The Secret Formula For Success

When people ask me how did I go from working in a different industry and in a different country to starting a photographer career in the UK, I always feel like they want me to share a secret formula that will make all their dreams come true. The reality is that there aren't any formulas or magic tricks. You just have to want it as if your life depended on it. But, even if there are no secret formulas, there is a very powerful tool that you can add to your business skills toolset that will definitely have an impact on the success rate of your projects. Networking.

When I arrived in London at almost 40 and without knowing anyone in the business, I knew that I had a significant disadvantage in comparison to other fellow photographers. I didn't have a history in the UK, I was new, and I didn't know anyone from school, uni or from being brought up here. So, my solution to that lack of connections was to network like crazy. I literally typed in Google 'networking events for photographers in London' and started going to as many events as I could possibly fit in my diary.

Armed with a set of freshly printed business cards, I went from event to event introducing myself to as many people as I could. To this day, some of those connections that I made are still active, and I've made some really good friends from those interactions.

Apart from going to networking events, I’ve also joined professional communities and trade organisations that have helped me grow my network and strengthen my connections within the industry. Here are some of the communities that I’ve found the most useful:

• The Freelancer Club: in 2008, Matt Dowling unsuccessfully spent his last £300 on a lawyer to recover £11,000 that was owed to him from an unpaid invoice. Not long after, Matt met Nina, a freelance model who had her own set of freelance challenges. They shared their experiences and wrote a list of all the things they wished they had access to when they started out. They always wanted Freelancer Club to be more than just a jobs board and vowed to dedicate their efforts to freelancers who felt helpless, lost or frustrated. Today, Freelancer Club is a creative network that campaigns to end exploitative unpaid work and has become one of the leading voices in the creative freelance community.

• The London Creative Network: LCN is a development programme for creative practitioners in London. Delivered by SPACE, with Cockpit Arts, Four Corners and Photofusion, and part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme from the EU.

• The Association of Photographers - AOP: The Association of Photographers is one of the most prestigious professional photographers' associations in the world. It aims to promote and protect the worth and standing of its members, to vigorously defend, educate and lobby for the interests and rights of all photographers, especially in the commercial photographic industry.

• The Trampery: The Trampery is a London-based social enterprise, specialising in shared workspace and support for entrepreneurs and creative businesses. They run Pathways, a learning programme designed to provide the space, resources, tools, time and support network for entrepreneurs who are doing pioneering work. The programme is funded by the European Regional Development Fund from the EU.

• The Societies: The Societies of Photographers is a group of organisations that encourage high professional standards and ethics in photography by providing continued training programmes for experienced professionals along with the newcomers to the business. The Societies of Photographers annual Convention is a four-day action-packed programme where brands and peers show the latest in trends, technology and design.

• The Boxed Community: the newly formed Boxed Community is a curated online community and virtual co-working space that provides support and development for entrepreneurs (startups, freelancers, and their teams) through ongoing learning programmes, business and personal development support as well as access to fellow members internationally. For more information, or to get on the waiting list, contact nicole@boxedcommunity.com

As Isa Rae, the producer and actress known for Insecure, says: we have to build connections with the people around us who are as hungry as we are. So, go out and meet them!

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I Refuse To Be One-Dimensional

Long before I started writing this blog, and even before becoming a photographer, I lived in a very different reality. It is difficult to remember a time when I didn't work in the Creative Industries, and some days it feels like I have been doing this forever. But, I used to live a very one-dimensional life where my career defined me as a person, and I wasn't involved in much else other than what I did for a living. From 9 to 6, I worked in the office, and after work, I would hang out with my friends and colleagues from the office. I spent almost a decade growing up professionally, but as a person and as a human being, I became stagnant.

These days, I sometimes feel that there are so many dimensions to me that it's hard to keep track. I find it difficult when others want me to define myself in just a few words. I work as a photographer, yes, but I am so much more than my work. And I am involved in so many different things that I have to tailor my introduction depending on the person that I am talking to. For my community projects peers, I am a photographer exploring social issues. When I'm in commercial environments, I work in Fashion. For my poetry club, I'm a writer. When I'm at the Ethical Society, I'm a fellow humanist. And for my mentees, I am sometimes mentor, sometimes project manager. To name a few.

Admittedly, we can't possibly go around introducing ourselves by saying the long list of things that we are involved in. But, sometimes, introductions can feel very limiting. Like when I have to introduce my work to someone who has never seen it before. Having just one online portfolio that shows a range of everything I do can sometimes get confusing. In this industry, you are supposed to be one-dimensional. Unless you are really famous, then you can do whatever you want. Otherwise, your portfolio must reflect the type of photographer that you are trying to sell yourself as.

Some types of photography are complementary. You can be a Food and Travel Photographer, or work at the same time in Fine Arts and Portraiture. But, when I try to explain that I am interested in exploring current social issues but that I also shoot commercially as a fashion and portraits photographer, it sometimes feels like I'm talking about two contradictory things. It might be because you are not seen as ethical when you work inside an industry like Fashion. But, like I always say, change comes from within, and it is us who work inside the industry who have the power to change it for the better.

