Business.

This is something most self-employed people get thrown into without having a clue where to start unless you decided that you wanted to do a course in business studies and have more than a vague idea. You learn the ins and outs along the way, lots of mistakes are made but lots is learnt on the way.

How do I get clients? How do I get started?

TL;DR – Create a body of your best work you are proud of and make yourself known through social media, contacting them and free jobs for poor people (don’t undercut other photographers). If you’re still not getting hired or noticed, you may not be at their quality just yet. And finally, BE NICE.

When I did my first ever car shoot of the Ferrari P4, I had no idea how to carry on getting automotive work. The only car magazine I liked (because I wasn’t really into cars at all before I started shooting them) was Octane magazine. So I dropped them an email, which went along the lines of, “Hi! I’ve just photographed a car and I think the photos are pretty decent. Can I do some work for you?”

Very kindly, they invited me into their office have a look at some of my work. I made a physical portfolio with pictures printed from the self-serve machines at Boots and put in photos of the P4, the 2013 Goodwood Revival I’d just been to and other non-car work I’d done, as those two shoots were practically all the car-related things I’d ever shot. They were very lovely to me but said that really I needed more examples of car work, especially showing that I could do panning and tracking shots. So off I went and photographed my mate’s 2010 Fiat Punto and my Dad’s Mini as practice. I sent them the photos and was turned down again because the harsh truth was I was not good enough for their standard.

This was a horrible truth to accept, but it was the truth. If you are continually shooting and showing your work to clients but not getting any jobs, you may just not be at the level of work they need yet. Really scrutinise your own work against those images in the magazine – what makes them better than you? How can you alter your work to become as good or better than them? If you want tips on improving, head down to the ‘Technical’ section.

Be sure to have an up to date, easy to navigate website and a number of social media platforms. Instagram is my best friend but that’s because it’s the best social media platform for me as a photographer, it’s all about pictures. Twitter isn’t great for me and Facebook has been better. These are free ways to get your pictures into the world and if they’re good, they WILL get noticed. Don’t buy followers, we can all tell. Keep posts consistent, people will follow you for car images, but then might unfollow you when you post a picture of your cat, but you may get some slightly odd cat fanatics who will follow you, who will then unfollow you again when you post a picture of a car. And so on. If your skills range then that’s great! But if you want to build a social media following, keep your content consistent.

So, I wasn’t good enough for Octane just yet. I also sent my Revival images to Goodwood’s Facebook page in a message. I later found out that it was a pure fluke that they saw it. Anyhow, 2 months later they saw the images and called me to invite me to shoot for them at the 72nd Members’ Meeting to which I confidently gave them a day rate figure I’d Googled that moment and that, to my great surprise, they practically agreed to, minus £50.

Easton Chang also posted my P4 pictures on his Facebook page to which my site blew up with visitors (2 years later, I took him for dinner to thank him). From that, Petrolicious found me and contacted me, asking if I wanted to shoot some images and write some articles for them. I had never written about cars in my life (I couldn’t tell the difference between a Defender or a Land Rover Series 1…) but I said yes anyway. I didn’t care that they paid very little, their Facebook page at the time had over a quarter of a million likes and heck, I was barely getting any photography work at all! So I busted my ass and shot a few things for them, angling the articles on the people rather than the cars because heck, I didn’t know the technical jibber jabber of car stuff! But from those articles, Classic Driver found me and called to say that they’d pay me almost three times the amount to shoot for them! I couldn’t believe my luck!!

TL;DR – There are always happy compromises, but don’t be afraid to stand your ground. Be the best you can be, always produce the best work you can.

