TTIM 63 – Expert Roundup #3: Newbie Mistakes

This week’s edition of the podcast is a bit special. Unlike our typical episode, where we have a conversation with a guest, what we’ve done this time is to contact some of our previous guests and ask them one question. We’ve already done this twice in the past, when we published our “expert roundups” but this time we’ve also asked them to record their answer, so you can hear it in their own voice.

The question we asked was the following:

What is one thing you know now about photography that you wish you had known when you started out in your career as a photographer?

We received and collected answers from 18 of our guests, so there’s a lot of information here for you to consume. They shared some great stories and we hope that listening to them will better equip everyone who wants to take up photography a little bit more seriously to avoid some mistakes at the beginning of their journey.

We also have a transcript of all the answers, that you can find below the fold, if you’d rather read them than listen.

Stay tuned for more expert roundups coming soon.

Duration 50m 0s.

Music for this episode: “Zanzibar” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Brenda Tharp is an award-winning photographer, and educator. Her photographs have been featured in major magazines, and accepted into the journals of NANPA Expressions. She has written several books, and is working on a fourth, and still finds time to present frequent lectures on photography, and lead international photography tours and workshops.

“I wish I had known just how to promote myself more effectively. Back then, I remember thinking that if I just got published here or there, I’d be on my way and image buyers would come looking for me! But that wasn’t the case, and I quickly learned that it was still going to be up to me to promote myself. Something that many of us creatives don’t like to do, but it’s necessary. At least today with social campaigns it’s a lot easier to reach a targeted audience of image buyers and tour clients, but it’s still an essential part of growing and maintaining a successful career.”

Brenda was our guest in TTIM 52 – Going Beyond the Snapshot with Brenda Tharp.

Varina Patel says of herself: “There is nothing more remarkable to me than the power of nature. It is both cataclysmic and subtle. Slow and continuous erosion by water and wind can create landscapes every bit as astonishing as those shaped by catastrophic events – and minuscule details can be as breathtaking as grand vistas that stretch from one horizon to the other. Nature is incredibly diverse. Burning desert sands and mossy riverbanks… Brilliant sunbeams and fading alpenglow… Silent snowfall and raging summer storms… Each offers a unique opportunity. I am irresistibly drawn to the challenge of finding my next photograph, and mastering the skills required to capture it effectively.”.

“I wish I had known that being a professional photographer is as much (and sometimes more) about the business side of things than it is about photography itself. I started out as an art student, and my parents thought that was completely impractical. They were right. Not because Photography is an impractical career choice – but because studying art doesn’t teach you how to run a business. It doesn’t teach you how to build a brand… or market your work… or build a website… or handle online sales… or build a mailing list…

After a couple of years as an art student – I changed my major to Language Arts, and finally, to Information Technology. Although I didn’t know it at the time, all three areas of study would contribute to my success as a photographer. My computer background gave me the skills to build my own websites, and handle minor programming issues with confidence. My language arts background helped me communicate effectively with businesses, clients, students, and fans – in the form of blog posts, presentations, and classes. Over the years, I’ve worked hard to learn new skills – from building that mailing list I mentioned, to learning how to build a network of business contacts all over the world… and so much more.

The lesson here is a simple one. Follow your dreams – but don’t ignore the details. If you are studying art, take a few business and marketing classes along the way. If you want to quit your day job and take up photography full time – take the time to build yourself a strong foundation. Read as much as you can about entrepreneurship. Talk to others who have been there before you. Take a class or two. I wish I’d known how much I would need the skills that keep my business running day after day… but I feel lucky, too. I loved the challenge of the learning process – and I feel privileged to have been able build a business I’m proud of, while doing something I love.”

Varina was our guest in TTIM 42 – A Conversation with Varina Patel.

Kate Siobhan Mulligan is a freelance travel photographer and photo-educator from British Columbia, Canada. She is COO of The Giving Lens, taking teams around the world on photo workshops that also partner with local NGO during the trip to document, teach photography, and leave an impact on a community. She also is Lead Photo Faculty for MatadorU.com teaching both fundamentals and advanced Travel Photography courses.

“One thing that I wish I had know about photography when I started, as a career specifically, is that when you’re making it your job, it’s not going to involve very much photography. I don’t think I was prepared for the amount of time I would be spending sending emails and networking and studying social media. Even now, many years later, much of what I do is all those things, plus speaking, blogging, writing articles, teaching, running workshops, but very little of it is actually making photos or editing photos, percentage-wise of what I do during the day.