What all the things that I do have in common is me. I am so much more than one thing or the other. I am the sum of all of them and so many more that I don't have enough space to mention. Like the founder of the fashion brand Sabinna, designer Sabinna Rachimova, said today: I like "taking on too many projects at the same time, forgetting that the day has only 24 hours". But we wouldn't do it any other way because this is who we are, right Sabinna?

Photo credit: behind the scenes taken by Diana Buntajova.

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Ceci N'est Pas Un Drill

This is not a drill. This is happening for real now. This coming Friday, January 31st, 2020, the United Kingdom starts the transition period to leave the EU. After 3.5 years of uncertainty on whether this might actually happen, on December 31st, 2022, the UK will officially be out of the EU. Funny enough, the Brexit campaign was based on vilifying immigrants, but anyone who has ever emigrated can tell you that migrants might be the only ones with the skills to navigate the tough times ahead. Adapting to this new reality is going to take a lot of resilience and a lot of sacrifices.

Leaving the EU means closing the borders to free movement. The Government has introduced a points system for those who want to immigrate to the UK as of 2021, which is being advertised by saying that the UK wants to welcome “talent from around the world while reducing low-skilled migrants.” The PM also added that “the UK is open to the most talented minds in the world.”

Admittedly, if the country is closing the borders as of 2021, a migration system needs to be put in place. But all those words that are being used like “most talented minds” and “reducing low-skilled migrants” send a clear message: the immigrants that we have nowadays are low-quality, and we need better ones. We want diversity, but we want it our way.

Defining what “most talented” and “low-skilled” mean will have a significant impact on many industries, including the Creative Industries. Lately, one of the criteria used to filter out the wrong type of immigration has become very controversial.

Currently, most skilled workers from outside the EU coming to the UK must have a job paying at least £30,000 a year. If nothing changes, this threshold will also apply to EU immigrants as of 2021. When you look around you, you might think that these low-skilled immigrants occupy jobs like cleaning staff, caregivers, security guards, to name a few.

The reality is that many skilled jobs nowadays, especially in the Creative Industries, don’t make it to the threshold either. The Creative Industries rely heavily on freelance workers, and according to a study conducted by Glassdoor, the average freelancer in this industry makes less than £30,000 a year.

I’ve written extensively about how the Creative Industries contribute to the economy of the country. One of the secrets of such success is the creative immigrants who come to enrich the industry. If we filter out those creatives, we would not only weaken one of the pillars of the UK economy and the UK branding across the world, but we would also leave many a position unfilled.

Some might think that it is an opportunity for UK nationals to have access to those jobs. Still, a study by the Creative Industries Federation shows that a third of creative business agree that there aren’t enough young people interested in creative careers in the UK. So, with these immigration regulations, we will not only have fewer people to fill those positions, but also the people available would only speak among themselves and not receive valuable influences from people from other parts of the world.

And this is only within the Creative Industries. Now take those figures and think about the whole of the UK economy. There aren’t enough UK nationals to do those jobs. Either because there aren’t enough UK nationals in the first place, or because they are not prepared, or they are not willing to do those types of jobs.

From freelance photographers like myself to multimillion-pound productions of the likes of Game of Thrones, being labelled as a creative from the UK makes us a referent around the world and adds immensely to our brands. And that reputation comes from the diversity of our industry. Why would anyone want to change that?

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Ego Can't Exist When You Start All Over Again

When I arrived in London 7 years ago, everything was new to me. I was starting again in a new country, in a different language, in a different industry and at a very different age than the one I had when I started in my previous career. This time, I was about to become 40, and I had left my former industry, in which I had 20 years of experience, to pursue a career in photography. All the odds were against me, but here I am, still working as a photographer and now writing about my life as a creative on this blog. As they say, 'hunger is a good kitchen', and I can tell you that I was really hungry for becoming the person that I am today.

Uber-talented singer-songwriter Erika Ender was interviewed by Erika de la Vega last year. During the interview, she spoke about her beginnings in the US market and about having to start from zero in a different country. Erika said: "Ego can't exist when you start all over again." Only when you free yourself from all your baggage and all your preconceptions, and you are open to learning from others and to accepting new opportunities is that you are ready to start anew.

This past weekend, right at the end of a shoot, the client asked the person who was assisting me what had he learnt from the experience that day. He immediately replied that he had never seen anyone use an old bedsheet to cover the model while they were changing during an outdoor shoot (a trick I learnt from a stylist many years ago).

His answer got me into thinking that, apart from going out to meet people like crazy, one of the things that I did when I arrived in London was to assist other photographers in order to learn about the industry and the craft. I worked with many photographers in anything from unpaid portfolio updates to properly paid client work, and from those experiences, I gathered a wealth of knowledge.

Today's post is to pay tribute to all of those photographers who let me assist them when I didn't have a clue of what I was doing, and to their crew members because every single one of them taught me invaluable lessons, some of which I still apply today:

• Chris Streule: he was the first person in the industry that I met in the UK. From him, I learnt how to put together a crew for a shoot.