Managing a client’s expectations vs. reality can be awkward sometimes, but there are ways to make sure they’re happy and you’re happy, which usually result in the client returning. A client usually gives you a brief of what they’re after, anything from a vague ‘Yeahhh, just go to this event and shoot some stuff for us, thanks!’ (the best kind of jobs) to image by image of what they want the outcome to look like. Obviously, the latter can be more challenging. Sometimes you just need to try your best but also make them aware of the possible things that could go wrong or that they need to prepare for. For example, I had a client who loved beauty shots of cars and often models in busy London streets. But the car didn’t start. So we had to transport it everywhere and push it everywhere. They also wanted me to visit some very expensive shops and shoot in there too. We were too short of time to call these places to ask them permission and we didn’t have any official permit to shoot so could get moved on by police at any moment. I tell them that I will try my upmost but be warned, the traffic will be busy, police may stop us shooting and shops may not want us in, I’m just going to ask them when we show up. Everything turned out fine in the end but I had to make sure they knew the realistic outcome if things went to pot.

Sometimes I’m asked to alter my editing which I don’t really like to do, but editing is something quite personal so I don’t mind tweaking it if needed. For example, a client wanted my pictures to be less ‘hazy’, with more contrasting blacks. This edit, I think, is part of my signature style so to alter it is something I don’t like to do, however, I only tweaked it slightly, meaning my images still looked like mine, but the shadows were darker and they were happy. Win! They hired me again a month later.

If the client emails me and tells me they want something that I think is out of my skillset, such as using a lot of artificial lighting, I thank them for their email but tell them I think their request would be better with another photographer.

Some clients will try and alter the outcome a lot, yes. I really don’t like it but at the end of the day, it’s for their company so you need to produce what they want, even if it’s a bad idea. The best thing in that situation is to cover your ass and do both your ideas and theirs. This may mean you’re pushed for time, but it will create the best outcome for both of you.

Sometimes you don’t feel like you’re a photographer at all, just someone to press the button. I’ve been on a commercial shoot before and the client just wanted to have input and micromanage. I’d produce what I thought was the best angle for the shot they wanted, but the client would say they didn’t like it and wanted it different. So you do what they want, think it’s not great but it’ll do, and the client loves it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta do it. They hired me again, too.

Sometimes a client will be unhappy but that’s not your fault. If you can give them images that fit their brief that you think are awesome, it’s not your fault. I had a wedding couple once tell me how they only liked one image of the two of them from the whole day. I know I that the images I produced were beautiful because everything about the wedding was gorgeous, they just didn’t like how they looked. Sorry, but that’s not my problem.

Other times, clients are a bit shitty. They tell you about a job, you quote them, they lower the quote a tad but you accept, then they tell you a bit more about the job, and extend the time, and that they want the images unedited and immediate, and then you wish you hadn’t taken the job at all. I have once emailed such client that did that, the day before the event, telling them that I was very sorry but I wouldn’t be photographing their event due to the new information. The client obviously threw a paddy but I suggested some other photographers, apologised again and didn’t go. No, they didn’t hire me again. I don’t consider it a loss, but a learning curve.

If the job is well paid, you can lower your ‘how much am I going to enjoy this’ expectation. Don’t do a job unless you’re going to be paid well, have fun, or it’ll be beneficial to brand You!

Fees, undercutting, pricing yourself, expenses, usage and deliverables.

TL;DR – Find your base fee, don’t undercut other photographers, usage is hard.

This one is TOUGH. As mentioned in the intro, I’m still learning. There are a tonne of websites and articles out there that will try and help you figure out costs for these things but sometimes it’s just trial and error. Things change a lot depending on who the client is, what other photographers working for them charge, how much they want from you, whether it’s editorial or commercial work etc. Some professional photographers charge a day rate, travel day rates, editing costs, usage costs and expenses on top. I’m not at that level to get all of those ticked off yet as usually, my clients are smaller.

