First Four Steps

I was thinking about all my possibilities and decided that I would love to stay in Bristol for a bit more, I could build up my portfolio by participating in contests and try to get the job in a magazine as an editorial photographer, in the end, Bristol has a name of a cultural city. Apart from the editorial job, I would love to become a freelancer and I am going to explore and analyse what I should do in the next six months after finishing university from both sides.

Rebecca Bernstein

First of all, I have found the location based editorial photographer who lives in Bristol and works for few magazines - Rebecca Bernstein. Her clients are:

Rebecca Bernstein

BBC Food
Barclays Smartwomen
Big Issue UK/Japan
Countryfile Magazine
Dott Cornwall
Forward Publishing
Gardens Illustrated Magazine
Le Figaro
Sainsbury’s Magazine
St James’s House Media 
The Seafood Restaurant Ltd
Sunday Times Newspapers
The Telegraph Magazine
The Garden-RHS

This gives you an idea that you can actually work for more than one magazine and that is what I will try to achieve. First of all, I have found that Telegraph magazine has various competitions which I could enter and try to win and if I am lucky enough to do so, it would help me to show my work to the public, plus, it might draw some attention from other magazines, newspapers and etc.. For example this weeks entry is for the best holiday snapshot. You can find it here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/hubs/thebigpicture/. So that is one of the first things I am going to do. Also, I will start to upload my pictures to the Alamy website and it might win me some money as well - you never know. Plus, there are more than enough of choices when you google "photography competitions".

Rob White

I never thought I could do a great food photography, but now I am thinking about this as a possibility as well. I have found a photographer who has drawn my attention and is great at creating it - Rob White. I was thinking that I would like to photograph food if in different and creative ways and also apply for a job in food magazine who would be happy to get a different taste of food photography. In Rob's example he works in many food related magazines such as Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury's, he also does advertising photography for Hellman's, Nestle, Burger King and etc... The thing is, his photographs are really amazing: rich in colour and patterns and if I would apply for the job in food magazine, I would try to do some creative shots of food before and would definitely try to engage the different style. You can find more of Rob's work in here: http://www.robwhitephoto.com/photography.html

Rob White

In the end. although it might seem as a good chance, I love photographing people the most. I feel like only the portraiture can say something special and deep. So I know that my first step will definitely be taking a part in all of the competitions I can find. The second one will be trying to show my work everywhere as much as possible - Flickr and other photo websites including Alamy as well. The third step will be  exhibiting my work in local pubs and cafes. I know one which is amazing and I chose it carefully from other because my work would fit the atmosphere in there, it's the Alma Tavern & Theatre: http://www.almatavernandtheatre.co.uk/. They do support local artists and photographers and have different monthly exhibitions. I emailed them today about my interest in holding an exhibition there in summer and asked about all the fees and the percentage they take of the work they sell. Let's hope that I will get the answer soon.The next step will see me redacting my CV and Portfolio to reflect all the experience gained - London Exhibition, plus all the extra exhibitions/competitions which I will take part in after graduating - which will then hopefully help me set up a more reliable and maybe even a permanent role within the desired field of subject. As I imagine, all of the four steps will come true in around 2 months time, so after preparing myself for the big step - applying for the editorial job and trying to sell my work to the magazines.