• Sam Gyang: the first photographer who I ever assisted, he taught me that the best lens for portraits is an 85mm.

• René August: the first photographer who I assisted in a studio setting. She taught me how to set up lights, install modifiers and contact model agencies.

• Andrew Clark: during his shoot, I met a person who would become one of my long-time collaborators.

• Andrew Hiles: I assisted him many times at the very beginning, and every opportunity was an invaluable lesson on how to produce a shoot and deal with clients.

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On Identity: Where Am I From?

Benjamin @ 2019 JC Candanedo

Ancestry and identity are two different things. Ancestry speaks of your predecessors, of the people who mixed up to create the gene pool in you. In this sense, we are all mixed, and we are more similar to each other than some are happy to admit. But, identity speaks of your tribe, your community, your cultural heritage, and how you fit in with those you identify with. Some people have very defined identities, but for the rest of us, especially those who come from mixed ethnical backgrounds, trying to fit into one single group can often lead to an identity crisis.

Throughout my life, my identity has often been defined by how others perceived me. Growing up in Panama, most people knew that I was from European descent even if they really didn’t know where in Europe was Catalonia located. When people asked me “where are you from?” and I responded saying “I’m from here, I’m Panamanian”, people would often ask me “yeah, but where is your family really from?”.

This experience repeated itself in other parts of the world where I’ve lived. In Barcelona, I wasn’t Catalan enough. I was always deemed as Latino or sometimes southern Spanish. In New York, I was Latino and, more specifically, Mexican. For the people who I met while living in France, I was Catalan from Barcelona. While in Sydney, I was from London. And now that I live in London, the majority of people see me as Catalan even though I always say that I was born in Panama.

After the question: “Where are you from?”, there is always an internal dialogue: “Where am I from?”. When my friend Patricia told me about her son’s potential identity crisis, I couldn’t help but feel completely related to his story. Patricia and her husband are first-generation Brazilian immigrants in London, but their son Benjamin was born in the UK.

At home, they speak Portuguese, trying to keep their Brazilian culture and heritage alive. But Benjamin speaks Portuguese with a strong British accent, and when in Brazil, some of his relatives call him the “little Briton”. Patricia worries that Benjamin will never fully feel Brazilian, but, like me, it’s in his hands to define his own identity.

You can learn more about my projects and personal work on the Projects section of my website.

Photo credits: Benjamin © 2019 JC Candanedo

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Go For The Yes!

This morning, before writing today's post, I was listening to Chantal MIller's Island Girls Rock podcast. Her podcast series is a beautiful source of inspiration that shines the light on Caribbean women and women of Caribbean-descent across the globe. During the last episode of season 2, Chantal interviewed journalist Sherry Ann Dixon, and one of the thoughts that came out of the interview and that resonated with me was how sometimes all we have to do is ask. How many opportunities do we miss just because we were afraid to ask?

Over the last few months, I have been helping out students, peers and other entrepreneurs guiding them in their career paths. This is not something that I planned on doing. What all these people have in common is that they approached me and asked for my help. They either sent me an email, messaged me on social media or straight up asked me face to face. And because I know how much courage it takes to ask someone else for help, especially someone who you think has the knowledge or the experience to guide you, I accepted without a second thought.

After a few weeks working together, two of them confided in me that they almost didn't contact me because they thought that I would say no. In their minds, the possibility that someone who they considered to be a very busy person would take the time and make an effort to sit down with them and help them was very remote. The truth is, I am very busy either with jobs or with personal work, but I strongly believe that the industry is only as strong as its weakest creative. If we all grow together, the industry becomes stronger. You climb, and then you lift others. That's my motto in life.

In Spanish, there is a saying that goes something like "you already have the 'No', so why not go for the 'Yes'?". There is no harm in asking others when you need answers or help. No matter how established or busy you think they are. If they have the time, they will get back to you, but if they don't, don't take it personal. It might be that they are just busy and they don't have the time to get back to you. However, it may also be that they are not ready to help others. Maybe they are at a stage in their careers where they still need to grow before they can lift others with them.

Photo credit: behind the scenes taken by Diana Buntajova.

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Expanding Inspiration with Erin Bolens

When author Alan Watts was asked for advice on how to become a writer, he answered: “Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer.” Following Watts advice, over the last three weeks I have been attending a creative writing workshop with poet Erin Bolens at Clean Prose, London’s first co-working space designed specifically for writers, authors and creatives.

Erin’s workshop explores using what we know, remember and feel as springboards to generate new ideas and ways of looking at the world through poems. Erin Bolens is a poet, performer and teacher from Leeds.

She is a former Roundhouse resident artist and Glastonbury slam champion. She runs regular workshops in schools and community settings and works with The Poetry Society, Apples and Snakes, Totally Thames, The Poetry Takeaway Festival and the Roundhouse.

