As well as our carbon offsetting commitment, with the help of our users, we also enable the World Land Trust to protect precious natural habitat across the planet through their Buy an Acre program. 

So far we have helped protect 120,000 m2 of land!

We do this through our referral scheme. For each new user referred to us, we fund the World Land Trust to protect 25m2 of land. This means our users are directly contributing to the 6 locations we support:

Jaguar del Norte, Mexico: Your contributions have helped the World Land Trust and their partners expand a reserve home to the world’s most northerly Jaguar population.

El Pantanoso, Argentina: With your help, the World Land Trust and their partner FBA have been able to safeguard land for 350 species of bird, including the globally threatened Tucuman Amazon Parrot.

REGUA, Brazil: Your most recent contributions have gone to the Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu, in Brazil, home to the Brown-Throated Three-toed Sloth and the critically endangered Southern Wooley Spider Monkey.

El Silencio, Colombia: Manatees and tapirs are now safer from logging and poaching in this forest and wetland haven – because of Buy an Acre supporters like you.

Kasanka, Zambia: Through the Buy an Acre programme, the WLT have safeguarded the site of the largest mammal migration on Earth – 10 million Straw-coloured Fruit Bats.

Image credits: 1. Roberto Pedraza Ruiz, 3. Bibake Ippal, 4. Alan Martin.

Whatever medium you use; illustration, photography, art direction, retouching, ultimately you do the same thing. Your creativity tells a story. 

And…..storytelling matters.

We know it, you know it, and successful brands know it. But we have had too many tech “innovations” that try to devalue what you do. Let’s put that right.

Starting today, we are launching a new service called creatives.new, where brands who want to tell their stories can find and commission creative artists like you. It’s free and it matches you with clients based on content and style.

We come from the creative community, and we started making software to help our clients. Like you, we don’t appreciate services that charge creatives for promises of exposure that don’t materialise, or to enter competitions where the prize is a job!

Creatives.new is a service every user gets to create one portfolio and has 3Gb of storage for free, forever. Clients search for portfolios based on the visual style or content they want to create.  They message you and chat to you directly. You negotiate your own rates. We don’t get involved other than connecting you with clients, giving you the tools to chat to them, and a cloud system to manage the job and deliver the files.  

If you like the service and get jobs from it then you can pay £16 a month for 4 extra portfolios, but there is no obligation for you to do that. You can just carry on using it for free for as long as it works for you. 

Our aim is to put our available resources into leading the campaign to educate clients that great content matters. If they invest in content, it helps them tell their story and build up loyalty with their brand.

Basically, storytelling matters.

So join us. Click the link below to try our new service for yourself! If you’ve not added your portfolio, login and follow the ‘find commercial work’ tutorial. 

There are a huge amount of great accounts out there. Here are just ten of our favourites (in no particular order):

(1) 87Shots

One of the best ways to use TikTok as a photographer is to show behind the scenes processes, be it on set or the post production of your images. Gareth, the creator behind 87Shots takes you behind the lens on his urban shoots, giving tips on composition and lighting hacks. He also has a successful sideline in Lightroom presets which he also showcases on the app.

(2) Rosa Illustration

We love the striking vivid work of this young Liverpool based illustrator. Her subject matter ranges from climate activism to Black Lives Matter and feminism. Her bright, bold videos are always on brand showing the colour-filled world that she creates. You can read our interview with her about all how she uses social media to highlight her work here.

(3) Franklin BZ

Franklin is a cinematographer based in India. His feed is packed with behind the scenes videos of him on set often sat atop a jib, directing his crew. 

(4) Kymagination

Kym focusses his feed on tips and tricks and shows you how he goes about shooting his street portrait sessions. His vlog style videos answer questions from curious followers about varied subjects such as fees and payment in the industry, to advice on where to get film developed. What’s really refreshing to see on Kym’s profile is that he’s often learning along with everyone else, asking questions to his followers and testing out ideas along the way. 

(5) Roxy Prima

Mural artist Roxy Prima is based in California and shares process videos of her large scale artworks. Her sun-drenched mural videos definitely brighten up our feed. She also produces informative vlog style posts giving advice for running your business. Check out her “client convos” series of posts too if you’re up for a laugh! 

(6) YK

One of the biggest photography tip TikTok accounts is YK’s. He’s mastered the art of creating engaging video content for an emerging generation of photographers. His advice on shooting in the streets is refreshing and innovative, giving tutorials on particular shots and also setting challenges for his followers. 

(7) Josh McQuary

We love watching Josh’s timelapse videos of him creating his dark and moody ink illustrations. Sit back and get lost in his layered process. 

(8) Holly Johnson

Holly’s profile on TikTok gives in depth tutorials of a vast range of photoshop and illustrator techniques. A graphic designer herself, she also has free resources like Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions that you can access to help with projects. 