So early on I kind of wish I had invested more in maybe small business courses, and maybe shadowed some professional photographer to see, on an average day, how much time do you actually spend at your desk. But it is worth it. It is worth it doing all that stuff if even 5% of your life can be spent making images and doing what you love. So still totally worth it, but something I wish I had been more realistic about, at the very beginning.”

Kate was our guest in TTIM 45 – The Joy Of Giving with Kate Siobhan Mulligan.

A retired criminal defense attorney, Anthony Pond explores the human condition with his photography. He shoots with a Leica M system, both digital and analog, favoring its simple manual workings. Tony enjoys the whole process of photography which has led him to develop his own film negatives at home. He works primarily in black and white, finding it to be timeless while cutting right to the essence of an image. He travels mainly in South and Southeast Asia, returning time and again to better understand the culture he is photographing.

“When I was starting out I wish I knew that it was OK to have imperfections in my photos. We all learn the rules of composition, the rule of thirds, not to have intruding objects in the frame. We work real hard trying to create that perfect photo, but when you look at the past masters, the Henri Cartier-Bressons, the Robert Capas, the founders of Magnum, many of their photos contain imperfections, yet they’re iconic photos.

Why is that? Because of the content! And as I learned and progressed through photography I found out that content is paramount and you don’t have to go for that technically perfect photo. You can have imperfections in your photographs. As long as you have great content, the imperfections will be overlooked. But if you don’t have good content, people are going to look at those imperfections. They are going to point out those imperfections. They are going to tell you you violated this or that rule.

So the key to me is: embrace your imperfections, but go for the content of the scene. Go for content and emotional impact in the scene and your imperfections will be forgiven.”

Anthony was our guest in TTIM 58 – Anthony Pond Between Film And Digital.

Christian Meermann is an enthusiast photographer and teacher with a strong interest in black & white photography. His portfolio spans a wide range of genres like animal portraiture, landscape, macro, architecture and abstract photography. When he is not taking pictures, he teaches history and sociology at a comprehensive school, is father of two boys and also a photography mentor at The Arcanum.

“When I first read the question, I immediately felt that this was quite a peculiar thing to ask, because when I thought about the reason why somebody would ask such a question, the only reason that immediately came to my mind was to use the answer to prevent mistakes in the future. This to me is indeed a very peculiar notion, because I cannot see any value in not making mistakes.

In my mind, mistakes are the motor of creative progress. Mistakes drive the learning process forward. Without mistakes there can be no learning, no progress, no development, no growth. If this is true, the consequence is that I, as a photographer, to a large degree I am the sum of the mistakes I made and the learning and the growth which these mistakes initiated.

In this sense, I am completely happy with the mistakes I made and I am looking forward to making many more. For those who hope to increase the speed of their development by following advice that might come up as an answer to the question we’re discussing here, I can quote the great Edward Weston, who said: «If I have any message to give to beginner it is that there are no shortcuts in photography.»

That being said, I can wholeheartedly say that my answer is «nothing»”

Christian was our guest in TTIM 49 – Walking the West Highland Way with Christian Meermann.

Saraya Cortaville is an award winning portrait and social documentary photographer. She has received two fellowships (one of only two women in the UK to have achieved this) one for studio portraiture and most recently social documentary for a project she completed in 2015 whilst living in Africa. She was awarded the Peter Grugeon award for the best fellowship portfolio of 2015, and a gold award in Visual Arts in the professional photography awards 2016.

“The one thing I know now about photography which I wish I had known at the beginning of my photographic career was to not worry so much about what other photographers are doing. Obviously take inspiration and be guided by the current trends of what other photographers are doing, but be strong and confident in your work and the way it is taking your career, because it will then give you more of a distinctive style and set you apart from all the other photographers.”

Saraya was our guest in TTIM 46 – Travel Portraits with Saraya Cortaville.

Chris Smith is the founder of Out of Chicago Photography. Each summer The Out of Chicago Photography Conference attracts some of the world’s greatest photographers from around the globe for an amazing weekend of photography. Chris is also the author of The Photographer’s Guide to Chicago and host of the Out of Chicago Photography Podcast. Chris specializes in photographing the city of Chicago at night.