Her debut poetry show "What We Leave Behind" exploring loss, legacy and funeral buffets received five-star reviews and was published by Burning Eye Books. Erin is also a trainee counsellor and committed to creating a warm and welcoming writing environment where participants feel encouraged and excited to explore their own imaginations.

To sign up to the workshop, visit Eventbrite.

To learn more about Erin, read this post where I interview her for my blog.

Photo credit: portrait of Erin Bolens © 2018 JC Candanedo

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I've Been Interviewed By Murze Magazine!

The images from my De-Stress photography project are featured on Issue Eight of Murze Magazine and the lovely people of Murze have interviewed me for the feature! Their Issue Eight is a journey through Portraiture, Reality and Change, exploring and focusing on people, the wider world and change in all its forms. Go check the interview out!

De-Stress is a photography project in which I took portraits of members of the community of The Trampery, a social enterprise specialising in shared workspace and support for entrepreneurs and creative businesses, and explored how working in a creative environment surrounded by a supportive group contributes to the success rate of entrepreneurs and their well-being. I shot the portraits on film and distressed them using household chemicals. The project title is a play on words, "distress" being the technique used to create the images about the "de-stressing" offered in the supportive environment created in the co-working space.

You can learn more about Murze Magazine on www.murze.org or find out about the De-Stress project on this link.

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My Blog Turns 5 Years Old!

This month of November, my blog turns 5 years old! Thanks to everyone who has ever read me, this wouldn’t have been possible without you!

Being able to combine some of the things that I like doing the most, photography and writing, and having people who actually want to sit down and read my posts every week, is such a gratifying experience.

As they say, when you speak from the heart, you are heard by the heart. These humble words of appreciation go out to all of you. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you are the reason why I do this.

To celebrate this milestone, I have been posting in social media the 30 most-read posts of these 5 years throughout the month of November, one each day! In case you have missed them, below you will find some. Here is to many more years!

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I'm Featured On The Cover Of Issue Eight Of Murze Magazine!

I’m happy to announce that the images from my De-Stress photography project are featured on the cover of Issue Eight of Murze Magazine! Murze examines artwork with a specific focus on the exploration of current social, political and environmental issues. They look at new ideas and concepts that challenge and engage with the world around.

Issue Eight is a journey through Portraiture, Reality and Change, exploring and focusing on people, the wider world and change in all its forms. Featuring interviews from Craig Hubbard, Luna Y Lebron, Tom Herck, Sarah Nance, Stephanie Mei Huang, Christine Beatty, Mana Mehrabian and me!

De-Stress is a photography project in which I took portraits of members of the community of The Trampery, a social enterprise specialising in shared workspace and support for entrepreneurs and creative businesses, and explored how working in a creative environment surrounded by a supportive group contributes to the success rate of entrepreneurs and their well-being. I shot the portraits on film and distressed them using household chemicals. The project title is a play on words, "distress" being the technique used to create the images about the "de-stressing" offered in the supportive environment created in the co-working space.

You can learn more about Murze Magazine on www.murze.org or find out about the De-Stress project on this link.

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The Fatality Of The Creative's Life

I started University when I was 17 years old. As soon as I finished my first year, one of my professors referred me to a contact of hers who gave me my first job. I had just turned 18, and I already had a full-time job. I had no experience, and I had only finished 1 year of classes which only covered the basic stuff. Nevertheless, she took the risk of referring me and, without her foreseeing it, the opportunity that she gave me unleashed a 20-year long career. I am fully aware that I was fortunate and that an opportunity like that happened just because I had the means to go to that University in particular and also because the professor who spotted me had those sorts of connections. Is it possible to make these opportunities available to anyone from any background?

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a young cinematographer about how difficult it is for starting creatives in the UK. If you don’t have contacts in the industry, or if you haven’t attended the “right” schools, finding people to give you the first opportunities can be a discouraging task. Disregarding whether you are good or not at what you do, if you don’t have experience or the right connections is almost impossible to find work. Starting creatives resort to unpaid jobs to gain experience and also to meet as many people as possible in the hopes that one of those connections will be able to open a door into the industry.

However, reality kicks in, and when living expenses demand to be covered, you have to get yourself a day-job to be able to make ends meet. Up until here, it all sounds very logical, but any creative will be able to tell you that not every type of day-job counts. Creative gigs come and go easily, they usually appear without notice, and they tend to have an unforeseeable duration. This means that, whichever day-job you get, it must give you enough flexibility for you to be able to take time off with short notice for those sudden gigs for which you might also not know the duration. Let me know when you find an employer who is willing to hire you under those conditions.

This young cinematographer told me that they rely on temporary jobs and creative gigs in other fields different from their own to be able to make it to the end of the month. But, at this pace, their chances of one day achieving the dream of working in the film industry seem to be running low.

The Creative Industries in the UK are one of the strongest in the country. According to the Department of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Britain’s Creative Industries play an essential role shaping how we are seen around the world and are also a vital part of the economy. Yet, for starting creatives whose parents can’t support them throughout the first years or who don’t attend the right schools, building a sustainable career in the industry is very difficult.

