We recently caught up with Felicity to find out more about her approach to commercial photography commissions, her intensive preparations for campaigns often based in the unpredictable outdoors, how personal work can keep you motivated, and also speaks on the pitching process for advertising agencies, how she structures her fees, budget breakdowns, and much more.

How do you prepare for and manage working on tightly-controlled advertising campaigns in the extremely uncontrolled outdoors environments?

I’ve always been really outdoorsy in everything that I do; I do a lot of water sports, hiking, wild camping and so actually I have all these skills relevant to working commercially outdoors through my own hobbies and interests.

I’ve also always been somebody who overprepares. Preparation is key. I invest heavily in researching everything – every aspect, every eventuality – and I’m not comfortable approaching any work, whether it’s personal or commercial, until I’ve done that.

That involves large amounts of time researching locations and then, most importantly, getting out to those locations. With commercial work I’ll often get a producer onboard and we’ll scout locations together.

So I’ve always approached everything like this, investing a huge amount of time in the preparation.

However, what I’ve also learned over the last few years is how to let go as well. There’s only so much you can prepare, and letting go – learning to roll with whatever is thrown at you – is an important part of the process. You can make sure you’ve got enough hands onboard, you can make sure you’ve got enough lighting equipment onboard to do what you want to do, but sometimes something can happen that’s completely out of your control and you just have to go with it. 

You have to approach it with a philosophical kind of mindset and think, actually I might get something that is even better than I expected. This might work out better. Think positively.

What does a typical commission process look like for you from start to end?

Once a commission is awarded it’s straight into preparation. I work very closely with a producer and since a lot of my work is location-based, a lot of the initial work is finding those locations. We’ll recce places where it’s about finding the perfect time of day,  finding the perfect light. The problem which often arises is the practical nature of those locations, because you can’t just pick wherever you want.

I’m thinking about a job I did a couple years ago where we only had four days to shoot six locations and we’d lined up six perfect locations, but it just wasn’t possible. They needed a day each. So we had to compromise and work with the practicalities of time, and the budgets of course. 

It doesn’t always work out ideally but that’s part of the process, and that’s what I find interesting – the problem solving. It’s often about finding ways to work within budgets and time constraints and trying to find locations that work for everybody because you also can’t use locations, particularly with commercial work, which don’t have good access.

Next comes putting a team together, which is really important, and then there’s also a whole process of casting to find models. It’s finding somebody to work on styling hair and makeup, and having good assistants too.

What about post-production, how does that work on a big advertising campaign?

I’ll have an idea of how I want it to look while I’m photographing it, so I will usually produce rough composites myself first, outlining how I imagine it fitting together and in a way that is as clear as possible to anybody coming into it. The retouchers won’t have been on set, they won’t have been involved in the job until that point so the more illustrative I can be and the more I can give them at that stage, the better. 

I’ll pass that on and then they’ll work to replicate that, and at that point there’ll be agency comments and feedback, the client will want to be involved and it often progresses from that point, sometimes moving into another direction.

How does pitching to an advertising agency work?

I’m usually approached by an advertising agency and asked to pitch for a project, and those invitations usually come via word of mouth or I might have worked with somebody on the team before, for example. It’s about being visible to agencies.

Then it’s an intense process of creating a treatment. I’m not represented by an agent so I often do it myself, and I’ll get a producer involved right from the beginning to work on the estimates. I’ll be given a brief on what the client needs from the job, and it’s about unpicking why I’m right for that role, finding aspects of my portfolio that sit well in the style that they want to achieve, pulling out image references, illustrating in imagery and words why I’m the right choice for this job and what I can bring to it. 

I’ll outline how I’ll approach the commission, showing them that it’ll be safe in my hands and that I can deliver. I’ll also include practical information: how I might approach location scouting, casting, budget estimates. And at the end of the day, I need to show that I’m interested as well. It’s obvious to me, but they don’t know that.

Tell us about one of your best commissions.

From an advertising point of view, the commission I enjoyed working on the most was a job for The National Lottery. It was completely location-based, and a large number of locations. It was a really interesting brief because it involved people, it involved props; we had to photograph a really large cupcake and that had to be made, because of course you’re limited by how much you can enlarge a cupcake in post-production. There was also a huge bunch of flowers which had to be built. I loved working on something that had so many different locations and so much problem-solving involved.

