touch with your local person from http://www.somewhereto.com

I've looked at a few places for an exhibition, but I'm far too skint to frame anything. Applying for funding now so hopefully some good will come of that .

Thanks for the advice & kind words though mate, some of the links have been a good help!

Very good advice from Dave. I will say though that although gaining a photography degree can be a stimulating and rewarding experience, there is very little evidence to support a degree's usefulness in helping the photographer forward, either in terms of camera craft and more importantly in preparing them for the harsh realities of the business world. In that respect the degree-led photographer's I've met have gained no significant practical benefit from all that time and (considerable) expense (and/or an enduring debt). I'd say there is no substitute for getting out in the world and grafting. It's one thing loving photography and making creative imagery - earning a living is quite another and very few photography graduates succeed. I'm not advising you to give up your pursuit of your degree - I'm just saying try and think ahead to the position you'll likely be in when you graduate.

I'm not too fussed about the whole career side of it to be honest, I just want to spend 3/4 years doing something I enjoy. I might lose my love for photography if I don't have something keeping me going! . I can worry about making a living after that, whether it's photography related or not.

-J