Contacting Photographers - It's not what you know, but who you know.

Within our video module Maria arranged for a video artist to present us with some of his work and talk to us about his career and answer some of our questions. He spoke to us about the importance of networking within the art world. Within every commercial industry connections are vital to success and the photography industry is no different. Successful artists of all genres from music to photography are at some point ‘discovered’ or have their ‘big break’. As a studying photographer this all seems hugely daunting and somewhat unfair. Connections aren’t only vital at the beginning of ones career, for example, David LaChapelle’s successful career continues to grow and grow as he becomes more famous and in turn more in demand. Every celebrity wants to confirm his or her own status by being shot by LaChapelle and the more successful he becomes, the higher his budget rises and the better his images are able to become.
All this clarifies how important it is to get myself and my work out there as soon as possible. In every job a full CV is required to secure the position and because we aren’t all as lucky as LaChapelle to present a successful and powerful artists our portfolio, most of us have to start at the bottom. Because of this I have researched into various studios in leeds to ask for work experience and I also read lots of photography magazines and enter as many of their competitions as possible.
Many photographers start by becoming another photographer’s assistant, this is also something I have looked into. As I am primarily interested in portrait photography and fashion, these are the genres of which I have and will email various photographers for work experience or assistant placements. However I would love the chance to work as an assistant with any photographer as I feel I have a lot to learn and assisting them and experiencing how they work would teach me a huge amount.