The ‘Into The Mountain’ commision was another one I thoroughly enjoyed. It was four days of hiking through the spectacularly beautiful Cairngorms in Scotland, working with some hugely inspiring, creative women. 

It was a whole different set of problem-solving; we were working with difficult weather conditions and also working with somebody else’s artistic vision and practice, a lot of consideration went into how to represent that. I had full waterproofs for myself and my cameras and I spent a lot of time in puddles with little frogs jumping over me, observing as a fly on the wall before I was able to do a slightly more controlled shoot, but even then it was very important that I didn’t interfere with what they’d been working on for years.

How do you approach fees and budgeting?

It varies hugely. I do have templates that I work with but I very rarely stick to them since every job is completely different. Sometimes you get an idea of a budget, sometimes you don’t. 

If you have an idea of a budget, it’s then fitting everything in around it and some of those budget breakdowns are really complicated. There’s a lot of aspects to consider: pre-production fees, post-production fees, and shoot fees – fees for digital capture, for making sure that if you’re using your own equipment that you can maintain that – and then there are the expenses, and those need to be broken down as well.

I also work for a lot of very different clients and I quote very differently for each of them. I work a lot with arts-based clients and that’s a whole different structure. Often, they’ll just come to you and say “this is what we have”, and you have to see whether you can do it or not.

When it comes to licensing and usage fees, this is also extremely varied. It’s complicated to get your head around and I usually ask for help, especially when it’s for re-licensing work. I ask friends and contacts, people who I know can advise on that.

When it comes to deciding which brands or clients to work with, what’s the most important deciding factor for you?

The most important thing is that they share the same vision and values. If what they are wanting to do aligns with what I’ve been working on in my own personal projects, then that’s amazing. Particularly if they see something in my portfolio that they like stylistically and that’s what they want to work with me on. If it’s something that I’m going to enjoy and it will complement my portfolio in the long run, that’s the most important thing.

Are you working on any personal projects at the moment?

I’m working on a project at the moment looking at the women behind the wine industry in the UK. It’s an engaging project because I’m looking at wine-making in the UK and how that’s progressing, and I’m also looking to the women who are getting behind that, because traditionally it’s been a largely male-dominated business. 

The more I get involved in it, the more it offers so many other avenues to explore, like sustainability and environmental issues. It’s been a joy to work on so far, but I’ve got a lot more to do.

What value do you find in working on personal projects?

This last year and a half has been really beneficial for me in the sense of giving me time to start a lot of personal projects that have been bubbling away in sketchbooks for a long time. 

Personal work has always complimented my professional portfolio and it’s always helped to attract people to my portfolio, but I’ve only recently started to get involved in larger-scale personal projects. 

At the moment I’m working on the project I mentioned above and that has been taking all my time, but I love it. It’s a subject I’m really interested in personally, which I’m passionate about, so that combined with a passion for photography and wanting to create some beautiful work, it’s been a dream to work on.

I heard somebody describe photography as an exercise. I found the beginning of this year – January, February – was pretty tricky because I couldn’t get started, and I didn’t want to work on anything else. Because I wasn’t photographing anything, I was struggling to motivate myself. Just being able to start photographing was largely motivating. I find that when I’m busy and I’m really enjoying the work, I’m able to take on more and more.

Personal work is so important and I haven’t really appreciated that until very recently, but it’s essential for understanding yourself, what makes you tick and what you’re about, as well as for developing your portfolio. You want to appeal to businesses and organisations who have the same values and ideas – that’s really important.

It keeps you going and keeps the creative juices flowing, it gives you something to talk about. You’ve got to really enjoy what you’re doing to do it properly and you can find that through personal work. You can find something you love.

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Find Felicity’s portfolio on creatives.new – our recently-launched platform where brands who want to tell their stories can find and commission creative artists.

Through our smart search function, creatives.new matches artists with clients based on their content and style. Best of all, it’s completely free and there are no hidden costs. You can read more about creatives.new and how we help artists here.

IMAGE CREDITS:

‘Into The Mountain’. Project created by lead artist & choreographer Simone Kenyon. Produced & commissioned by. Scottish Sculpture Workshop. Performers: Claricia Parinussa, Caroline Reagh, Keren Smail, Petra Söör. Knitwear design: Jeni Allison.