Why is it so different for other industries? In the Creatives Industries, if you are a starting creative with no experience but you can afford to get unpaid internships/apprenticeships, there are options plentiful. But, if you are like the majority of starting creatives and have bills to pay, your chances of getting entry-level paid jobs are very slim. What if you are starting your creative career at a certain age when you have even more obligations? I don’t see anyone addressing that demographic.

I know that it is easy to write and campaign for No Free Work from the comfort of my office when starting creatives out there would take any opportunity that comes their way to get a foot in the industry. I also know that when setting up teams for client work, it is challenging to fit inexperienced people in the crew and with limited budgets, it is even more difficult to fit in additional assistants.

But, something’s got to give. As an industry, we are a referent for the rest of the world. I just watched the Emmy Awards 2019, and British creatives took most of the statues home. That is only possible when you support and invest in the industry. And, as an industry, we are only as strong as our weakest creative. Without the proper support, the newest generation of creatives will not be able to hold the weight of the legacy that they are inheriting.

Photo credit: behind the scenes taken by Andrzej Gruszka.

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The Creative Industries Need Our Support

A few months ago, a person who was explaining their business venture to me told me that their target client was not the creative entrepreneur. Their reason for avoiding this segment of the market was that, according to them, creatives are known for not making much money and we wouldn’t be able to afford the services that they offered. That is why, they continued saying, they couldn’t come up with a business strategy that relied on us. This idea that creatives can’t live from their art is not new. BBC radio Veteran John Humphrys famously said that “Art Does Not Get You A Job”, and a phrase like this said by someone who works within the industry shows that we have a lack of support from outsiders as well as from peers.

Last year, I wrote a post titled Art Puts Food On The Table about the contribution of the Creative Industries to the UK economy as a reaction to the thought that, while we are contributing massively to the economy, it doesn’t feel like we are given the importance that we deserve. This is something that also troubled Dr Mari Hughes-Edwards, the creator of an artists’ network with the aim of encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration across the arts sector, who said that “now more than ever, the arts are minimalised and trivialised”. The network that she created is called Art Does Not Get You A Job, and its name is inspired by Humphrys’s phrase.

In July this year, the Creative Industries Federation (CIF) sent the new British Prime Minister an open letter stating that “The Creative Industries are the UK’s fastest growing sector, growing in every region and at twice the rate of the wider economy. In 2017, the sector generated £101.5bn GVA (that’s more than aerospace, automotive, life sciences and oil and gas sectors combined). There are 2 million jobs in the Creative Industries (and jobs in the sector are growing at three times the UK average), while the Creative Industries account for more than 5% of the UK’s economy, and almost 12% of all UK businesses. Moreover, 87% of creative jobs are resistant to automation, which means that a creative workforce is one that is both resilient and future-proof.”

Later this year, the CIF also published an open letter to the Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson MP, on the value of creative education.

It is true that early-stage freelance creative businesses struggle to take-off, but the same can be said of so many other industries. So, what’s the difference between our industry and others?

Well, for starters, in other industries like Technology, investors throw millions of pounds at thousands of startups in the hopes that at least one of them becomes the next big thing. In the Creative Industries, you have funders and patrons, but there aren’t enough, or there isn’t enough money to be able to develop early-stage creative businesses as there are in Technology.

Second of all, as Sonya Dyer says in her essay “Pivotal Moments”, mid-career creatives, considering mid-career to be the longest and most productive phase of a creative’s life, do not receive the same level of support that early-stage creatives receive. So, if early-stage creatives receive very little support, mid-career creatives don’t receive any at all.

This is the state that our industry is in right now. Like we have seen from the figures, we are a vital component of our economy, but one that seems to be as invisible as air. So, the same way that we need air to breathe think of all the consequences to our economy if we stopped creating financial and business support that targeted creatives.

If you don’t believe me, think of all the movies and the TV shows you like, think of the clothes you wear, the spaces where you live, the places you like to visit because of the way they are designed. Think of your favourite music playlist. Think of that witty ad that made you smile, or of the books you read, the poems that inspire you, the photos or artwork that hang on your walls. Think of museums and galleries, theatres and concert arenas, think of the videogames you play or the foods that melt your senses. A creative made that happen for you. Do you still think we are not worth targetting?

Photo credit: behind the scenes taken by Andrzej Gruszka.

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Glass Is A Revealer Of Hidden Realities

Comic artist Rob Bidder works at the Wellcome Collection in London and publishes his work on their website. As part of his series Body Squabbles, he created a piece called Glass which starts with the phrase “Glass Is A Revealer Of Hidden Realities”. Today, I went to an optician to have my sight checked, and I finally understood what Rob meant. After trying different lenses during the eye test, a reality that was hidden for me was suddenly revealed. Not only could I read better, but I could also see with my own eyes how having a good customer service makes all the difference in the world.

