As a freelance content creator, I am in charge of my whole company, from the production, accounts and legal attributes, everything comes back to me. In this blog post I will be going through every aspect of being a business and how I will take on each manor. I will be speaking and explaining each one with the perspective with my current goal of moving into a flat with my girlfriend in mind.
ONE
Production
To be a content creator, I will actually have to produce content. I am confident enough I identify as both a photographer and videographer and can offer either service as freelancer. I have been shooting live music in this manor for three years now, this will be the best route for me to take in the summer.
SALES / MARKETING
To gain work, I need to provide evidence of previous work to clients. To best to do this is through instagram and my website as this is where most of my paid work is coming from. Over the next few moths, it is crucial I keep my socials up to date with new work for clients to see.
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
One of the key aspects of being a successful, organised freelancer is to keep on top of accounts. To do this I need to keep on top of sending invoices to clients, chasing up payments and making sure they are paying the agreed amount. In the past I have had plenty of bands not pay me for a show, whether it because lack of money or something else, I do not accept this. I have lost count of the times I have to not send a band photos because they refuse to pay. Asides the obvious, the fact I can then not share these images on my socials can really effect me, I am always proud of my work, and it really puts me down when I can not post my most recent work for clients to see.
COSTUMER SALES
One very important attitude I wish I had known from bands years ago is that they will always tell other bands about their experiences from you. Good or bad, word gets around. I am always professional with clients, and have only fallen out with a few that have breached our contact (not paying or crediting me, or re editing my photos). Moving into larger world will be a difficult transition, however along as I am respectful of everyone else, I can only ask they do the same to me.
PR
Networking and self promotion is a very important aspect of being a freelancer, I know a time will come where work will fail to come in and I will need to know how to put my name out there to gain clients. Some simple ways of doing this is paying social media to advertise my business and post my work on people’s page who do not follow me. After some research I can spend £10 and be guarantied to have a new audience of over 13,000 people.
ADMINISTRATION
With going out around the UK to shoot varies events, I will end up splitting my editing time locations between public transport and home. As of right now, I have everything I need to be able to edit content on the go; laptop, hard drives and chargers. However at home it would be a be a smart idea to save up for an addition monitor to help with work flow.
HUMAN RESOURCES
I have never looked into hiring staff, however if I were to take one larger commissions like weddings or weekend events it would definitely be a smart idea. I want to now promise myself I will never un pay anyone working for me. If they want work experience or even to shadow me for a day, I want to pay for the time. Then perhaps one day they can pass this way of working.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
I brought my camera 2 years ago, within 4 months Sony brought out a new version with more focal points per pixel. I genuinely enjoy learning about new technology products coming out into the market as keeping up to date can help me know how to better use my devices. I have had plenty of cameras, phones, hard drives and laptops fail on me, however I am confident in my abilities to trouble shoot any problems that come my way. However if I do find sometime impossible to over come, I can rely on my freelancer colleagues to help. Or if all else fails, google can always help me over comes technical issues.
LEGAL
Since the start of this year (2020) I have been writing up contacts to send to clients before the shoot to agree on certain times. Some items would include amount and date of payment, and terms for postage images in the future. It is really important to have these terms set up and agreed upon by both parties to avoid any confusion in the future.
TWO
I have been with my girlfriend Abi for over three years now, she is also graduating this year in her field of geography. We have discussed at lengths how difficult the next 12 months will be on us mentally and financially, but we have both agreed that we will always help each other if needs be. We plan to move into a flat in the Reading area at the start of July, from there we will both hopefully have full time jobs. Abi wants to go down a finical route and has said she will support me with which ever career I choice. Both of us know I didn’t become a photographer to make money. I love making art, if its images, videos or small sketches, I have a creative mind and will always practice to pursue for better things. I have carpentry or electrical work to fall back on if times are tough, and we have both agreed it won’t be bad thing if I need to.
THREE
Being a professional photographer can sometimes be a contradiction in terms. You need to be a sensitive artist and a thick skinned sales person; you need to strike that fine balance between being creative and passionate, yet ambitious and business-minded. Yes, you need to be able to take great pictures but that alone is not enough to succeed in this industry.
FOUR
There are two ways I can move forward after I graduate regarding my self as a freelance worker. I can set my self up as a solo trader or limited company.