When I first started charging properly, my day rate was £400 a day plus any fuel/food expenses. There are websites that tell you how much you can charge for this (such as in the UK, I think you now charge 45p per mile, and then there is a general day allowance that they’ll pay for food, too). Some people told me this was too expensive for them and they could only pay me £300 plus expenses, or £350 but no expenses. Sometimes even less. This is the point you need to think how much you want to do the job if it’s financially beneficial or professionally beneficial. There are clients I work for now that still only pay me that but I still do the jobs because of who the client is and the type of exposure I get for brand Amy Shore from that. Some photographers make a loss for some of those jobs but the thing is, the photographers for those clients all get paid the same. My day rates have gone up since then because I’m now too busy and have the fortune to be able to pick and choose my jobs. Some clients will straight out tell you what they will pay you which is sometimes a BIG help because they offer you lots more than you would have dared ask for… or they say they’ll pay you so little that you kindly decline their offer.

One more thing with expenses – they should pay for all of them (don’t be cheeky and order a sirloin steak with a bottle of red…) and you add them onto your fee. So I’ll say ‘my fee is X plus expenses (excluding VAT)’ and don’t define a number. Sometimes people will want you to quote them with everything down to the last penny you think you’ll spend, but I don’t find that too often. Here are a couple of examples of invoices of mine, an old one and one from 2020 —>

Now I look back at my older one, I can criticise it a lot more!! Like, why I decided to put Quantity 1 of 2 shoot days, I don’t know… Face palm. People will be late paying and chasing invoices suck. Like, I’ve done my job for the agreed fee, why are you not paying me?! Frustration to the max. So far, I’ve not had an invoice not paid in the end. Yes, it may have taken months, but it has always been paid.

You can use online accounting programmes such as Xero, Receipt Bank, Pandle etc to run your invoices and expenses through. Also, be sure to get a good accountant from the minute you start earning some cash, they will guide you right from setting your business up officially to paying the right amount of tax. I also became a VAT paying limited company, which is a whole new world of accounting pain. I rely on my accountant far too much (and I think they get pretty fed up with the amount of questions I ask them…) so really, make sure you get someone who you feel comfortable talking to and who will help you as much as they can.

Always keep your receipts for things you want to charge as expenses as clients will ask to see a copy to make sure your figures add up. And always keep your work receipts anyway to claim against your own tax.

Deliverables, or the images that you deliver at the end of the shoot, vary from photographer to photographer. I give my clients every image that I think is good for what they’re after, edited. I may shoot 3,000 on a big shoot, but they may only see 300 images of that because the rest are either crap or are repetitive of a similar and better angle. Another photographer I know asks the magazine how many images they need for the spread and gives them exactly that many images (bold move, that man!). Larger commercial clients will pay for your editing time, but smaller editorials won’t. Commercial may ask for 15 highly polished images, where the editing can take hours, and they’ll pay you X amount to edit each one. But first, they’ll want to see all of the images with a quick edit to be able to tell you which ones they want more editing applied to. From my experience, you get paid for what you deliver, not the work up to it. This is why photographers have to charge a higher day rate because their job is only half done once they leave the shoot.

Usage is something I’m brand new to.  I have a better idea now but that’s only since chatting to other photographers. Editorial is £15-£45 per image per usage, so 10 images x (£15-£45) = one month fee. Commercial is a whole different ball game which I can’t advise as I’ve not had enough experience myself. If you shoot for a client for a day rate, some usage is usually expected in that fee (e.g. unlimited usage on social media platforms for 2 years and use worldwide over the next year in published media for use of promotion of the next event/published for that one month issue of the magazine). If you’re not sure, ask them what they intend to use the images for and make your own judgment. Usage tends to be charged if a client wants to extend the use of the images, publish them again, or buy images from you that you’ve already shot for something else. The usage also can change depending on where in a magazine the image features (cover shots cost more) and also how big the image is (double page spread to stamp size).

Undercutting is a shitty thing. Photographers steal your clients because they charge much less than you to get their own foot in the door. Yes, the photography world is tough. Yes, perhaps do one or two discounted shoots to get your foot in that door and noticed but once you’re in, up your costs to match the other photographers. If the client would rather hire the originally more expensive photographer, you need to ask yourself why. I have had a couple of photographers rip off my photography style (other people would comment asking if it was my shoot…) whilst shooting for my client that I’d had for a long time because they charge much less consistently. This is not cool. Right before I started shooting for a large client, their usual photographer told me what to charge them and I was scared to because I didn’t think they’d hire me. He said that that’s his day rate and it makes it fair for all of us professional photographers who I trying to make a living doing this. And guess what? They hired me and they still hire him! Win-win!

