Season 3 - Episode 6: Putting in The Work

In this episode, I reflect and unpack all of the amazing lesson that Simon told me during his interview with me. There is a lot of talk about here. I do get a little preachy. 

The key point that I want to make clear is that I am still struggling with this myself and I am constantly looking to my fellow photographers for advice. However, I am also noticing that there are a number of photographers who are in the same situation that I am in. 

I can only hope that this helps. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Jason: Hello and  welcome to season three, episode six of the Sajin photography podcast. My name is Jason Teale, and today we're going to diverge a little bit from the previous topics that we've covered in the last couple of episodes and seasons. And I kind of want to talk about something that Simon brought up in the last interview, and that was actually putting the work and time into getting a foothold in the market here.

And that's something that even myself I've struggled with over time, simply trying to get. Further ahead and getting frustrated because I'm not making the gains that I think I should be. I want to kind of go over that because recently I've been getting a few television spots here and [00:01:00] there, and I've heard a couple of people murmur about, oh, it's because you're a foreigner or something like that.

And really in truthfully, there could be a little bit of privilege in there, but what I think mostly it is, is the fact that I have put the time in to become " the photographer" as Simon put it. And I'm going to stretch that out a little bit later on, but you get what I'm sort of putting down here that I'm going to be talking today a little bit more about what you need to do to actually get in touch with these people to network and to hopefully further your career as a photographer here in Korea. So it got me thinking about this episode was something that Simon said during our interview, and he was talking about how he got on the cover of national geographic. Magazine. And he was going all the way back to how he got started with photography.

And he mentioned the concept that I will kind [00:02:00] of coin here, which is becoming the photographer. And in his area of soon, Shawn, he became the photographer. And I remember him going out to all the places. Like the bay and everything like that and getting these amazing shots, shots that represented the city shots that represented the area and shots that represented Korea.

He became the photographer. And so when people were talking about that city and so in Sean is. A really well-known city in Korea at all, but when they talked about it, they would inevitably find his work. And that is how, when someone was looking for a photo for this project, his name came up. Now, I want you to think about that for a moment.

If you're just starting out, you're in Korea and you're thinking, oh, well, why, why am I not getting this stuff? How much work are you actually putting into it? And these are the tough questions that I've struggled with myself, and I'm not [00:03:00] coming at this as a authority because I am still working my way through it.

I am still sitting back going, Hey, why is that guy getting more traction than I do? And if you go all the way back to the first episode that I recorded, where I talk about, you know, getting criticism. That was exactly what I was dealing with so many years ago was that I was looking at other people thinking, why are they getting so much more traction on their projects than I do?

And when I pose that question to chase drivers, he threw it back in my face and was like, you're not putting in the effort. And by effort, what he was referencing was something to do with his other 50% concept. And I've gone on a little bit about this, but. Basically, what I want to touch on in the first part of this podcast is the fact that number one, you should be putting in the time of work stuff like this takes time, and it's not going to [00:04:00] happen overnight to put this into perspective.

I recently did a. TV commercial, which bizarrely is airing on many of the major networks here in Korea, and much to my surprise, this only came about because of my work with my other site, which is also an online. So for almost a decade now I've been running around the city trying to photograph the tourist sites and provide services that help new people in the city of Wilson.

And over that time, we have gathered a group of probably about. I think just over 10,000 group members in the Facebook group alone. Now going back even further, I have been photographing the city of Olsen since pretty much the time I've got here, maybe a little bit later. Once I got my first DSLR camera sent means I think probably closer to 18 years, I have been documenting the city [00:05:00] of Olson and putting it online.

Now just now I am getting some sort of notoriety and it's not much like this TV, commercial that's being aired all across the country. I think, I don't even think I got paid for that yet. And you have to understand that, like, it's not going to come overnight. If you're still editing, using like, I dunno, snap seed or the iPad.

You're not going to be producing the kinds of quality that is required to shoot a major campaign. Okay. So going back to this thing of like, well, you'll hook them. You're good. It's because for the past, almost two decades, I have been grinding out and getting, you know, major. Projects sometimes, but not every day.

And I think that I want to really drive that [00:06:00] home that I am not alone in this. A lot of the photographers that I have talked to. You know, some have been quite successful, but others have been great. Rinding their gears, trying to get that foothold, trying to carve away into a market that is predominantly Korean again, you know?

Yeah. Sometimes you hit lucky and because you're a foreigner, people may like you, but other times, It works against you. They don't want to deal with you that comes into play here. So it's a hard nut to crack sometimes. And you can't just go and take pictures in the park and hopefully have something come about.

That will get you. Okay. Thousand dollar magazine article, or a contract with a major publisher. So getting into sort of the second point, I want to bring up the fact that most of the people that I have interviewed on this podcast and many that I consider friends. Have [00:07:00] been putting a lot of time into sort of building these networks and their sites and their body of work that gets them the attention from companies.

