Those of you that know me will know that until last Friday I
was, in addition to being a busy wedding photographer, a full time fashion
buyer. Juggling the two and essentially having two full time jobs, throughout
the busy summer has been really hard and it’s led me to where I am now - self
employed.
I always envisaged going self employed in the most sensible
manner, with several months salary in my bank account and leaping straight into
the wedding season, dashing from event to event. Things don’t always work out
like you plan though and so I find myself sitting at my computer typing this on
a rainy Monday afternoon my first day as my own boss.
I haven’t been happy in my day job for quite some time,
there were too many things to be specific about but it just wasn’t the right
place for me. I’ve worked in the head offices of big high street companies like
New Look and smaller, more boutique ones like White Stuff and always found
elements of it fulfilling and creative – I am, or was, a menswear buyer and have
a huge passion for product development, but in this role I always found myself
feeling like a failure. I was so unhappy I’d have to dart out of meetings,
hiding my tears for fear of crying in front of the junior members of my team.
After a particularly bad couple of meetings I decided that life was too short
to deal with feeling like that every day, resigned and left much quicker than
my notice period.
Juggling two jobs has been a challenge – dealing with a
stressful day job and coming home, answering emails, blogging, editing, taking
bookings etc took it out of me a bit. Dealing with the madness of one role
meant that if things got a bit tricky with my business I couldn’t get any
perspective. If someone didn’t like a photo out of the 500 I sent them, I felt
like I’d personally let them down which would lead to more tears. I was so
thankful for our holiday in October.
At the end of every
wedding season I’ve found myself at a cross roads – which do I pursue? Do I take
the safe, corporate route and continue with the job that sounds so glamorous on
paper or do I follow my dreams? On my worst days I could never see the wood for
the trees andf elt average at best; neither a good photographer nor a buyer. To
be honest there was only one real answer, so here I am and I’ve got to make it
work. If I wasn’t a bit worried I wouldn’t be human.
I’m looking forward to taking some time out, finally getting
a proper marketing strategy together and having no choice but to make this
work. I’ll probably need to find a little bit of temporary work in the short
term – keep myself in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed (but seriously
– is there ever a good time to leave a well paid professional job to strike out
alone?) but I have to earn my whole income with my camera now.
2013 is shaping up to be really exciting – I’m getting
really busy for the peak summer season and if you’re interested in booking me,
particularly if it’s a Saturday then get in touch now. Otherwise, expect to see
a lot more from me!