“When I first started as a photographer, I was always happy with a camera in my hand. Whether I’m out with friends or around at home, whatever, I was just happy taking pictures, but after you’ve kind of learned your camera and you’ve learned how it works, you’ve learned lighting, maybe Photoshop, all that stuff kind of moves onto the background and the thing that becomes the most important is your subject.

So even if in the beginning you just love having that camera in your hand, eventually you want to make sure that you’re photographing things that you love, things that you are passionate about. So think about the things in your life that you love, that you’re passionate about. Forget about the camera and photography. Just think about what do events you like to be a part of? What objects do you like? Maybe you want to be a product photographer or whatever, think about the things that you love. Even make a list of 20 things that you are passionate about in life and think later, how can this apply to photography?

Because you never want to go down a route where you’re like, put some pictures online, someone sees them, they go, «Wow this person’s pretty good photographer. Do you want to shoot my wedding?» You go «Yeah, I love having a camera in my hand. Are you going to pay me a little bit of money? Let’s do it!» Then after you do three or four weddings you go «Geez, I hate weddings. I hate going to them. I hate everything about them. They’re stressful. Why did I start doing this?»

Figure out before that the things that you do love, so that when you wake up in the morning of the day of the shoot, you go «Oh, yes, I can’t believe I’m getting to go and do this!» So find what you are passionate about and go down that route.

Now one way to figure out what you’re passionate about is to try all kinds of photography and one of the best ways to do that would be to come to the Out Of Chicago Photography Conference.”

Chris was our guest in  TTIM 60 – Chris Smith Goes Out Of Chicago .

Karen Hutton is an International Landscape and Travel Photographer, Artist, Speaker, Author, Educator, and Voice. As well as being a Professional Fujifilm X-Photographer, Karen and her photography have been featured at Google, Photo Plus Expo, Stuck in Customs, TWiP, Macphun Software, Forbes.com, The Grid and Landscape Photography Magazine. She was one of the Inception Masters of The Arcanum and a guest instructor in Trey Ratcliff’s “Becoming an Artist” workshop series. She lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.

“I can’t really answer that question directly, because it’s not how I see things. To me, thinking about what I wish I had know is sort of like trying to drive my car down the road by looking in the rear-view mirror. Not productive, not going to get me where I want to be. So I just don’t think in those terms, but here is how I do approach it, whether it’s photography, my photography business, my life. There are three ideas I apply.

1. Where am I now?
2. How does it align with where I’m headed?
3. Based on how I answer 1 and 2, am I on track or do I need to make a course adjustment?

I like these three things, because they apply to my life, my business, and my artistic vision. They are the three homing points that I return to over and over and over again. I honestly assess where am I now. Am I happy, am I comfortable, am I feeling good about where I’m going? Above all, am I feeling good? And if I’m not, well, am I aligned with where I’m headed? Is that why I’m not comfortable? Am I heading off in a direction I never wanted to go? Am I photographing things that don’t really sing to me? Am I creating work that really resonates with who I am and what I want to say and what my stand in the world is?

If the answer to those two things is yes, chances are the answer to number 3 is yes also. Am I on track or do I need to make a course adjustment? But if one of the answers to the first two is no, or I feel off track or I don’t feel right, then I have to stop and look at myself and say, What’s going on here? Am I getting into a rut? Am I really following the vision of wha lives in me and needs to be expressed? Because those things change and evolve as you do.

So I ask myself: Am I making choices that matter? Do I need to shoot different things? Do I need to pursue different work opportunities? Am I aligning myself with opportunities and results that I am going to love, that are going to fulfill me in every way, whether it’s my career, whether it’s my life, and whether it’s my photography? Big questions!

So those are three little things that I do for myself to keep myself on track and I hope it helps you.”

Karen was our guest in TTIM 34 – Finding Your Artist’s Voice with Karen Hutton.

Susan Onysko is a travel photographer who has devoted the last decade to the art of capturing evocative stories from some of the most remote and extreme locations of our world — from Bhutan to Death Valley to Romania to Vietnam. Because Susan has an eye for both the unexpected images that evoke a locale’s purest essence and the relatable moments that unite us in our similarities, her well-rounded, professional work has garnered numerous international awards and exhibits.

“I was and still am incredibly surprised at the general feeling of discontentment I have with my work the more I grow as a photographer. Even more shocking to me is that my perception of my work gets worse the longer I do it! What I think looks good one day, I detest the next. I am constantly bombarded by the voices in my head: “Why didn’t you? I should have… If only I would have thought of … at the time.” to the point of at times thinking I have a mental issue. Okay, the jury’s still out on that one ?.