When can I make the jump from amateur to professional?

TL;DR – If you’re a poor graduate like I was with no initial savings or a spouse to support you in your dreams, you need to work until your head figuratively explodes.

I was very lucky that when I started photography jobs (weddings and friends’ parties!) I was still in school/university. I was used to being poor. Once I graduated, I worked as a freelance book designer (through pure luck of meeting someone) but scraped by on minimal income for about a year with dappled photography jobs here and there, including the Ferrari, Goodwood and Petrolicious jobs. I was still shooting weddings until 2017 as I wasn’t getting enough car or wedding work to give up the other completely. Don’t have all of your eggs in one basket. I was working up to 85 hours some weeks (with travel, shooting, editing, emailing, invoicing, planning etc) to get through all my work. Even then, I was worried about stopping weddings because of the fear I wouldn’t get enough work. You need to work until you feel you cannot physically survive another year before you can make the leap to full-time X photographer. If you can, tip the scales slowly. If you’re in full-time employment, see if you can work part time. Start saying ‘no’ to jobs that you don’t want to do if you’re already freelance. It is tough and scary. I personally wouldn’t take the jump if I had no backup or if I felt I still had free time. Get a job doing something you enjoy, do photography on the side (talk to your accountant about paying the right amount of tax) and keep on at it.

Getting media access to events

TL;DR – Find a reputable publication that wants you to go.

This is a half guess, as I’ve only ever actually applied for accreditation for Goodwood events. Usually I’m hired by the client directly, but I’ll give you a rough idea of what happens.

You need to be shooting for a publication or magazine. Usually, you need to provide examples of your published work (on websites/magazines etc) and a letter/email/cc’d person of that publication to say you’ll be shooting for them. This will then hopefully get accepted, you get put on a list, then you have to find the media centre/sign-on on the day and they’ll have you on their list. You get given a pass and off you go for the day!

You could email the event directly but again, that goes back to approaching clients.

What are your edit settings? What presets do you use? Who inspires you?

TL;DR – Put your own awesome stamp on the world.

To put it simply – I’m not going to tell you how I edit, but there’s a good reason. I don’t use any bought/pre-made presets at all. When I first started shooting, I’d play around with settings, look at other people’s work I loved the edit of and really think ‘How the hell have they made their picture look like that?!’. I’d open up my image next to theirs in Photoshop and literally look at the highlights – were they yellow? Blue? Grey? I’d look at how sharp the images were – is that camera quality? Contrast? Spot sharpening? All of these comparisons and tests made my edit what it is today.

I adore the work of Laurent Nivalle and have cited his work, especially this album, to be a major inspiration to the way I shoot. I would salivate over his images to try and figure out what I loved so much about them and how to edit like him. Then one day, a friend of mine put us in touch and Laurent said to me (paraphrasing here, because I can’t find the actual message…) ‘If you always copy someone, you will always be a step behind them. If you are inspired by them, you will be as good or better than them’.

No one owns their own style. I do not own the style, which I’m recognised for. Creativity is open to all to do as they wish. However, when a photographer happens to pop up, shooting in the same reportage style as me, with a very similar edit to me, and then proceeds to work for clients I’ve had on my books for years who then don’t hire me because they charge less, that is not cool. For all I know, these people may have just happened to fall into these exact brackets on their own without ever seeing a single pixel of my images, but it’s just a bit of a coincidence.