I have been trying to get my sight checked for months, but every time I tried to make an appointment, something didn’t work out. At first, I thought that I would go to one of those cheap high street opticians because I’ve never worn glasses before and just have my eyes checked to see how bad the situation was. I tried to make an appointment three times in three different shops, but for some reason or another, I was never able to.

The first shop that came out on my online search was one of those that has a name which implies that with them you will be saving money. I made the appointment online, which seemed easy and straightforward, but a few days before the appointment, they called me to tell me that they didn’t have availability for that day. I asked the person on the other side of the phone how come the website let me make the appointment, and they said that the calendar on the website is just for me to suggest a date when I’m available, but they still need to call the client to confirm if the date is truly available or not. They wanted to give me an appointment for a month after the date I had requested, but I declined. I’d instead go somewhere else.

The second one that came on my search was from that chain that has a name which implies that with them your lenses will be made quickly. I made the appointment online, also an effortless and straightforward experience, and I received an email confirmation. A week later, on the day of the appointment, I showed up in the shop, but they couldn’t find my name in their appointments system. I showed them the email that the website had sent me and they said that even if I received an email, I still needed to receive a phone call confirming the date. Imagine my disgust.

The third one on my search was one of those that belong to a big chain of pharmacies in the UK. I checked on the website if they took walk-ins and went to the nearest one. But, to my surprise, the clerk asked me if I had made an appointment and when I said that I hadn’t because on the website it stated that they took walk-ins he said that even if that was true, all the time slots were taken for that day. The only thing that he could offer me was an appointment for a week from that date.

I was livid. I couldn’t believe that in 2019 and in a city like London it would be so frustrating to have your sight checked. My reaction was to postpone my eye test for a future when high street opticians got their act together. However, the next day, my friend came over to visit, and when I realized that she wore glasses, I asked where did she have them done. She said that she goes to an independent optician who’s not cheap, but she feels that they treat her like royalty. At that point, I didn’t care anymore about the money. I just wanted to feel that I was giving it to someone worthy of it.

A few days later, I went to said optician’s website and found out that they didn’t take appointments online, only over the phone (who uses a phone these days?!), they cost three times more than the high street shops, and they are located 45 minutes away on the train from where I live. At any other point of my life, this information would have made me not even consider them for a second but, after all that I had been through, I felt like I had no choice. I rang them, I made the appointment, and today I had my sight checked and ordered my new glasses.

The shop was small and lovely, the staff went the extra mile to make me feel welcomed, and they took all the time and had all the patience in the world to help me select the frames. Most importantly, they made me feel like to them it really mattered that I was satisfied with the experience. When it was time to pay, and I saw the big figure, I honestly didn’t care about all the money that I was spending there because they really deserve it.

This whole experience made me think about my photography business and how tough the competition is in London. There is always a new photographer starting out every day, and some of them are charging a third or less than the rest of us for a job that could be considered almost as good. That is why, when I talk about my work to potential clients, I don’t talk about my style (anyone can do what I do) nor about my rates (there are plenty of cheaper photographers). I talk about myself and my ethos, and I let my personality be the unique selling point.

Think about the last time when a supplier made you feel special. Don’t you want that same experience for your clients as well?

Photo credit: Sabrina Carder © 2017 JC Candanedo.

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Blogging Is An Act Of Ego

Writing is an act of ego. When you sit down in front of the white page, you have to truly believe that you have something interesting to say for someone else to want to read it. And, even though writing can be a cathartic and liberating way of expressing what’s on your mind, it can also become an experience filled with frustration. Continually trying to measure the success of your writing by the number of people who read your posts can send you down a spiral of disappointment. There will never be enough analytics in the world to satisfy your need to be read.

When I started my blog, I did it with the idea in mind to tell the story of my journey from working in a different industry to becoming a full-time professional photographer. I wasn’t actually telling the story to other people, I was telling it to myself. It was my way to track my progress and to remind myself to stay humble and to never forget where I came from. However, it quickly became my strongest marketing tool, and, nowadays, I purposely use it to shape my branding and to tell the world about my learnings, my work and my concerns.

When you work professionally in photography, the competition is intense. You need to be constantly promoting your work and letting potential clients know about your existence. This is particularly true in big cities like London, where photographers spring up like mushrooms. What’s worse, we are all promoting ourselves in the same unidirectional ways (emails promos, newsletters) and it is very frustrating when after so many years of investing time and money promoting yourself nobody seems to be listening on the other side. According to figures from Spektrix, over 75% of these promos remain unopened, and over 97% are not clicked through.

Blogging seemed like a solution to that. Through my posts, I am telling the story of my brand and telling my readers what I stand for. But, measuring the success of blogging comes with its challenges. You find yourself from very early trying to figure out how to increase the number of visits and subscribers. And none of those numbers tells you if people are actually reading you.

Luckily, I realised that keeping track of those figures was useless. Even if I had hundreds of subscribers and thousands of visits to my posts, I wouldn’t be able to know if someone was actually reading them unless someone gave me some form of feedback. So I stopped obsessing over those numbers. These days I just write hoping that one day someone will run into my posts and find something useful in them. Until then, it’s only a labour of love.