I always thought that professionals, once they got to a certain level, would not question the quality of their work. Maybe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and I am just not to that point yet. (Art Wolfe, let me know!) They would know all the answers using their vast years of experience in the field. They would walk into a scene and Bam! nail the photo in one shot. I thought the number of photos I would take on a given trip would be greatly reduced. My motto has always been Quality over Quantity in showing my work but I had hoped that that this motto would also somehow wind its way into the field.

In today’s age one cannot help but to compare their work to others. We live in an era where there is too much information. I can see amazing images with one click of my mouse. That has its pros and cons–it can make us strive to better ourselves or just put our camera down and walk away. Like many, I believe I walk the tightrope in between that line everyday. Being overly critical of my work makes me hungry, it makes me have a relentless drive to push myself to not settle for just any photo. (It also makes me slightly insane at times) It forces me to use that one skill that no one else has. My own unique genuine vision. As a photographer that is our greatest strength, it’s our superpower. Proper exposure and camera technique, that’s the easy stuff. To be able to let that all fade away into the background of our mind and let your vision run wild is the hard part.”

Susan was our guest in TTIM 44 – What Makes Great Travel Photography with Susan Onysko.

Chris Upton is a Travel & Landscape photographer from Nottinghamshire, UK. He is also a Fujifilm X-Series photographer.

“The one thing that I wish I knew when I started in photography is that the best way to improve your photography is simply to get up early and stay up late, to shoot at the best time of day. It also doesn’t cost you a thing: no new equipment, nothing, but it will have a dramatic impact on your pictures. The blue hour and the golden hour are considered–especially by landscape photographers–to be the perfect times to take pictures because of the quality of the light. It also is a great time to shoot cityscapes, when the artificial light balances with the ambient, providing some wonderful color contrast.

The blue hour is my favorite time. It is that time when in the morning the sky changes from inky blue to light blue and it starts about 30 minutes before sunrise, but the peak can be that 10 to 15 minutes before the sun pops up. At sunset, the blue hour is that 30 minutes period after the sun has gone down, but at sunset make sure you hang around for 40 minutes after the sun’s gone down, because sometimes you will be presented with some spectacular color in the sky.”

Chris was our guest in TTIM 5 – Near and Far With Chris Upton.

Doug Kaye teaches photography locally in San Francisco and online, and was chosen as an Inception Master in Trey Ratcliff’s “Arcanum.” He leads street-photography workshops locally and in Cuba, which he has visited five times. Doug is the co-host of the Cameralabs podcast.

“Let’s forget about the career aspect and look at what it takes to make a good photograph and what I learned about that. It may sound silly, but I wish I had realized earlier on how important the quality of light is to making a good photograph. You’re probably saying: «How could anyone not realize the importance of light?» or: «How could you consider yourself to be a photographer without understanding light?»

I’m not just talking about hard light versus soft light. I’m talking about the ratios of key light to fill light. Yes, even in street photography. Reflections, bounce light, the angle of the light, the color of the light. How the light wraps around your subjects to create depth and how light reveals or obscures detail.

I’ve been shooting one way or the other for over 55 years and while I’ve learned the basics of light and exposure at an early age, I continue to discover that light is almost everything. If you’re shooting landscapes, street, fashion or almost anything else, I find more and more than I consider the quality of light even before I select my subject or pin down my composition.

I hope that what I wish I knew when I started photography will help you now.”

Doug was our guest in TTIM 24 – Cuba With Doug Kaye.

When Barbara Weibel realized she felt like the proverbial “hole in the donut” – solid on the outside but empty on the inside – she walked away from 36 years of corporate life and set out to see the world. Nearly ten years later, she is still traveling full-time with no home base. She shares photographs and stories about the places she visits and the people she meets on her blog, Hole in the Donut Cultural Travels.

“Even at the age of 11, when I first began taking photographs, I knew about the cardinal rule of shutter speed. When shooting hand-held, never choose a shutter speed that is slower than the focal length of the lens. So for example, if I was shooting with a 50mm lens, my shutter speed should be no less than 1/50s. I soon discovered however that I had an unusually steady hand and over the years I found myself breaking that rule quite regularly. In low light situations, it wasn’t unusual for me to take a hand-held shot at 1/8s. My photos weren’t perfect at that slow shutter speed, but they were amazingly good and shooting at lower speeds allowed me to use a lower ISO and that meant less noise in my photos.