Who wants to be like someone else, anyway?! Do you not want to create your own stance in the world? Your own photographic mark? I am inspired by photographers such as Ragnar Axelsson, Sebastião Salgado, Harry Benson, Vivian Maier, Wes Anderson but I’m pretty sure that none of my work looks like theirs, or Laurent Nivalle’s as previously mentioned. Your work can change the whole scope of its creative world! But you’ve got to be original. I also adore the work of Don McCullin and Henri Cartier-Bresson. These two in particular are great inspirations to me for their simple camera set ups and use of natural lighting. I’m sure Don didn’t pause fleeing refugees to say ‘Sorry, could I just get you to try that flee one more time? I didn’t have my flashgun set up at quite the right angle’… He shot at the moment he had, with the basic gear in his hands. I admire that and think that his work shows a brutal honesty to the situation, and that is something I try to portray in my own work of the automotive world.

Do you ever outsource editing?

How do you start with your first DSLR camera? Different lenses and filters? When to move from a kit lens?

TL;DR – Practice LOTS. 

Shoot, shoot, shoot. With your kit lens, figure out your angles, your compositions, your bread and butter of your images. My first ‘proper’ lens after a kit lens was a Nikon 50mm f/1.8, which I still use. Once I got it, I shot everything with it because I loved the ‘blurry’ background from the f/1.8 setting. I was shooting on a Nikon D50, which I got gifted from my parents at the age of 16. All of the images left and below are old images of mine shot with my Nikon D50 and either the kit lens or 50mm lens. I still think my style can be seen in these images, it just got refined with the help of better gear and Photoshop knowledge over time.

I only use prime lenses (lenses that don’t zoom) because I like the quality of the images and how the images look consistent with one another, but that’s just my personal preference. I never shot RAW images with my Nikon D50 – I didn’t even know what RAW images were!! It wasn’t until 2013 that I got my full frame camera (Nikon D600) and my images really started to take off and look like the quality I was after. You can still create great images on cheap cameras. It’s not all about lots of expensive gear.

Filter wise, I only use polarising filters to get rid of windscreen reflections in cars, but don’t use them for shooting anything else because I feel they give a blue tinge to the images which I struggle to totally realistically warm up again in Photoshop. You can get UV filters and clear filters to protect your lenses, too.

I’ve hardly ever used a film camera but love the feel of the images and admire those who used to shoot the car world on film. As I never studied it, I think I just totally bypassed that section and headed straight to the digital age. Shooting on film has now become a hobby more than anything, one I’m not very good at!

Basic settings – For beginners of photography, there are thousands of articles to help you online, so I’m not going to go in depth, as this could be another 10,000-word article on its own. Go and take your camera into the real world and shoot everything. I always shoot on Manual settings so I have three numbers to focus on – my ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Your ISO is how sensitive your camera is to light, the higher the ISO, the more sensitive and therefore, the more your camera can ‘see’. However, this comes with a price – the higher the ISO, the ‘noisier’ the pictures will be. Expensive cameras help a lot with this, but Photoshop can also help fix this.

Aperture is basically how blurry the background will be, or the ‘depth of field’. The lower the f-stop number (1.8, 1.4…), the blurrier the background but also, the more light the camera is letting into the sensor, so you’ll have to either lower your ISO or speed up your shutter to make sure the image isn’t overexposed.

Finally, shutter speed is how quickly your camera takes the photograph. If you have a fast shutter speed, you’ll capture a very quick moment, which is great for people stuff. But sometimes you’ll want to slow the shutter speed down to something like 1/60 to get a blur of a car when you’re doing panning or tracking shots. Your job as a photographer is to try and find the perfect balance between these three settings to get the image you want.

What is in my own gear bag and lighting

TL;DR – You don’t need a metric tonne of expensive equipment to do a good job. 

99% of the time, I don’t use any additional equipment to what’s in my bag. No artificial lighting, no reflectors, no light meters etc. My feeling is that my work is meant to be journalistic and real, not beauty. I want to document the event/story/car just as it is. You could argue that I shouldn’t edit my images in that case, but I’m quite happy with my middle ground.