‘The National Lottery’. Agency: adam&eveDDB. Art Director: Tim Brookes. Producer: Ben Hills. Stylist: Alice Timms. Hair & Makeup: Victoria Poland. Food stylist: Jack Sargeson. Assistants: Joseph Horton, Anna-Sophia John, Tristan Fennel.

‘Euromillions’. Agency: adam&eveDDB. Art Director: Tim Brookes. Producer: Ben Hills

‘Virgin Media’. Agency: adam&eveDDB. Art Director: Tim Brookes. Producer: Ben Hills. Assistants: Tim Wheeler, Tom Farmer

He speaks to us about finding success in commercial product photography, the importance of creating personal work, and why he still assists other photographers even as an established photographer.

What does a typical commercial product commission look like?

A client will send me their brief, their mood board, colour palettes, some words about the designer and collection – where they got their inspiration from, for example.

The budget always varies and I always try to give at least three options, and each option given has set factors – time, materials and post-production etc.

I do also use assistants; if it’s a big commission, then I have to rent a studio, I’ll probably need to rent more gear, and I’ll then likely need an assistant and a digi op. My focus is mainly doing the sets, styling and then working with my lighting assistant to style and set up my lighting – and I’ve worked with the same assistants for a long time. The same way I work with Julia [Fullerton-Batten] and I know what she needs, they know what I’m looking for.

90% of the time I also do the post-production because it’s a part of the whole process. Because my commission work mainly comes from direct contact with brands, I tend to do the post-production; however if it’s an agency commission, sometimes the work is sent to a professional retoucher because there’s a bigger budget or that’s what the agency wants.

What methods do you use to find new commercial clients?

I’m often contacting marketing agencies, advertising agencies, creative agencies, but most of the time it’s direct contact with the brand. So I’ll try to look for the marketing department emails, and sometimes I’ll ask if they mind sending a product or two and offer a couple of photographs for free.

I do send emails sometimes but now I try to contact people through Instagram because I get more responses there, and with email it’s always difficult to find the right marketing contact and their contact details.

How do you stand out from the crowd?

The reason my clients call me, why they commission me is because I work around the concept and I build props and I build sets. I find it more interesting as opposed to going to a job where the art director has already done everything and set everything up, where your job is maybe to adjust the lighting, the subject and then take photographs.

For the clients I’m working with now, I’m working as an art director as well as a set designer, a set builder. So I’m doing three or four jobs all together which are each hugely exciting; yes, of course, it’s time consuming – I have to work on the concept, on the set design, sourcing building materials, and the time to build the sets… however, it’s exciting because I work on on the whole project process. From the very beginning until the very end.

How important are personal photography projects?

The thing I enjoy most about photography is creating projects. I work a lot on personal projects – I release one every month or two, or I work on older projects. If I had to photograph just what clients wanted me to photograph, it would be incredibly unsatisfying.

I’m first assistant to the fine-art photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten; I love her work and I love the way she works. She doesn’t do a lot of commissions – she’s a fine art photographer, so she works on her personal projects and she develops each project. That’s what excites me.

However, I’m still working on commissions because that’s part of my job. The difference is that sometimes everything is already in place, the layout and the ideas. Maybe the client calls you because they saw your work which might match their style, or they think you can add something extra, which is great.

What’s the value of assisting other photographers?

I’m a professional photographer but I’m also still working as an assistant. 

Every photographer should work as an assistant, even if they are professional photographers, because you can see how other people work, how other photographers work with clients, how they handle difficult situations… You can always learn more.

I’ve been working with Julia Fullerton-Batten for about six years and we’ve got a very good working relationship. She tells me all the time, “put your work out there, enter more competitions, find an agent… knock on more doors.”

She’s like my mentor. Every time I change my portfolio, I send her an email and say, what do you think about these changes? Or if I’m working on projects then we exchange ideas… It’s nice to have that mentor figure.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I would probably say to myself, don’t do culinary school – go straight to photography and arts.

I jumped into photography quite late; I worked for 4-5 years in restaurants, hospitality, retail, and only started to work full-time in photography around 28, 29 years old. Before that I was freelancing as a photographer 2 days a week, and working in retail… sometimes I worked 7 days a week and that was for more than a year – it was intense. However, I don’t regret it – I had a beautiful experience.