Some years ago, my photography focus began to shift a bit. Rather than pretty landscapes, I began shooting more street photography and portraits. More people in my shots meant more movement and that required faster shutter speeds, so I began experimenting. Rather than using the recommended minimum shutter speed, I began using faster and faster speeds and I noticed something: my shots got sharp and I mean exquisitely sharp.

These days my walkaround lens is a Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro. Even though, technically, I should be able to get decent hand-held shots at 1/40s, I rarely shoot anything using a speed lower than 1/250s and most of my work is shot at 1/320s and 1/400s. Fortunately, camera technology in recent years has also evolved and much less noise can be seen in shots taken at ISOs that are 800 or less.

Looking back at some of my early work, this is one thing I wish I had figured out years earlier and I hope that passing it along will help other up-and-coming photographers.”

Barbara was our guest in TTIM 11 – Pursuing Your Dreams With Barbara Weibel.

Shiv Verma, APSA, MNEC is a published author, photographer, educator and technologist. He is a member of the Panasonic Lumix Luminary Team, an X-Rite Coloratti and a Master at the Arcanum. He has been photographing for over 50 years and has evolved his photography to express his intense devotion to wildlife and nature.

“Before I can respond, let me state that we are fortunate that we don’t know it all. We’re all constantly learning and hopefully this process continues as there is so much more we have to learn. I am fortunate that, in my world of photography, I am teaching and learning al the time.

So what is it that I know now that I wish I had known before? As primarily a nature, wildlife and landscape photographer with a fair emphasis on macro, I always struggle with depth of field. There was never enough. Using a very small aperture always resulted in soft images and on many an occasion I used to abandon the subject or the scene, as the resulting image never looked like what I wanted it to be. Typically, these ended up in my round file.

Now this is no longer a dilemma. The concept of photo stacking solves all the problems of depth of field. The ability to capture multiple images using the best aperture that your lens can provide and then combine them in software to create a single image with excellent sharpness through the scene is just incredible. The ability to use wide apertures and selectively pick a range to be sharp allows me to create what I had always longed for before.

What is even more interesting is that, with new firmware updates, mirrorless cameras from Panasonic, Olympus and Sony can now capture multiple images and do the stacking in camera. The resulting images are JPEG, but you can use the focus bracketing features to capture RAW files that can be used with many software applications, including Helicon Focus, Affinity, and Photoshop.

Truly with the advent of digital cameras and excellent software, we can now do things that were never possible with analog photography. We can now extend our creativity to a whole set of new heights.”

Shiv was our guest in TTIM 17 – Shiv Verma on Education.

Hi, my name in Brent Mail and I’m a full time professional photographer, which means that I make my living from photographing people. I am a lover of great photography, the outdoors – especially the ocean – a good Thai curry and of course a custom hand-crafted espresso latte (which goes down better with friends). Oh, did I mention that I love sports too, especially the kind that gets the adrenalin pumping!!!.

“I ran a very successful portrait photography studio for about a decade and I sold it not too long ago. One of the biggest mistakes I made when it comes to the business of photography was that I was focusing too much on my photography skills and not enough on the business of photography.

Initially, when I started my business, I was focusing on becoming the perfect photographer, focusing on lighting, focusing on my camera skills, making sure I could get amazing images out there. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you’re in the business of photography what I suggest you do instead is to focus on business. Basically small business, marketing and those types of things, which will help you so much more than focusing on photography skills.

I see this with so many people starting out, when it comes to the business. They focus on getting the best images, making sure their shutter speed is great, also investing so much money in their camera gear and their camera skills, their Photoshop skills or their Lightroom skills. That’s all good, but I think it’s the wrong way to go, if you actually want to make a living out of photography.

What you should be doing instead is focusing on small business, focusing on marketing, spending money on things that will actually make you money in the long run. Spending money on photo gear is not going to make you money. Even though it’s a tool that you need, and that’s great, but taking that same few thousand dollars and actually putting them into advertising or other kinds of marketing is going to get your phone ringing. That is where you really need to spend your money.

Once I did this, once I changed my focus from photography skills and I changed it to marketing and business skills, small business skills in particular, my phone started ringing, I started getting clients, I started photographing clients and I started making money. It was probably the thing that had the biggest impact on my business and it was focusing on my business and not my photography skills.”