Here is a shot and list of everything in my usual bag. I always pack what you see in the image (see the * next to the items on the list), the rest of the items on the list are brought with me for specific jobs:

• Nikon Z9*

• Nikon D6*

• Nikkor 24mm 1.4 lens

• Nikkor 35mm 1.4 lens*

• Nikkor Z 50mm 1.2 lens*

• Nikkor 85mm 1.4 lens*

• Nikkor 70-200mm 2.8 lens

• Batteries and chargers*

• Extra memory cards and reader*

• Business cards

• Basic lens cleaning stuff*

• Laptop, charger and hard drives

• Polarising filters to fit lenses*

• Hold Fast Money Maker sling*

• Single camera strap*

• Whatever book I’m reading at the time

• Pens

• Earplugs, because pit lanes aren’t quiet*

• Hairbrush, because those car-to-car tracking shots are not attractive*

• Hand sanitiser and cream*

• Headphones*

• Phone charger*

• Big bag – Lowepro ProTactic 450 AW*

• Smaller bag – Hex Black Medium DSLR Backpack

These tips will probably be more tailored to car photographers but I’ll try my best to extend tips to more general areas. Like anything creative, these are only rough guides. All of the points could be countered with a number of beautiful images to contradict them, so think on your feet, too.

• Move. Don’t use a super zoom to capture intimate, exciting moments from afar. Get a wider lens on and dive in. Keep longer lenses for moments where the viewer really does need to feel like an onlooker. Picking out some car details on a longer lens – such as wheel arches and rear quarters – can work beautifully. Wider lenses should be avoided when shooting cars as they will distort the car that a bunch of people have painstakingly designed every inch of.

• The whole car doesn’t have to be in focus. I love shooting at f/1.4 because that’s what our eyes do. We focus on a point and the rest is lost. Sometimes shooting at f/8 has its place, sure! But it depends on what you’re trying to achieve from the look.

• Give yourself space – subjects that are cropped too closely, like missing off someone’s feet or clipping off the back of the car from the frame, can ruin a great shot. Either crop more to make it deliberate or come right back and give yourself space, sky, a background to the subject. A photo is not all about the subject but everything else around it. The amount of times I see a car photo where the car has just a slither of space either side of it in the frame, it’s just too much car! Give breathing space!

• If you love cars, forget you’re shooting a car. I couldn’t count the amount of bad car photographs I’ve seen because the photographer was only interested in the car because that’s what they were looking at, not the photograph they were about to take. I think part of the reason I’ve done well with car photography because I was never into cars when I started. It was purely an object that I was attempting to highlight the best features of. I didn’t care about wanting to show the whole thing off. So if you’re shooting something you love and are distracted by, try to look at it as a subject, not a love.

• If you want to shoot a car well, take it away from crappy cars. Shooting a car in a car park next to average cars will not make a good photo. Network at car and coffee meets, and take the car away from the meet to actually shoot it.

• Get a polarising filter.

• Don’t worry about ‘how it should be done’.

• Make sure you have a clear subject. Something the viewer’s eyes are drawn towards. Things can be in a photo but it doesn’t mean it’s a photo of them.

• Light, colour, shapes – that’s all you’re trying to arrange in your picture. If it’s a dull day, focus on colour and shapes. If you’re lacking colour, focus on light and shapes. Look for things to shoot through, frame your picture.

• Wonky horizons have their place, like banked tracks, exciting EVO cover shots, or gorgeous Tim Lazell paintings. Don’t do them when the horizon should be flat, please. It just looks daft.
  

Personal/Other

These questions were asked more about me or were more generic. I’ve answered them as honestly as I could!

How do you walk on water?

Go to the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, when it’s rainy season. Go again in the dry season for Speed Week.

What the hell do I do about selling prints?!

TL;DR – Figure out if you want to sell limited edition prints or unlimited. Find a good printer, whether it’s a print man local to you or an online platform. Think what you would want to receive from another photographer and try and create that experience for your buyers.