(9) Kelsy Landin

Something a bit different here, with Kelsy’s sculpture works being the focus of her profile. Her process videos are really relaxing to watch, bringing a good dose of ASMR to her follower’s feeds. She often asks her audience to request things for her to sculpt, fully involving them in her practice, which in turn is great for her engagement. 

(10) Pink Pony

For all the aspiring graphic designers out there, Kristy’s feed is packed full of videos giving inspiration for projects and techniques to try. Her posts cover all sorts of design processes from typography to branding.

Since the pre-industrial era (1850-1900) we have seen a global average surface temperature increase by 2℃.[1] A temperature rise of 2℃ can seem small and insignificant when we think about the problem of global warming as it is quite an abstract concept but that global average masks large variations in warming across the world. These changes cause a multitude of problems including changes in precipitation patterns, droughts and heatwaves, intensity, frequency and duration of hurricanes, sea levels rising, and arctic ice melting, to name just a few. 

This trend, unfortunately, looks set to continue, with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, forecasting a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century! 

theprintspace and creativehub are carbon neutral

We are doing what we can to help combat this trend and theprintspace is the UK’s only Fine Art & Photo printing service that is completely carbon neutral. This means we offset all carbon emissions that our business is responsible for via The Gold Standard. This includes delivery of our products to customers by couriers, upload and download of image files to our servers by our clients using creativehub, all the administration energy used in our company, and travel to work for the company’s staff. Over the past year since we became carbon neutral, we’ve been continually investing in carbon offset projects to maintain our environmental promise and will continue to do so. You can see details of our carbon neutral work here.

We recognise that carbon offsetting to achieve carbon neutrality is not as good as being carbon free and we recognise that there are other environmental impacts to any kind of economic activity. We feel like supporting carbon neutrality through offsets as a starting point is a good first step but it’s not the entire solution. However, consumer power matters! If everybody made environmental impact a key consideration of their spending decisions it would drive a lot more investment into renewable energy and environmentally positive projects and innovations and would drive governments to act.

creativehub users support The World Land Trust

As well as our carbon offsetting, for every user who refers a friend to creativehub (as well as getting 10% of what they order in their first year as a print credit), we fund the protection of 25m² of wild green space via the World Land Trust! Our latest purchase has been 10 acres in the Traslasierra National Park in the Córdoba Province of Argentina which is under threat from forest overexploitation, intentional fires, logging, and poaching. The loss of biodiversity because of these pressures is likely to lead to a reduction in forest quality and resources and a further reduction in quality and sustainability of people’s lives in this region. 

The Chaqueña ecoregion is the second largest forest area in South America, with 60% of this ecoregion occurring in Argentina. Within Córdoba Province, less than 5% of native forests remain. The money spent here will help to combat the immediate threats mentioned above and to help increase biodiversity in the area. 

“The money that is given to the World Land Trust, in my estimation, has more effect on the wild world than almost anything I can think of” – Sir David Attenborough

So far we’ve saved a total of 119,850m2 of natural habitat! The World Land Trust since its inception in 1989, along with its overseas project partners has been instrumental in the purchase and protection of more than 881,000 acres of tropical forest and other threatened habitats. That’s over 14 million tennis courts worth! 

Obviously, it’s almost impossible to operate today without using online services. (The IT sector alone currently contributes around 8% of the global carbon emissions!) This doesn’t mean, however, that this has to result in more carbon emissions if you choose responsibly. We feel extremely strongly about providing a service that is best for our customers and our planet.

Why not start referring people? They get 50% off their first order, you get 10% of what they order in their first year as a print credit, and there is 1 more person using a carbon neutral service! 

REFER A FRIEND

We asked those who work in the creative industries, across disciplines such as photography, graphic arts, illustration and video, to complete a survey asking detailed questions about what has changed in their professions since restrictions on movement and social distancing have been introduced, and how current predictions for continued restrictions on movement and interactions have already, and may affect their business in future. Our aim is to allow people to understand how they are fairing in the current climate, by benchmarking their own situations against what is happening at the macro level.

The pandemic will undoubtedly change the way we all work. The faster we can adapt, the better we can limit the damage. Based on government statistics the UK creative industry was worth in excess of £100bn in 2018 so the health of the sector is vital to the economic health of the nation.

Tips and insights for creative people

There are also tips and insights here for creative people who are suffering greatly as a result of the economic contraction. It is important to understand the best practices for working remotely, acquiring and communicating with new clients or art buyers, and online marketing strategies. Sharing best practices will give everyone the best possible chance to recover financially when the economy frees up again.

“There have been some positives in terms of reflecting on our values, solidarity, creativity, and how artists & photographers can share and teach each other just by sharing their experiences.” – Stuart Waplington, Creativehub CEO

In people’s personal stories there is a great deal of anxiety and heartbreaking stories of isolation and depression. There are also fantastic stories of optimism and personal development, and people feeling they have taken the chance to reassess priorities in a good way and see clearly what really matters to them. Also, many people are taking the time to focus on professional development. This includes learning new skills, experimenting with new ways of working and developing new projects. 

