Learning about the Industry - Bella Gingell

I haven’t had chance to update the blog until today! Anyway! Last Wednesday, we met Bella, who is a businesswoman who came to talk to us about the financial side of the industry and the factors to take into care when setting up your own business. 18 years ago, Bella set up her own business renting out self-catering holiday cottages in Bath and Wiltshire and the Somerset Border with her company Farleigh Wood (www.farleighwood.co.uk). She came to speak to us about the more financial side of running a business, offering advice on how to go about things like Tax, VAT and other costs. She couldn't stress the importance of keeping receipts of items you purchased while on the job as they are fundamental proof of purchases and can help back up overall costs. Keep all the receipts for food, parking tickets, even your mileage if you have to travel in your own vehicle (works out as an average of 40p a mile on petrol) these are all things that you have to buy yourself to keep you working and thus come into the equation of the final invoice. Sick of doing it yourself? Or have too many eggs in one basket? A lot of bigger companies will hire accountants and bookkeepers to deal with all the financial side of things. Keep on the good side of the taxman and VAT people, being prompt and reliable with payments will stop you from having to liquidate your business! Small businesses or freelancers that deal with cash in hand are not a problem when concerning the taxman, but once your business gets to a certain size and starts earning a lot more money, things can become tricky. With big electronic payments, cheques etc, it makes it a lot more noticeable to the taxmen and they will likely come calling asking for a percentage of your income. To avoid such troubles, speak to the VAT companies and ask about setting up a tax billing service. After visiting Bella's website on her cottage rental business, we noticed how it had been designed by Craig Gill of Gill Design, who had previously been on the same course of us and had been set up this website opportunity by our lecturer, Catherine! 

Bath in Time Exhibition

Today I went along to Dan Brown's exhibition which was relevant to his Bath in Time project which we learned a bit about last week. The exhibition was situated on the first floor of the Poseidon shopping centre, above Waitrose in Bath and it consisted of a number of makeshift walls where photos of Bath could be seen dotted all around the room it was in. Dan Brown himself was there as well and we had a little chat with him before going on to view the various photos on display. It was interesting to see what the city looked like in the past and I could recognize the modern equivalents a lot of the time. There were also a few modern pictures of the city and the people that populate it. It was an interesting event and definitely worth the visit. I didnt have my camera on me at the time, so here are some images that we saw from the Bath in Time website (www.bathintime.co.uk):

Learning about the Industry – Dan Brown

Today we were introduced to Dan Brown, who is a Bath based photographer who most recently started the ‘Bath in Time’ project where he cleverly blended pictures of various parts of the city of Bath with historic pictures. He got a book published on the topic and over 2,000 have been sold so far! And at £9.99 each, that sure is an impressive income!  We learnt that Dan didn’t go to University and his love of cars led him to being a mechanic, a few years later he became a chef in Devon, during his time there, he met a man who worked in a sports shop who later on helped Dan get a place at that shop! It was during this employment when he found his way onto computers for the first time, he was tasked with understanding the workings and technicalities of them and he quickly became adept at using them (although very basic systems at the time) He enjoyed the marketing side of this business and eventually went on to being a salesman for a large corporation (I forget the name) he dealt with stock control and selling of software. Over time he lost passion for this and dropped out in 2004. He had always had a passion for historic photos (especially those of Bath) and he decided to take up photography. Picture libraries became his field of proficiency, he had re-invented himself occupationally. He took a training course studying the technology and equipment in photography and got to work on his ‘Bath in Time’ project where he only recently produced a coffee table book of the project. His current work is being shown in an exhibition in Bath at the, I will definitely attend this at some point next week as it seems interesting and partially relevant to my own work. Dan told us the importance of earning contacts in business and self promotion etc. More importantly he taught us to be passionate about our work. The more you enjoy doing something, the better the outcome will be and the more fun you will have along the way. This advice has been some of the most helpful from all of the people we have seen, I think this is the case because it may be the difference between me as a digital worker finding satisfaction or aggravation in the field I choose. I’m hoping by the end of this course, I will have found a specific field of design which I want to specialise in.

My Animation!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwE_LkyajQE

Shepton Mallet Digital Arts Festival

On Sunday, I went to the final day of the Digital Arts Festival at Shepton Mallet. At 7:00 Rod Dickinson (digital designer) gave a talk on some of the work he did as well as teach us about some valuable lessons in his field and some interesting facts about digital design in general, a lot of the information was relevant to the current course I'm on although I felt as if already knew a lot of this information. At 7:45 Dan Dixon came in and looked into the question of "Can We Educate Creative Technologists?" this session taught us the fundamentals of creative technology as well as the education and demand behind the industry as well as the principles and skills needed. The room we were in was freezing! so I didn't stay much longer, but I made sure to speak to some of the other people there and I met Claire Sully who I had spoken to before via email. I was surprised when arriving that she knew who I was. Not just because we had been in contact, but because of my competition entry a few years back for my A Level project in Media Studies which I will try and post on here as soon as I can remember my YouTube account :)

I also saw a competition entry from a fellow colleague; Mat Gartside. And pictures of Tim Hammond and Tom Gray which were being projected on the big screen - Most probably from a previous year! I also just found out that my lecturer, Catherine knows Claire Sully. Small world, eh?

Learning about the Industry – Dean McLachlan

Today we met Dean, who is a wedding Photographer. When he first started out as a photographer, he wasn’t interested in focussing primarily on weddings in his profession, the idea never really appealed to him initially. He started out working as an apprentice for a high end wedding photographer, gradually working his way up to becoming a photographer himself. 9 Years later he was taking photos of products and most notably taking pictures of the dogs of Crufts. Eventually he found himself picking his clients more freely and becoming more of a pro in the field. In 2007 he bought his first professional camera and went into the wedding photography niche – over time he had learned to love the subject and spoke passionately to us about how much he loved photographing people and their emotions as opposed to stationary objects and scenery. Most recently he has been working alongside the Bath Rugby team, capturing scenes of the game and the more interesting aspects of the sport, not just the players and the ball, but the people watching and reacting. He’s not getting paid for this project but he knows that because he is a Bath based photographer, this is a fantastic opportunity to work for a more well-known organisation and as part of the project, a coffee table booklet with photos he has taken will be produced and that will be a good form of advertisement for him as a photographer and will hopefully get him by more potential clients interested in obtaining some photography work. Dean explained to us how most of his most recent work has come from the networking site, Twitter. He recommended us all signing up to the site (which is ironically what I did minutes before he came in!) it’s good for getting your name out to the industry as well as your work, for potential clients to see. Another thing Dean has done is advertised in a local photography magazine. The magazine is a not particularly well known one and is dedicated to very local photographers and Dean as a photographer is a lot more established in that field, and he explained his reasons for this were that he would “prefer to be a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.” I can see where he is coming from in this aspect; people are more likely going to notice him than they would if he had a small article dedicated to him in a large ubiquitous magazine. He taught us the imperativeness of getting yourself known and really showing your passion for your field. Follow people on Twitter and get yourself a good website up and running. Realise the importance of your portfolio, to a client, you’re only as good as that. Also if you’re thinking about going into advertising yourself, it’s important to advertise according to your current scenario. If you’re just one person, its best to advertise locally as opposed to all over the country, you’re not Superman at the end of the day, you can’t manage all that work and all that travelling!

I’m a Twitter!

It was only a matter of time before I found myself on this website. I have followed quite a few of the relevant creative profiles as well as added a few of my colleagues as contacts. I’m hoping that I will be able to promote myself as a freelancer better on this online profile and hope that I may be able to network better between clients and other people in the same field as me.

Link to my Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/#!/AlexJamesParker