Either outside of Korea looking for something in Korea or in Korea looking for something a little different. Now, when I talked to Greg Symborski years ago, he was going hardcore into a site putting a ton of metadata tags and anything that he could to get eyes on him. And if you look at the work of Roy cruise or Dylan, Golby, you'll see the same thing.

It'll pop up in the search results. If you type in soul photographer, guaranteed, one of those guys will come up within the first three results and they want that. They're not just doing this by chance. They're not just throwing out a website and standing with their arms above it going. I have built this.

They will come. Takes [00:08:00] work. And this is something that I again have struggled with because I am one of those guys that I put out the website and I say, okay, it's going to happen. And nothing did. And even going back with the national geographic, I should have done something more with that I should have put in the time, but instead I got printed and I just stood back going, okay, now they're going to come down.

They're going to come. And they didn't come because I was. Doing anything with it. So you can see there what I'm getting at guys like Dylan and others put the work into their sites and into their photos and it gets eyes. And that's just one part of the puzzle. It's not, you know, that you can't just tag yourself sole photographer and have an international company come in there actually then.

Building up the work going out, even if it's not paying anything to get the work, to put onto the site and they're regularly [00:09:00] updating it, they're on Instagram or LinkedIn or wherever they want their clients to be. And they're pushing it because again, you're not going to get something from them. If you're just going out and taking some pretty pictures and then just putting it on Instagram with a couple of tags.

No, one's gonna see it. One of the things that Simon brought up in the interview was something I found very interesting. He mentioned that he went to the offices of Singapore airlines and pitched an article for their in-flight mag. Now if you're not sure what this is all about. In-flight magazines typically pay quite well for good travel stories.

And back in the day, like this is going back maybe 10 years, they were all the rage. If you were working on something in Korea, The only way that I think you could really get some good money from your travel photos. Was these inflight magazines. So pitching it to them was a [00:10:00] better way than just waiting for them to come to you because honestly, the money was so lucrative back then everybody in their dog was trying to get into the in-flight magazines.

So going to the offices while you're traveling through Singapore is a smart idea. It just gets your name out and it probably could get you into their index of people who they contact when they need photos of Korea. Simon took the initiative to actually reach out and find people. Now I myself have emailed people and never really heard back, but.

Better than just standing, you know, with your arms at your hips, proudly showing off your photo of bull Glaxo, hoping that someone's going to come and pay you a thousand dollars for the article and the story. It's not going to happen. You have to put something behind it. And if you can't find anybody here, you'd go to the source.

And I think that's where I really found inspiring about Simon story. The next thing I really [00:11:00] want to talk about is another aspect of sort of getting your foothold when you are taking pictures of places like soon Sean or Olsen, they're really not known for beautiful photography outside of Korea. And this was one of the things that I really sort of honed in on, in the last say decade or so.

I really want it to be something of a travel photographer. I thought that the only way to do that is to share photos from Seoul and gung Shu and all of these places. But if you're in an area where, you know, you can get some good photos, Make it your passion to highlight that particular area? The reason being is, is that again, going back to my own body of work, if someone searches for photos of Olsen in English, especially they're going to come across my photos in some way, shape or form, and I've done that deliberately.

And also just because when I need to [00:12:00] go out and get food, I live in Olson, the places where I go are in Olson, and I'm constantly trying to increase my skill level. So the quality of photos are going to be the same as those ones that you see up in Seoul, maybe on some level, but they're. Wilson. And the key point of that is that I've made it sort of my niche.

I've carved out my own niche for this. So when people are looking for Wilson photos, which doesn't happen that often, but it does happen occasionally they're going to come to me. And I think that's sort of the thing, like, if you are say a portrait photographer or if you're. Looking for something to photograph, then look at how you can find a niche in the market and really put some time into it.

So this has gotten me places like rape round, the [00:13:00] pandemic area. I was working with one of the film festivals. Where they were ready to bring down the ambassador of Canada. They had this whole gala event planned. They want to showcase my photos and then boom, the COVID hit. But again, the only reason I got this opportunity was because they were looking for good photos of the area.

This is the mountain film festival. So I had a lot of fun. From a magazine article I did, and I actually produced some cinema graphs from it. So when they came across this and they also found out I was Canadian, they were quite happy to bring me on board. Now, if I was just simply taking pictures of random things, City, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't have cared or even reached out and contacted me.

But because I had built up that body of work and I had the photos that they were looking for, or that's why they wanted to kind of come and meet me and talk with me. So I think that's something you have to think about is [00:14:00] building up that sort of level. Of photo work that you can show people that says that you are based here, this is your niche or something.

Now the last thing I want to talk about is. Going on with the other 50% that chase Jarvis mentioned again, building your network. Doesn't just mean posting to Korean photography groups and hoping that it gets a lot of likes. That's just, you know, you're preaching to the choir. Everybody in that group is a local photographer.

And if they, you know, clap and say, woo. That gets you nowhere. Really. So point I want to say is, is that when you have an opportunity, when you see something that comes up, jump on it. So for an example of that recently, I've been in touch with an app called guru shots and I've been using them for a year.