This one took me years to work out and I’m still trying to nail it. Do you sell just 10 of your best prints at a super limited edition run? Sell through a gallery or in your own shop? Go to shows to sell your work? Framing or no framing? These are all things that boil down to how you want to work. There are loads of online platforms that allow people to order prints through them, the platform will take a cut (often a big one, like 50%…) and will do all the leg work for you. But I know that when I buy an artist’s work, I want their signature somewhere on it, or an embossed stamp that only could come from their shop. To me, that’s what makes the print special, so that’s what I wanted to do for my own work. 

I found a local print man who does giclee/fine art prints for loads of different artists. I gave him the digital files of my images and whenever I got an order come through, I’d forward him the order confirmation and he would print the image at the size on the order. I would then walk into town to his place, sign the print(s), and he’d package and post them off, charging me a small fee for this additional time and effort. I still made a profit and other than physically going in to sign, I didn’t have to do much. This all worked smoothly right up until the point I moved an hour and a half away…

I started off by driving up once a week to sign prints and to see my family, but I quickly realised it was too much. Then 2020 hit.

I then had a new online shop build for me using Shopify as a platform. When an order comes through now, the order goes to my print man and everything is the same other than instead of signing the print now, I have an official embossed stamp pressed into the space my signature would be. I also post the print along with a hand signed certificate of authenticity which print man has a stack of. It’s not what I originally wanted, to be able to have a signature on every print, but it makes things much smoother and I don’t have to do a 3 hour round trip to sign a single print that needs to arrive in time for someone’s birthday. My amazing virtual PA, Sarah, now manages my print shop totally to allow me time to focus on the photography business.

I also have a selection of exclusive limited edition prints which I do sign, along with number /20, and hand title. These are extra special prints and the price is a lot more than my standard prints. I have to keep a log of where these prints go to and how many I have remaining. But they are by far some of my favourite images I’ve ever produced.

Framing is something I don’t offer because, man alive, posting frames is a pain. Turns out, people don’t like to post glass. And packaging makes things even harder. If someone desperately wants the picture framed, I highly recommend they find a local framer once they received their rolled print in the post.

What are some good first steps to go about shooting some of these prestigious events? ie. Members’ Meeting? Are there any unspoken rules regarding photographers in the paddock, such as how to stay safe, when it’s OK to interact with drivers or mechanics and when should they be left alone, what not to do at all cost…?

TL;DR – Be considerate, never stop looking around you. 

The first piece of advice I’d give to anyone at one of these awesome events would be to arrive early. Give yourself time with minimal crowds to find out where everything is, what aspects you think you’ll enjoy the most and want to see. Shoot lots. Shoot ‘filler’ shots that tell the views about the event like dirty oil rags on the floor, people sunbathing in their retro outfits, signs, tools, feet, hands, umbrellas – things around the event that are not cars! And always be watching everything. Take in every possible inch of your surroundings, looking for photographs that are about to happen. You walk through the tunnel, see a girl in a great hat, be prepared to photograph her hat as she walks past. You see a couple looking close, expect they’re about to kiss. You see a car being pushed, look ahead to where they’re going and run to that spot to be ready to compose your image.

Was your progress ever hindered due to sexism in the industry, and if so, how did you manage to process that? Do you think being female has meant you have to work harder than most – or has it helped you stand out? Or… is it no different?

TL;DR – It was tough to begin with, but has done me well. 

Being a female in the car world has been both a blessing and a hindrance. Initially, it was a hindrance, as people wouldn’t take me seriously. I’d regularly get asked if I was doing this for a University project or I’d get the impression that they didn’t think I’d do a good job because ‘girls don’t do car photography’. I felt like saying to them ‘Trust me, I can do this. I may not know a thing about cars but I know how to make a few good photographs of them’.

