Doing it my way

I started taking photographs as a tourist, but it was dance that lead to my career as a photographer. After all these years, I am a people photographer. I work as a photographer because I love shooting people's faces and their bodies. I like shooting quiet portraits and dancers in motion. I like doing sexy fashion shots and sculptured nudes. I like creating textured images, with light creating moods for me.

To be honest, I am just able to balance a career shooting corporate work and shooting my own work. I already have clients and will continue to nurture these clients. Yet, it is tight and it would be nice to earn some more money so that I do not have to worry so much about paying salaries and outgoings.

The rebuff from the advertising agencies was actually expected, although I am still trying. I am trying now to get more corporate work, shooting portraits for corporations, annual reports and the like. I also recently shot some pregnancy photographs for two women and completely enjoyed it. I am going to pursue shooting more personal portraits and family portraits.

I also hope to have associate photographers in The Pond eventually, but I am very particular about who would become an associate. I rent out my studio to professional photographers. And I teach at Objectifs. I am also looking at parking some of my images at a stock agency.

I am not going to have a career in photography from the most obvious paths, but I will string together a group of things that I enjoy doing to make sure that I continue to have a balance of work for income and personal work.

I did have another interesting encounter with a Dutch photographer recently. It was at a bar and I could not catch his name. But he has seen my work and thinks that my work has character. He specialises in shooting musicians internationally. And he encouraged me to become and international dance photographer. Interesting idea. My mentor has seen my new portfolio and has also encouraged me to have a stronger personal style to make it internationally.

So the tension between getting work as a generalist in Singapore and a unique international talent is there. I always think that Singapore is an unexceptional country because we are a country without exceptions.

Anyway, if being a photographer was so easy, so many people would be a photographer. I know that a lot of people are joining photography now because the digital revolution has made the entry relatively simple. But with so much competition, making it to any decent level is awfully hard. But I see a light to the end of my tunnel, and I am determined to doing it my way.