If you are a photographer or a creative in general, and you still haven’t found a way of promotion that feels like you, why not create it yourself? That’s what my friend Olivia Pinnock did for herself. She wasn’t finding the jobs that she wanted in the industry and that’s why she created the Fashion Debates, a platform that has allowed her to show the industry what she wants to be hired for.

So, even if blogging sounds like a self-centred thing to do, I do it in the hopes that my words inspire others to reassess their lives, to consider a different perspective on the issues that I care for and to learn about the creatives industries. That is what my brand and I stand for, and that is what I try to promote.

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Who You Are Defines What You Do

Although it might seem very obvious, when I heard the phrase “what you do does not define who you are; who you are defines what you do” I had a sudden realisation. For the longest time, I tried to keep the two sides of my craft separate. On the one hand, my commercial work focused on fashion, beauty and portraiture; on the other hand, my personal work dealt with human rights, mental health and national identity. But, the one thing that they both had in common was me. So why was I trying to keep them apart when in reality they are but two sides of the same person?

It’s not that I was ashamed of any of the aspects of my practice. On the contrary, I’m very proud of everything that I have done over the past few years. But I had been advised over and over again to keep those different types of photography separate because clients might get confused. According to my advisors, clients only hire you when they see that you do only the exact thing that they are looking for, and when you can be put in a niche. The truth is that I have never been busier since I decided to show in my portfolio who I really am.

It was no secret that I am interested in social issues like immigration, discrimination and human rights. I have been writing about them for years in my blog. But if you saw my portfolio, all you could see was my flashy fashion, beauty and portraiture work. If you wanted to know what I was doing in my personal projects, you had to go to my blog or ask me to see those images. It didn’t make sense.

And then I heard that phrase. Who I am informs my work. Who I am. Who am I?

“I am JC, and I’m a London based photographer. I work commercially in Fashion, Beauty and Portraiture with clients that include designers, production companies and beauty brands. In my personal work, I deal with the Social Issues that matter the most to me like Human Rights, Mental Health and National Identity.

Before becoming a photographer, I was a Project Manager for 20 years, and all the skills learnt in my previous industry help me to deliver my photography projects to my clients successfully.

I also write a Blog about my experiences working in the Creative Industries where I talk about the industry and the business of photography through interviews to other creatives, features on fellow photographers and opinion pieces on social issues.

I am a member of the Association Of Photographers - AOP, of Humanists UK - an organisation that campaigns for Human Rights (LGBTQ+ rights, Women’s reproductive rights and the rights of non-religious people), and of PhotoAid - an organisation that links NGO’s in need of photographers with photographers willing to volunteer their time for the causes that they believe in.

Ultimately, my goal is to use my work as a photographer to help make this a Better World.”

There, that sounds like a complete version of me.

Knowing who you are and what your work is about takes you a long way and makes telling your story so much easier. Getting to know yourself, not easy at all. For me, it has been 45 years in the making, but now, when I see my work, I can see myself in every single one of my images.

Photo credit: behind the scenes by Tori Dance.

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De-Stress, A Photography Project

Ansel Adams is often credited with saying “We don’t take photographs, we make them”, and this phrase has never been more accurate than in my latest photography project in collaboration with The Trampery. I took portraits of members of their community and explored how working in a creative environment surrounded by a supportive group contributes to the success rate of entrepreneurs and their well-being. I shot the portraits on film and distressed them using household chemicals. The project title is a play on words, "distress" being the technique used to create the images about the "de-stressing" offered in the supportive environment created by the co-working space.

Before becoming part of The Trampery community, I had been working from home since I launched my business. Working from home offered me all the comfort that working in your pyjamas can give you, but it also came with a high price to pay in the form of isolation. I had been considering working from a shared space for almost a year, but I was never able to make up my mind about it. I was under the impression that working from a co-working space would decrease my productivity. I believed that these type of spaces lacked privacy and were crowded, noisy and full of distractions. However, the experience at The Trampery has been the complete opposite and, like most of the participants in the project expressed, being part of a creative community like this one keeps me inspired and has made me grow both personally and professionally.

When you have a group of highly creative and motivated people in the same space, the synergies between the members of the group produce an environment where they can thrive. When interviewed, the majority of the participants in the project agreed that the combination of a supportive community with a space in which the primary purpose is to make great work contributes to keeping them motivated and energised throughout the day. Being in contact with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds working in different ventures and industries, with whom you can bounce ideas around, gives you a different perspective on your challenges, expands your way of thinking and refreshes your work. As one member pointed out, the worst thing about starting a business on your own in your bedroom is that you've started a business alone and in your bedroom. Creative communities like this one provide members with the right environment to realise their entrepreneurial ambitions.

If you want to learn more about my De-Stress project and read extracts of the interviews with The Trampery members, visit this link.

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Life In De-Stress

Over the last few weeks, I have been working on a personal project in collaboration with The Trampery in which I have photographed members of their community and explored the effect that working in co-working spaces has on their ventures. The Trampery is a London-based social enterprise, specialising in shared workspace and support for entrepreneurs and creative businesses.