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Find Elio’s portfolio on creatives.new – our recently-launched platform where brands who want to tell their stories can find and commission creatives based on the visual style they want.

This week we caught up with Dino – who is also a member of our creatives.new community –and talked about photographing for big clients and big personalities, how important Instagram is for his marketing, the value of nurturing existing relationships, and the power of personal work. Read on below:

What do you consider to be your greatest commission?

Definitely photographing portraits for Tyler the Creator, it was probably one of the best projects I ever had with anyone. That was two years ago for the IGOR album; they were supposed to make a book with the album but then they got so busy with the tour that they completely lost that project, and I basically got permission now to use those photographs in a zine.

Everything went so smoothly. He had such energy and however he would position himself he would look good. I didn’t have to do anything, so I was just observing and waiting for him to do something. It completely evolved into something else. It’s amazing to work with people like that.

There weren’t a lot of people involved and it was basically just me and him, the driver and his security guard. He was his own stylist. I’d done a recce of the location the day before, so it wasn’t stressful or pressured at all.

I love working like that because you can create a good connection. If there’s somebody else who is telling you what to do and you never communicate with the person you’re photographing, a lot can be lost. Conversation and connection can give you more insight, and with this combined energy you can create something really beautiful.

I would say I can hold a good conversation, but there are some people who are amazing at that, who can bring out so much more from a person. It’s psychological. It’s how you can make them feel – some people will just stand there and you have to get them to that moment, but some people just have this connection and can bring out another person entirely.

It’s still nice to have, for example, someone to style and watch the clothes at least, or make up and hair. Sometimes I can miss a crease here, a crease there. Then again, perfection isn’t something I’m striving for!

What’s it like to work with such big names?

The people I’ve worked with? They’re always amazing. Super humble.

People often think there’s probably going to be a lot of ego but it’s not like that. When somebody hires you for a specific thing, you’re what they want.

I’m always myself. I never really thought about it before, but I’ve never had that fear or nervousness. Maybe that’s just me, but I just treat them like any regular person – we usually talk about the specifics of the photography and what they want. I focus solely on the work.

I always have a clear idea in my mind of what I’m going to do, and when I have that I feel confident. I get more anxious about not knowing what to do rather than working these kinds of jobs.

What are your marketing tactics?

I mostly market my work through Instagram – it’s basically free marketing – and I get a lot of interest through there.

I also maintain certain relationships from previous jobs – for example, in the beginning of last year I got some assignment work for the New Yorker and Adobe – and I’m now maintaining the relationships with those editors and people I’ve worked with.

What I often do is every time I have a new project, or I update my portfolio, or I have a new book out, I send out an email update to my mailing list. 

There’s always so much information happening around us that we miss things easily, right? So I send those in the hopes that someone will see I’m doing something new. I often get replies saying: “oh, you were just working on this, it’s good that you emailed, maybe you can help us out…”

Then, if there’s somebody I really want to work with I will get in touch with my portfolio. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s beneficial to do that because a lot of the time people don’t even know you’re working, and they’ll put you on their roster.

Do you have a specific strategy behind using Instagram to gain commissions?

They usually just contact me through DMs. Just three days ago, I got another message from someone who wants me to come do some photography in LA. It’s often somebody representing somebody. It’s nice to have that personal contact.

It’s hard to know when that started happening. I’ve had Instagram for a long time, since maybe around 2013, 2014, so it’s had a lot of time to grow.

When the mindset changed, when I started using it for my own marketing, that was only in the last four years or so. I don’t go about it in a very structured way though, and I tend to post when and what I feel like.

Maybe I should be more structured, but to be honest we spend so much time on social media that I don’t want to add to that and it works for me like this.

For you, what’s the value of working on personal projects?

It’s the best thing you can do as a photographer. Clients, brands, they all started coming to me because of my personal work.

Tyler came to me and said “I love this stuff that you do, the desolate places. Could you insert me into this?” And I said, perfect, let’s do it. 

Everything stems from it. All the commissions I’ve had, photobooks, exhibitions; everything is because of the personal work.