Brent was our guest in TTIM 1 – Europe With Brent Mail.

Matt Moreland is a Travel and Lifestyle Photographer with an unwavering love for roadtrips. He has seen 42 of the 50 US states and 7 of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada.

“The thing I wish I would have known when I started is that you don’t need to start at the bottom. When I finished photo school, I didn’t go working directly in photography because I figured that I would have to spend quite a while doing jobs I didn’t want to do, like assisting and all the other things that didn’t seem appealing to me at the time.

So I worked in other industries and sort of tried to find a career outside of photography to avoid that sort of fear of the entry level position and of doing things that I didn’t want to do, but my photo work actually started picking up kind of out of nowhere through Instagram. Some small marketing agencies (well, small at the time, they’re a lot bigger now) found me on Instagram and started asking me to do shoots for brands that I knew and recognized. I quickly realized that you don’t have to be the best person in your city to shoot for Nike or car companies. The opportunities just come if you hunt them down.

Obviously marketing companies are good places to start, because they have access to bigger funds, but I found through a lot of my work that if I just keep sending emails, keep talking to people, keep asking that I can have clients that I figured were available only to people that have been doing this for over a decade. So I guess if there is something I wish I knew when I started is that you don’t have to start at the bottom, that you can go after the clients that you really want to have and as long as you’re making good work and you’ve got the skills to back it up, you don’t necessarily need to be the best photographer in the world to work with the best clients in the world.”

Matt was our guest in TTIM 41 – How To Save Money with Matt Moreland.

Taylor Jackson is the host of  the Travel and Photography Show, “A Photographer In”.

“Money spent to experience things rather than gear is far more beneficial to your career as a photographer. I learned this out for the first time when I was 16 or 17 and a band invited me to go to New York City, to drive from Toronto down to New York and take some pictures of them recording their first record. At that time it didn’t really seem that big of a deal. It was like, cool, I’ve got to go in this tour bus with my friends and go down to a cool city I’ve never been to, take some pictures, do what I love. What it really did was it elevated me to be this photographer who had traveled to New York City on this commission and was now a big deal.

Meanwhile, really, it was just me going along with my friends to have a good time, on my own dime. But the way that the public saw it and the way that I was now perceived as a photographer who was taken a little bit more seriously, that really helped launch into my professional career. That was a huge stepping stone and I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back it was one of the key pieces of my life as a photographer.”

Taylor was our guest in TTIM 9 – Taylor Jackson, A Photographer In.

Jen Pollack Bianco is an award-winning Seattle-based travel photographer and blogger. She runs the luxury travel blog My Life’s a Trip. Her mobile photography images have appeared everywhere from magazine covers (including TIME and Mobiography), popular websites (Buzzfeed, Mashable) to the Apple Shot on iPhone 6 campaign.

“The one thing I wish I knew more about when I started out as a professional travel photographer was the stock photo industry. I wish I would have understood how to sell images that weren’t necessarily important to me, that had value to other people and market them and got a system in place so that I could upload and get images sold on Getty or through apps like EyeEm Market, where you can do it directly through your iPhone, just to generate passive income.

The goal as a travel photographer is to be working all the time and you aren’t always on assignment or always making money, so any income that you can get passively is fantastic, so I would encourage anyone who is trying to break through into photography professionally, no matter what sector, travel or not, to learn a little about the stock photography market and keep an eye open for shots that might work in that market and figure out a way to sell them, so that there’s some additional income, because nobody hates extra money.”

Jen was our guest in TTIM 57 – Jen Pollack Bianco and Mobile Travel Photography.

Lauren Bath is a chef turned photographer thanks to her early success on top photo sharing site Instagram. Quitting her job in early 2013, Lauren launched full force into a career in the tourism industry, effectively becoming Australia’s first professional “instagrammer”!

“Photography is expensive and it never becomes less expensive. I can still remember the first time I bought a camera and lenses and realised I would need a bag and tripod and memory card. As I left the store with everything I was thinking, ‘excellent, now I have everything that I need’. haha. Even when you’re turning a great profit and you have all the lenses you thought you would ever want there are always, always other things to buy. Upgrades, damaged or old cameras, new accessories, bags, upgraded tripods and filters. The list goes on. Just make sure you’ve always got some money set aside and a list going so that you can keep a bit of control about it.”

Lauren was our guest in TTIM 22 – Becoming a Professional Instagrammer with Lauren Bath.