The project is called “De-Stress” because I am taking the portraits with my film camera and once the film is developed I dip the negatives in household chemicals to “distress” the images of these people who work in supportive communities that contribute to relieving their stress.

I visited all the sites that The Trampery has in London and photographed members of their different communities who volunteered for the project. After the portraits were taken, the participants were interviewed and asked questions like how do they think a creative environment like The Trampery contributes to the success rate of their business.

As soon as the film came back from the lab, I started the distressing phase. But, before dipping the negatives in the household chemicals, I blocked the eyes with a gel so that they were the only part of the image that was not affected by this technique. By doing this, the portraits were distressed except for the eyes in an attempt to convey that, even though the life of an entrepreneur is surrounded by uncertainty and stress, working in a supportive community helps them keep clarity and stay focused.

You can learn more about the project and see the resulting images, interviews and behind the scenes on The Trampery’s Instagram account @thetrampery.

Photo credit: behind the scenes by Tori Dance from The Trampery.

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Making Bad Decisions Is Better Than Not Deciding At All

Last weekend, I was having a conversation with my photographer friend and collaborator Andrzej Gruszka about making decisions and how some people freeze when they have to make one. Admittedly, there are easier decisions to make than others, especially if the stakes are high, but not deciding at all is even worse than making the wrong decision. If all the decisions that you’ve made in your life brought you here, to this moment when you are reading this blog post, then you haven’t made too many bad choices, after all, have you?

I know that some people who are reading this post might not be going through the happiest moments of their lives, and probably some of them are due to their past choices. However, making a series of bad choices doesn’t necessarily mean that you will never be able to make the right decision again in your life. Besides, no one is capable of making great decisions 100% of the times. All of our current circumstances are the result of both our good and our bad choices.

I used to have a boss who would tell me that she liked delegating on me some of her tasks because I wasn’t afraid to make decisions. For her, it didn’t matter if I made the right or the wrong choice; what was important was that I always found a way not to stagnate the projects in which I was involved.

When I am faced with a challenging decision, I try to make as much research as I can to make an informed choice. Most of the times, the outcome of your decision is not as important as the process that you took to arrive at said decision. This is particularly true when all of your options will have a positive outcome, even if the paths forward might be completely different.

Another strategy that works for me, whenever possible, is delaying the decision. Gather all the information that you need to make your choice but sit on it for a while. Some people say that procrastinating can be some sort of decision-making process. There are decisions that don’t need to be made right away.

Whichever your decision-making process is, don’t avoid making them because if you don’t make the decision, someone else will make it for you and you won’t have a voice in it. If you make the right decision, you will move forward; if you make the wrong decision, you will learn from your mistake; but, if you don’t do anything, you will never grow.

Photo credit: behind the scenes by Andrzej Gruzska.

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There Is Freedom In Letting Go

The other day, I heard someone say the phrase “the worst thing in my life never happened” and I couldn’t have related more. Maybe not so much at this age (the perks of growing older and becoming wiser), but at some point in my life that was me. I used to date someone who would tell me all the time “don’t worry about what hasn’t happened yet” but, I used to think that they were just talking nonsense. I was always under the impression that, if you wanted to properly manage your projects, your career or your life you’d have to be constantly worrying about all the possible things that could go wrong so that you could prevent them. But, the reality is that one thing is doing a proper risk assessment, and a completely different thing is living with the anxiety and paranoia that everything could go wrong at any minute. It’s not healthy and is very counterproductive.

The future that we imagine is not real. You can plan your whole life in advance, and I can assure you that nothing will turn out the way that you expected. When you are a worrier, and you are continually planning for the future, you become some sort of mental time traveller. Your body is in the present, but your mind is in the future. You end up missing out on what is going on in your present life for worrying so much about what could happen in a hypothetical future.

Thoughts are not reality, and this is a tough lesson to learn. Whatever you imagine that could go wrong, or whatever is causing you anxiety and preventing you from moving forward, is only in your mind. It doesn’t exist because it hasn’t happened. And you certainly can’t predict the future.

The best way to combat those negative thoughts is to remember that life is not a performance, it’s just a long rehearsal, a draft. All our lives are only works in progress. I’m not saying here that you mustn’t have an idea of where you want your career or your project to go, but give yourself some room for improvisation. Learn to surf the metaphorical wave that life is and enjoy the ride.

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Exhibition at One Canada Square

From the 15th of April to the 31st of May, the AOP (Association of Photographers) will take over the main foyer of One Canada Square in Canary Wharf where over 250 finalist images of the AOP Awards 2019 will be exhibited for a period of seven weeks, including my image "Warrior" from the Distressed series. The exhibition is open to the public and entry is free of charge.

Every Thursday members of AOP staff will lead a tour of the exhibition, commencing at 4pm. No booking necessary, just turn up. Meeting place by Wall 5.

The AOP was formed in 1968 and is one of the most prestigious professional photographers’ associations in the world.

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