Funny part about this was I saw that they were doing a gallery show. In soul. And I knew that I really [00:15:00] wanted to be a part of this, not because I thought I would get famous, but I wanted to be sort of in contact with this company, because I know that apps like this are gaining a lot of notoriety. There's a lot of competition in the market and being quote unquote, one of their ambassadors.

You're looking to make a lot more contacts. So I pushed really hard to get actually printed in the gallery, which I did. And then when I saw that they were looking for a photographer or somebody to host the gallery night and to do the live event on their Facebook. I jumped at the opportunity. Now this may seem crazy.

It's maybe even worthless, but what it did was put me in touch with one of their executives or the person in charge of running these galleries. And we had a zoom call a little while ago and everything went quite well. And you can see how now I've been building. This new [00:16:00] contact with a company that I believe is based out of Tel Aviv or somewhere like that.

And that's the same thing I sort of did with Flixel. I had started working with them in around 2014, I believe. And I built up this relationship with the people who are. In the company, it took many years to actually build up a working relationship with this company until the time that they needed somebody in Korea to work with them on a project for the London.

You see that it wasn't as if I just started using the product and boom, suddenly they handed me a big contract. No, I had worked with them for many years. I had built up trust and whatnot with these companies so that they knew that I could pull off the job. And even then they probably weren't sure that I could, but I.

110% into that project and pulled it off to somewhat of a success. What I'm trying to say here is that [00:17:00] this project took four years of building trust and working with a company in order to actually just get that project. So if you were thinking of that, you can somehow wrangle a deal with some company that wants to pay you money with just a simple portfolio or something.

It doesn't always work like that, unless you're really good. And if you are all the power to you, but again, it takes a long time and a lot of skill to get to that level. Also, you have to think about going back to the guru shots thing that I did. Sometimes you just have to jump on the opportunity when it comes up and having the skill and being ready.

That's what's going to get you ahead of the pack of people who are just wanting something for nothing. And trust me when I say that there are a lot of people out there that. Decent photographers, but are looking [00:18:00] for something with the minimum required skill or talent. And if you have a lot of talents, if you are a great photographer, if you hone your skills, then you have to be ready to jump in on these experiences, or even just take a risk at having nothing happen whatsoever.

And again, going back to that guru shots thing, nothing probably will happen. You know, like, I mean, again, getting published in national geographic, nothing really happened there probably because I didn't push it, but the whole revolves around your willingness to jump at the chance and build these connections.

When I talk to some people, they are expected. Something to happen from there, nothing. And it, the world just doesn't do it like that. And I'm not talking about working for free either. You know, if you're just simply giving people your photos for free, you're never going to get anywhere other than being a free photographer.

What I'm saying is, is that when [00:19:00] you're seeing these opportunities again, Looking back at some of the coolest things I've done, you know, years ago, Sol had a lot of workshops that they partnered with national geographic and had I not seen these opportunities and had I not reached out to guys like Lee MacArthur who were on the inside track of these events, then I would have never been able to participate in them.

I would have never have met. You know, amazing photographers, likely MacArthur himself and the national geographic photographers and the editors that managed to sit down and have coffee with. So you can see how these things come together. Sometimes it's going to be fruitful other times, it's just going to turn up nothing.

But the thing that I want to stress to you at the tail end of this podcast is that you. Doing it that you keep jumping on these opportunities and you keep making those amazing photos and you keep [00:20:00] pushing forward with your craft. So as I finished off what seems to be a long rant, I just want to say that.

Your success depends on you. So I think that's it basically, I've been trying to say with this podcast is that if you're simply just putting out photos or putting it on Reddit or somewhere, and just throwing your hands up in the air and saying, all right, bitches, come on. You're not going to get, get anywhere.

So what I'm trying to express to you and even to myself, because I'm guilty of this too, like, don't get me wrong when I get off on these rants that I am not better. You know, you've heard me in previous episodes where I talked about needing help, where I've talked about my career as a photographer and a teacher skidding to a halt actually after years of putting, you know, time and money into it.

I am just the same as you, but what I'm trying to sort of glean from all of this stuff is just ways that we can help each other. And the [00:21:00] number one thing is, is that we have to take initiative. We have to take risk and jump ahead with opportunities that. Basically enable a win-win situation. So, you know, you don't want to be giving your photos away.

You want to be building relationships from companies and events and people that can actually help you in return. And that goes the same with if you're helping people get events or photo jobs, make sure that they help you in return. If you're just simply recommending people and they're just sucking.

Maybe not do that. I don't know. But again, you have to take the initiative. So when you see an event coming up that you think you're skilled for, do it, make the networks go out and meet people, zoom it because you know, COVID is a thing now. So go out and email people, write articles, take pictures, use your portfolio and help the community become the photographer in your community.

And you will be [00:22:00] recognized. Not now maybe later, but you have to build up that body of work. So at that being said, thank you for listening to me, rant on about all of this, and I'll talk to you again next week. .