Things they never tell you about being a freelancer
By Lauren Hayes-Day
Let me set the scene: You have a job that you don’t really hate, but one from which you’d rather spend 12 weeks away on holiday than four. In the last few months you acquired a camera (or a new laptop for graphic design, writing or something else creative), and you constantly want to be playing with your new toy instead of being stuck behind your desk.
Then something happens. Although you only started doing it for fun, lots of people noticing how good your work is and asking how much you charge for a job here or there.
All of a sudden you have the opportunity to start walking down the road of a career you may actually love… So where do you go from here?
This is exactly where I was about six months ago. And although I’ll cover the ‘How to Get Started’ topic in greater detail later, what follows is the advice I needed to hear back then.
Freelance is HARD work. Although you have the freedom to choose your hours, where you work and how much you take on, you have nobody to hold you accountable. If you are not good with deadlines or ignoring distractions, this will be something you need acknowledge and improve.
You’ll need to learn to separate your home life and your work. Working from home is a totally different scenario to working on an external premises, and it’s very easy to wear yourself out by constantly doing little bits here and there.
Instead, put time aside to do things properly with your full attention, rather than get half of them done in double the time. As a photographer, I enter all my shoots into a calendar, and I also book out slots of time to edit and invoice. It’s also important book in time ‘off’ to do things I want to do. Even if you love something, you need time away from it to be objective the business and remain excited about the work.
You’re also completely responsible for how people treat you. If someone acts unprofessionally, doesn’t pay an invoice or anything else untoward - you don’t have anyone to ‘protect’ you. Fortunately, I’ve found these incidents to be rare, but when the situation arises you need to value yourself, your work and your time and insist you are paid what is owed.
It goes without saying, but creative work takes a lot of time. You are going to learn to miss out on things, and your friends may get sick of hearing you say, “Sorry, I can’t. I have to finish this job’.
Most creatives are perfectionists, and we are usually never happy with what we produce. Find a mentor you can trust to give you honest feedback, and make sure you always do your best to manage the expectations of your clients.
Lastly, being a freelancer is totally worth it. I promise you!
You may not end up shooting Vogue, or designing the cover or the dress, but the feeling of having someone use your work is (in my opinion) second-to-none. If you can handle the initial crush of balancing jobs, funds and time - you simply may end up with a life you never even dared to dream about.
I wish I’d read something like this years ago - I would have saved a lot of time bouncing around professions that I liked - but didn’t find fulfilling. I don’t regret any of them, but I wish I’d put my all into taking photos a lot sooner. I hope that this gives you some questions to ponder, and that those answers mean we cross paths in the whirlwind of creativity which is this industry.
’Til next time!
Lauren Hayes-Day can be found at LozDogPhotog or hunting around Sydney and Canberra shooting the cities' nightlife