I regularly (even after doing this job professionally for 10 years) get asked if photography is my full time job. I might be wrong, but I don’t think I’d get asked that if I was a bloke. I was on a job just 2 weeks ago and I had an older guy in a workshop ask what I usually photograph. He was surprised when I said that cars and bikes were my thing. He then told me to stand away from him whilst he was grinding (he was only commenting to make sure I was safe, which is completely understandable) but was once again very surprised when I told him that I studied metals at University, from forging to silversmithing. He said ‘That’s not a very girly thing to do!’ I felt like I had to defend my reasons for photographing cars, riding motorbikes and being trained in metals, all because they weren’t ‘girly’ things to do. I don’t think anyone should have to defend their hobbies and enjoyments just because of what sex they are.  I want to change the way women are thought of in the car world. We’re not just grid girls, drivers’ girlfriends or car showgirls in skimpy dresses.

How did your life change mentally once you started to pursue photography?

I’ve left this until last because it’s the hardest question I got asked and I’m kind of banking on most people not reading this far down!!

When I first started photography full time, I adored it. I couldn’t be happier! But after a while, it started to get me down. I got seriously stressed out and after about 2 and a half years, and totally lost the love for photography. I didn’t want to pick my camera up unless I had to. It was actually quite miserable! The only way I got out of this was by taking less work, making myself shoot the personal stuff I based my love of photography on, and over time the love came back.

To have your whole amazing career based on whether you and your work are continually liked is a really weird thing to deal with mentally. Like any freelancer, you’re scared about when your next job comes from, I casually browse job websites to see what jobs I’d fancy doing if/when my career goes down the pan! I personally struggle with the whole ‘needing to be continually liked’ a bit more than the usual person, though. My mum tells me that I really shouldn’t give a shit what anyone else thinks which is all well and good if you don’t care about the outcome. Like, I don’t give a shit about nasty things random strangers say about me on the internet. They are not going to end my incredibly fun career that I know I am truly blessed/lucky to be able to do and I will never, ever take it for granted. I do care, however, about what clients or potential clients think.

My therapist told me that we all have a ‘professional self’ and a ‘personal self’ and trying to split the two is like attempting to split the atom. I end up second guessing everything I write, post, say, how I act, how my emails sound, how I look etc. because I believe that all of those things balance the ability for me to continue to do this job I’m so grateful to have. It puts a hell of a lot of pressure on me, and I know that it’s only in my own head. But in recent years, it’s been grinding me down quite severely. I’ve ended up becoming to the point of obsessive over my weight, my work quality, how I’m perceived both online and in person, and of course to clients. So to put it blankly, I’m working on giving less of a shit and just carrying on doing what I’m doing because I like to think that I’m actually pretty good at it.

I think part of this mentality is, as I said in the previous question, I felt when I first got into this automotive world that I always had to be proving myself to people who didn’t believe in me. You end up putting on a very confident, ‘I’m awesome and I can do this!’ act when truthfully, I’m wearing my motivational superman socks and I’m scared as hell because I’m about to work for the biggest client of my career so far and I have no idea how I’m going to impress them. After you’ve done it and the client is happy, it’s the best feeling ever!

I’m sure the older I get, the less I’ll feel like this. The more confident I’ll become and the less I’ll give a shit, because what old person actually gives a shit?! That’s why I love old people! I mean, look at Iris Apfel, who wouldn’t want to give such few shits as this lass?!

But on the flip side, becoming a photographer has changed my way of thinking in so many ways. I’ve realised how far I can push my ability to work, the pressure I can survive, the stress levels, the need to think of options fast and decide on one faster. I’ve also met so many people who are just trying to live their own dreams and achieve their own goals and I honestly know how hard that can be, this being one of the reasons for wanting to write this 11,464-word blog, to help other people also trying to achieve their dreams! I hope it’s helped, even just a little bit.

If I’ve missed anything, feel free to drop me an email and I’ll try and get back to you with an answer and then update this page!

Thanks for getting this far down. Whatever you’re doing, do it with passion, grace and courage and you’ll be just fine.

- Amy :)