Don't be Afraid to Freelance Out of Your Depth

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Something great happened in November. I was paid £500 to take photos at a fashion event. I’m not a photographer and haven’t made any attempt to learn the basics of photography, yet the organiser of a 2,000+ attendee event decided that I would be the most suitable person to replace the photographer that was meant to be there.

I had to take photos of the catwalk, market stall stands, celebrities and all of the action taking place on the day. It was a full day’s worth of action.

On top of being paid extremely well, my Marriot hotel stay was paid for me. AND I was going to be at the event anyway. They mentioned that they would do all of the editing; they just wanted the raw pics from me. It felt too good to be true.

I was doing paid freelance work in a field that I’m way out of my depth for. I had three weeks’ notice, so spent that time figuring as much as I could about composition, aperture and generally taking good photos. I didn’t do enough practice but I had a camera that would do a lot of the work for me. And the images came out alright.

I tell you this to remind you that you really don’t have to be an expert to be worthy enough of being paid for work. Even as a novice, doing work that someone else would otherwise have been paid for is valuable. You may not be able to charge as much as a more experienced person, but you should never settle for no payment.

I don’t plan on doing any more freelance photography, but that experience alone (particularly the lead up to it) taught me an awful lot about taking photos, which will come in handy for all sorts of other things I’m planning to do in the future. In the end I did do some of the photo editing for some of the 3,000+ images that I took on the day and found that it’s not as difficult as I assumed before.

Everyone has to start somewhere, and the best way to learn is through experience. If you want to put yourself out there on gig or freelance sites for a skill that you’re not especially skilled or experienced at, there’s nothing stopping you. Just make sure that you’re open about your abilities (perhaps with a portfolio) so your client knows what to expect when you’re done.

When I hire people to do admin for me, I know that most of them won’t have done the kind of admin that I require, but so long as I see that they’re capable of using a computer proficiently, I can make assumptions about what they’ll be capable of learning to be good enough to a help to me.

There are times when those hiring need highly skilled assistance, and times when they’re happy with just an extra pair of hands on the project. Pick up any experience you can to get to where you want to be, but be honest about your abilities and make sure you get paid what you deserve. If you don’t know how much that is, ask someone already in the game.