Solo Trader
A solo trader is a company owned and only worked by one individual, for the last three years I have fallen under this category. Myself and Bailey Kidd Photography / Visuals would be one, so all debt and assets belong to me, not the company. This type of trade is very popular with electricians, barbers and gardener services. The hours are long, and it can be difficult to keep work flowing in constantly, I will need to keep on top of contacts, payments, sending and finance if I want the luxury of holidays or a new camera each year.
Limited Trader
The other way to run a freelance company is to identify it as a Limited Trader, the two ways to do this is private limited companies or public limited companies. The first (private) is aimed at smaller companies who do not trade any stock or produce. The second (public) is for the opposite; larger companies who aim at trading or selling stock. As a freelance photographer / videographer I would identify myself as a private limited company as the only product I will be selling would be prints, all other work would be classified as a service.
FIVE
COPYRIGHT
“the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.”
When creating any art, whether it is a gallery of 1000 images for a wedding, a logo for my website or a photo I take of my cat on my iPhone, I need to understand who owns the rights to the work, what those rights are, and if I can sell the rights. Copyright is one of the most important aspects to understand as a freelance worker, the best ways for both parties to agree upon in a contract.
As I stated, all photos taken have copyright to the photographer, from holiday snaps to DSLR images. The copyright of a photo last until the copyright owner dies, and then another 70 years. This is why photos from historic dates like the World Wars can be used by anyone. Below is a short contact I wrote put for a multiple band shoot I did back in January with another photographer called Adam. It was sent along side the images in a dropbox folder titled “READ FIRST” and states terms of usage for our images. The main points highlighted are to not re-edit images, and to tag both photographers, and to my surprise all 23 bands did not break our contact and followed the copyright rules perfectly.
In some cases, a company may contact me asking to hire me to photograph a location for their website. They would normally pay a half days wage sum and I would keep all copyright to any content I send them. However in some rare cases, the client would offer me a much larger sum of money to cover my half days wage and to also buy the rights of my content from me. This method can be really dangerous for a few reasons. First, the company can use my content for anything they want, it could be something very rude or offensive, this can then come back to me as the photographer and damage future clients perspective of me. The company I sold the rights to can also then go on to sell said image and make much more money, for instance if they include it in a book or feature the image on a billboard. They also retain the right to not reference me as the artworks creator. This can cause all kinds of problems, and while it can be very impressive to see your work featured by a large company, it is just not worth it. For the next example, I have actual experience in; the client could alter or change your artwork and this could damage you reputation. In may of 2019, I was hired to shoot a local band in Bath, they paid me for my time and wanted to use the images for their up coming single artwork. I was very excited to have my art be on Spotify and apple music for the first time, but when the time came to realise the single, the band had complete changed the original image they brought off me. While it really hurt, it was not in breach of our contact so I couldn’t really do anything. (see example below)
In the future, I want to right up my contact with more care, including very specific actions that band / Clint can not use the images for. Some examples of this are to explain in detail they not own the image, they can not use them to gain any money. Artwork covers or album inserts are prohibited under this contact. I also want to start staying they can only use images / videos for the next two years only, this stops the band using my images in the distant future for promotion, and makes the band want to come back to me to produce more work for them. If at any point I feel like the client is having a hard time understanding the copyright issues, I can refer them to the website https://www.the-aop.org/information/copyright-4-clients so we can both go through and work out any anomies in our contact.
SIX
In this section I will go over an example of how much tax I need to pay on a particular wage. After I graduate, if I am earning £28,000 per year, I will need to know how much I take home and how I pay in taxes. My calculations are below;
If I was hired by a creative outlet, worked 40 hours a week and my wage is £28,000, then after tax and national insurance I would take home £22,420.89. this works out to be £1,868.41 per month, or £431.17 per week, £86.23 per day, and your hourly rate will be £10.78 if I am working 40 hours per week.
If worked specifically through freelance work, and still earned £28,000 I could claim certain expenses back through ‘expenses’, this allows to me to total up train tickets, cameras, and office supplies. For this example my ‘expenses’ will be £10,000. As I am not taxed on the first £12,500, the sum of my ‘expenses’ (£10,000) will be taken away from my taxable amount. This would make my taxable amount £5,500. I am taxed %20 of this, making my tax payment £1,100 on the original £28,000.