Nadia Ryder
Last Friday my class had a talk from ex Ravensbourne student and fashion photographer Nadia Ryder. Ryder has worked for a wide range of clients from Google, Nike, Comic Relief and Microsoft to name a few. I really liked this talk because it was good to hear from someone who has gone through the same process as us. So she could give us some of her experiences from when she was our age.
The first bit of advice about the industry that I received was that your ‘big break’ can really come from anywhere. When Ryder was exhibiting her FMP at Ravensbourne. A member of an ad agency looked at her work and she was approached about shooting up to date pictures for Mcdonalds. Even though she didn’t like the end result she was still glad to have this very unexpected opportunity.
The second bit of advice I learned was all about working with models. We were told that “some models will do shoots for free to just get there name in some magazines“. It was good to hear this because I have a project coming up where I need to make contact with a model and they are bound to talk about money. We were also told “offer test shots for portfolio“. This is another way to spin a model towards doing work for free because they like photographers need up-to date portfolios. So if we can’t pay them, we could at least give them a piece of there portfolio.
The third and possibly most important bit of advice we got was about finding work in the industry. Earlier in the week Julian spoke to us about ways to find work, cold-calling, cold-emailing etc. To which Nadia recommended emails but we were told “don’t write long emails“. Instead write smaller emails where you mention about your photography and give a link to your most recent work, but try to avoid the lines of “I would love the opportunity” imagine if you received a long email from someone you don’t know would you read it, probably not. Also like assisting “send a second follow up email if you don’t get a reply, but don’t follow up again“. As a matter of fact, I got my big break in sports photography with a cold-email.
One final bit of advice we received was about social media. We need to keep a strictly professional social media feed. To which we should make Instagram a priority. To which we should have a separate personal Instagram or just have a professional one. We were told a story about an assistant who she knew. By all accounts she could have gone really far however she didn’t keep her personal and professional life separate on her Instagram. To which she uploaded photos of her drunk Friday night on the same place where her portrait work is. Eventually an email was sent out essentially blacklisting her from any work. She’s now given up on photography and moved away “out of embarrassment” we were told. Even though I’m not the type of person who would do something like that, I’m now in the process of creating a new professional Instagram and making my existing one my personal one. To which my professional will show both my sports photography and my Ravensbourne work, to which my personal Insta will be for my friends and maybe a bit of my personal work.
Also I have a personal Facebook and a Facebook page. I also have Twitter which is now a professional account.
Ben Peters Digital Photography 