I had a career 1:1 with Louise Sharland a few days ago which has been beneficial to me thinking about my professional development. We talked about a number of ways forward for me and areas that I should do some further research on in order to build a plan moving forward within my commercial/ freelance career. I explained to her about the commercial work that I have already done and a few gigs that I have in the works within the coming months. We discussed the admin side of being a freelance photographer, the insurance, invoicing and networking. These are all things that I have basic knowledge from the work that I have done previously, but also areas that I know I could further develop my understanding and execution of in order to push my freelance work forward.
An important aspect of my photographic career is keeping my commercial and personal work separate. This is because I want my name “Daniel Dayment” to be out there in a fine art photographic sense. Separating the commercial work will mean a separate name, website and online presence so that they two do not cross over. This is because I think the two types of photography sit in different places in the photographic/ art world. My fine art practice has depth, thought and academic theory connected to it. Whereas my commercial photography is just a creative outlook in order to earn the necessary evil of income that I need to live life and run personal work.
Louise asked me how I am going to make my commercial brand personal. This is because people buy into other people. Especially in the South West where we pride ourselves on running and supporting small local businesses. This is something that I need to consider when moving forward with my business development. Online presence is such an important way of bringing in new clients as people want to buy into more than just a photographer.
As I have mentioned above, I have some commercial experience. At the moment, all of my photography is collected together under one name “Dan Dayment Photography”. Going forward, I would like to use my name “Daniel Dayment” for my fine art practice and then come up with a company name for which I work under in a commercial way. This is something that I want to set up sooner rather than later so that it is ready to go when I am.