011: Learning From The F*ck Ups
Come fail with me
Hello and happy Friday! Thanks so much to anyone who’s back for more and welcome to everyone along for the first time. This is my space for regular sharing, of photographs or music and thoughts on life as a creative freelancer.
It’s a slow-down from social media, a chance to go a little deeper, share honestly and openly about how and why I do the work that I do.
This week is an infrequent letter to self. I read a lot of businessy, self-help kind of books and blogs. A common thread in that world is to spend time journaling to help with clarity of thought. I’ve tried it on and off but have struggled to make it a habit that’s stuck.
This post is what you might call a journal entry. It’s a letter to you, but really to me. It’s a look back at some low points and the other side that followed, even when that felt impossible.
Thanks so much for being here.
Come Fail With Me…
I’ve been working full time as a freelance photographer for 13 years now. Add on a few years before when I was skiving through a day job, mainlining coffee and burning myself out trying to make it all work.
It’s fair to say that in that time, I’ve had my share of fuck ups. Some small, some monumental. Maybe not quite existential, but some that felt like it in the moment. Some live out in the world, largely unnoticed. Most were behind-the-scenes catastrophes that still occasionally wake me up in a cold sweat.
Today I’m going to briefly walk you through two of my favourite mistakes so you can revel in the wake of my embarrassment and hopefully learn something from what I did wrong.
Believe Your Own Hype
This is an old one. So old I can’t even find the photographs any more.
Hopefully pixels in the dust by now.
I was shooting gigs and had started picking up a little bit of cash for doing it. I had done some nice editorial work for magazines and my pals were oh-so impressed with the work I shared online. I was very pleased with myself. Very! Without no thoughts yet of making this a viable business, it all felt…easy. It was fun and I had found something I loved and was quite good at.
One day, an email came through asking me to shoot some portraits of the board of a high-end, fairly niche jewellery company. Their international members would all be in Edinburgh on the same day for a meeting and I was to shoot individual and group portraits. Easy. I totally knew what I was doing. And they were paying me like 2 weeks of my day job money. Result.
I arrive early and am welcomed warmly by the lovely lady at reception. I am taken through the back for a coffee where I relax in for a chat. We’re deep in conversation when a PA comes to tell me “we’re breaking early, they’re ready for you”.
Absolute chaos.
I haven't even taken a light stand out of the bag, let alone scouted locations. I was enjoying the nice bits of the job and forgot the work. I was frantic.
I hadn’t photographed people at that level of business before. I didn’t appreciate the tight time schedules and the general lack of enthusiasm for photography.
It was very different from taking a band up on to the roof of a car park.
I photographed them all through a thinly veiled layer of anxiety. They were in focus and they were visible. But that’s about it for the positives.
I sent the images through and waited. I knew they were shit.
Maybe they wouldn’t notice?
They noticed.
Thankfully I can’t find the email, but it read something like “these aren’t to the standard we expected having looked at your previous work”.
Gut punch. I was humbled.
Know Your Strengths
Fast forward some years, to the day I killed my relationship with my longest client.
Excuse me for being a little more sparing on details on this one.
I had worked with a high-end manufacturing client for a number of years, doing all sorts of photo and video work.
The request came through and my initial reaction was a firm ‘not for me’. But outside circumstances led me to reconsider over conversation with the marketing team. There were assurances of managed expectations as this was something outside all of our comfort zones. I came around and agreed to take on the project. I even quoted for pre-production that would be spent working out how the hell I was going to do it.
Not a promising start.
I planned and prepared as well as I could with multiple trial runs and conversations with lots of people more knowledgeable than me. After all it seemed like it might be fine.
It was not fine.
I aired my concerns to deaf ears in many planning conversations with the client. Their plans weren’t movable and were to be accommodated.
On shoot days, more or less all of my advance concerns arrived. And more I hadn’t even imagined.
The promise of managed expectations was ironically not at all the case. The only satisfying outcome was a truly polished, streamlined experience, and you might have guessed by now, that didn’t happen.
With hindsight, what we achieved was actually pretty good with the various limitations we worked through. In the moment though, I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse on a professional level.
It was sickening. Not least because I genuinely really liked so many of the people I worked with there. For the most part, they were a great crew and it was obvious in that moment that it was going to be the final load out.
Even writing this today, years later, my hair is standing on end.
SOMEHOW I SURVIVED
Failing is annoyingly inevitable. Both of these stories left me feeling completely deflated and questioning whether I was cut out for doing this job. Standing back up, dusting off and dealing with the emotional bruises is the first step. Turning them into lessons is the next.
My biggest take aways from reflecting a bit of this today:
You can’t rush experience. If you don’t know you can do it, don’t take lots of money on the assumption that you can work it out.
Stand your ground. I knew things were going south when my suggestions fell on deaf ears. I could have walked at any point or pushed back harder against people less experienced than I was. When you go along for the ride, you need to own the decisions you’ve made.
Most basically, ask the question “what would the most professional version of this job look like?”. It’s a good starting point for deciding your next step. It’s almost never sitting down for coffee before you’ve made a plan.
Shares
A Charline Munger quote that’s been saved in my Evernote “good quotes” file for ages but seems appropriate today:
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day, if you live long enough, like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve."
What else could it be today? C’mon Scotland 🏴🏆
Since Last Time
Went a nice big walk up Ben Lomond on a day off which was nice image fodder for this.
Read the brilliant Bruce Springsteen autobiography ‘Born To Run’. He has such a beautiful way with words.
Do you have a friend who would like getting some photo chat every now and then? I’d love if you shared this with them.
Until next time…
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett from Westward Ho. There is some debate about quite what he intended when he wrote this but I take it as I read it. So should you!
Keep failing, keep trying, keep failing.
Fail better