View the full report via the button below

VIEW REPORT

During each 2-day edition, photo-experts review the work of many talented photographers to choose their favourite portfolios. Every year Photo Meet and its partners award three photographers for the best portfolio.

This year, the strong portfolio series from photographers Max Miechowski, Thomas Duffield and Erik Norrud drew the most attention and were awarded with having their work printed on large format, framed and exhibited at theprintspace Gallery.

Max Miechowski is a photographer based in London, whose work largely documents the inhabitants of the capital’s diverse communities. However, in his new series, an ongoing work titled ‘A Big Fat Sky’, he explores the British east coast, visiting the communities which overlook the North Sea.

On a murky day, the sky and this vast expanse of water seem to become one along this eastern shoreline, only punctured by nuclear power plants or industrial silhouettes. It’s here that Max creates an ode to the British coast in a reflection on memory, and the transience of both childhood and the landscape. Through a combination of portraiture and landscape photography, Max’s ongoing work seeks to form a pertinent documentation of the towns and communities which inhabit this coastline.

Thomas Duffield explores the evolving roles within family connections by presenting a series of intimate self-portraits shot with his grandfather in his ongoing project ‘Just Couldn’t Get The Shoes to Fit’.

“Early this year, my grandad came down the stairs with a lively step. Looped around his finger a heavy wooden coat hanger swings, hanging from it, one of his old coats. We both try it on, testing the fit. I button his jacket up as he lifts his chin and shuffles his neck into the collar. In a playful process, we begin to dress up in his old clothes. Switching jackets and hats, we record this performative exchange through self-portraiture.

As he has grown older, so have I, And now our responsibility of care towards each other continues to shift and evolve. My grandad was a prominent father figure in the early life of my sister and I. We still look up to him as a strong guardian, however, for the first time he has shown us a vulnerable side. Now, he asks me to button up his shirt for him & open jars of pickled beetroot. It is through these changes I begin to recognise my own insecurities as I grow into adult life, take on new responsibility, and question my place as a young man in this world. Positioning ourselves in front of the camera, situates us as subjects in a position of a certain vulnerability. Subject to an unreturnable gaze, my grandfather and I become the observed. Although interestingly, the process of making the photographs ourselves incites a paradox where we have taken co-ownership of our representation, reconciled with our vulnerability, and presented it to an audience of viewers on our own terms.”

Erik Norrud has chosen to display his moving diptychs on the challenges of psychiatric institutions and mental health patients spread around Norway.

‘The Confined’ challenges the idea of the people you don’t ever think you meet. They sit beside you on the tube, go to the same parties and could be your coworker. These people have all been part of the mental healthcare system and have all been sectioned, put in belts. This is their story, their experience, in their words. The rooms, beds and places pictured are the actual locations of where the sectioning took place.

The exhibition runs from November 7th – 27th with the opening night on Thursday 14th.

We have a simple philosophy; we are a for-profit privately held company that wants to link our growth to positive action towards a sustainable planet. 

Creativehub also helps the World Land Trust, who protect threatened natural habitats across the globe through land purchase. They do this by working closely with local NGOs to ensure the land is only purchased by local organisations, so there is no question of Green Colonialism. 

For each customer of creativehub, we fund the World Land Trust to buy 25m2 of natural habitat, every year. Our referral scheme encourages this, as we give each referred new user 25% off their first order. So, if you introduce 10 users who each order a print, that’s tennis court sized wildlife reserve every year that you have protected!

This is just the beginning of the journey, and as users continue to join and we grow, we will have more resources to donate to the World Land Trust. To start this initiative off, we have funded the World Land Trust so they can purchase 36,423m2 of natural habitat.

Our donation will enable local World Land Trust partners, Naturalia, to extend the Jaguar del Norte Reserve in Mexico. This stunning landscape is not only home to the endangered American Jaguar, but also to 510 species of vascular plant, over 300 animal species, and provides one of the only known nesting sites to the majestic Military Macaw.  

This donation will also help Fundacion Biodiversa Colombia to expand the El Silencio Reserve which is a mix of tropical forest and wetlands. This habitat is home to species including White-footed tamarins, the Blue-billed Curassow and the Magdalena river turtle, as well as big cats such as pumas, ocelots and jaguars.

In Zambia, the Kasanka Trust can begin to secure woodland and seasonally inundated grassland habitat within Kasanka National Park as part of the Greater Bangweulu Ecosystem. This area is home to lions, leopards, African Elephant and the largest mammal migration on earth as 10 million straw-coloured fruit bats migrate into Kasanka.

Creativehub is part of a movement within business that wants to harness economic forces to drive environmental sustainability, and with the IT sector currently contributing around 8% of the global carbon emissions, we feel strongly about offering our users a creative platform that also works for our planet. 

The exhibition opened at theprintspace Gallery on Thursday 19th September to a packed house. Thank you to all that came down, donated art and helped further the vital work Friends of the Earth are doing.