I've always wanted to a journalist. My big brother was one. He worked for a small regional paper back in the day when shooting film was king and developing negatives in the dark was an art. I remember the day he took me to a cricket match on a dusty pitch in Somerset West. I had just entered high school and impressional as a blank page. Throughout high school this dream burnt, inexstinguishable, within. I wanted to be like him. Easter weekend in 78 everything changed. Michael was taken. It was devastating. Still, I went through the processes. Rhodes was where I was going. I was going to be a journo and write stories and take pictures like my brother. Life, had other ideas. I ended up at a teachers college, than a photographic studio with a man who taught me to take pictures and work a dark room like my brother did.
Fast forward about thirty odd years. The two things my brother did, I still do. I play guitar and take pictures. I'm just not a journo. I'm to old for that stuff.
Life just never stops changing the goal posts. After years of working for a boss, that horrible, big "R" word reared its head. Like the Big C, it hits you when you least expect it. Oh, sorry. I thought you knew what it was. RETRENCHMENT. Just like cancer, it happens to the best of us. That happened. But I am different see. This is not a trainsmash I thought. I have a camera. I will work from home. Run a business. I will FREELANCE. Thats it. Problem solved. MMMMmmmm.
It's been all of fourteen months. It's been a rude awakening. It's been life changing. It's been hard in the trenches. From here on I am expressing my experience of being a freelancer.
Freelancing is often born out of neccessity. It is born out of the fact that there is a need and the need can be fulfilled by using that "unique set of skills", be it photography, writing, design, music etc. The problem is attaching a value to that set of skills. Now if your name is Liam Neeson and you have that "unique set of skills" you would have no problem selling your skills or top dollars. However, if your name is Tom, Dick or Sally trying to sell your skills to a corporate world is a whole different tin of sardines. There is often a complete disrespect for you as a freelancer and for what you are offering. Therefor there is often little or no value placed on your "unique set of skills". You soon find out your skills are not so unique. Add to that, you are probably one of a hundred on the same corner of the block with that "unique" set of skills. It thus ends up coming down to what makes you different, an individual.
The lesson in all this??. Be resilient. Don't give up. Find your niche. Develop that special little something in the way you do things. Try a different angle. Never stop learning. Attach a VALUE to your skills. They're your's. In short, develop that "Unique Set Of Skills". Become Liam Neeson!
**The picture was shot during the #ZumaMustFall march on December 16, 2015. The march had "dispersed". The journo's and cameramen had all left. This group of about 200 ahd walked back to the gates of Parlaiment. These two guys decided to climb the statue and drape the banner. I was one two or three people with cameras in the group.
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