It’s extremely important, especially for my development and my career, and it pushes me too. You can do whatever you want with personal work. You don’t have any limitations, you can push yourself. You can go in a completely different direction, you can try everything. Nobody’s telling you what you should do. It’s liberating, and allows your creativity to flourish. 

Now when I go back to New York, I have more portraits lined up of random people I’ve met because I want to photograph them and have them in my portfolio. I’m trying to focus more on environmental portraits because I want to do more of that and move away from other sorts of commissions. That’s why I also take on personal projects that fall into that category – because I want to do more commercial work like that, and I can then use those personal projects in my portfolio.

What’s the most important thing for you when working with big name clients?

Whatever the project, for me the most valuable thing is just to be prepared.

As long as I know what I want to do, everything else is okay. I’m not anxious about “is it going to be good enough?”, and I’ve been photographing for so long that all the technical knowledge is essentially part of my subconscious now.

If I have a general idea of what I’m going to do, how I’m going to do it, and where I’m going to do it, then I’m good. I can build on that, and everything else will come later.

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Find Dino’s portfolio on creatives.new – our recently-launched platform where brands who want to tell their stories can find and commission creative artists.

Through our smart search function, creatives.new matches artists with clients based on their content and style. Best of all, it’s completely free and there are no hidden costs. You can read more about creatives.new and how we help artists here.

We recently caught up with Ming who talks to us about his agency representation and how it can be like a support network, the importance of working on personal projects to add to your creative landscape, and why some of the most valuable traits in potential clients is having clarity of vision and the willingness to collaborate. Read on below:

How did you gain agency representation?

They approached me. It was relatively recently, about a year ago in July. So the founder, she’s a creative director at a studio. She felt it was important to start an agency that focused on people of different backgrounds. She tracked down a selection of artists, including me, and asked us for a lookbook or portfolio to summarise our work, which she then put to an industry panel for blind judging. The artists were all shortlisted from that, and I was signed back in September.

What’s the value in being represented as a photographer?

It’s difficult as an individual to broker the kinds of big commercial jobs you can get with an agency. They handle all the admin and all that background work that can take up so much time as an individual. They let me know what my fee is going to be for that project, what expenses I might have on top of that, and in terms of production, they’ll book a studio or location and organise the crew. My contract also differs in that I’m not exclusive, so I can still do my own thing.

What’s it like being part of an agency?

We do keep in touch; we’ve got a WhatsApp group and we talk to each other often. There’s a couple of people I’m quite friendly with, and a couple who I’ve met up with. I get on well with one of the other photographers – I’ve assisted her, she’s assisted me. 

If someone has a question or needs help, if they need an assistant, make-up artist or similar, they’ll put it out there. No one’s really guarded about what they’re up to, or how much they got paid for a job for example.

It’s part of the ethos of the agency as well. They’re there to represent voices and backgrounds that wouldn’t necessarily be heard, or find it harder to be heard. So in that way we’re all linked.

You work in several areas linked to food, doing portraiture and interiors too. What’s it like to manage that, and is that a benefit for your clients?

That probably is one aspect they like, since they’re not having to commission two or three other creatives. Honestly, for me it’s all part of the same thing and there’s lots of interplay between those areas I work in anyway, but it all centres on food.

Some of the first commissions I got were for Time Out and FT magazine, mainly doing restaurant reviews. It would be some food and drink on location, but then they also want an idea of what the place looked like, and then perhaps there’s the chefs who need to be photographed.

Having a niche helps people identify what you do, but then on the other hand everyone has their own way. You’ve got to be who you are. Some of the advice has been to have a niche that people can identify you by, but if you want to work on something else, do it – just don’t mix it all up, keep it separate. 

That’s how it’s worked out for me; I have clients who I just do food and drink for and there’s other clients that I just do portraits or just interiors for, and they don’t ever ask me to do anything other than that.

What’s one of the best commissions you’ve worked on and why?

This is a difficult one to answer because I think you always have some emotional attachment to a job. 

One that was pretty straightforward was for Aqua Bianca. It was only a short job, one day. The short story is that I knew this guy, a bartender, for quite a long time and he was launching his own liquor. His daughter works as a graphic designer and has an agency so she designed the bottle, packaging, website – the visual identity – and I did the photography.

It was essentially a family business, and that was really nice. The great thing was that everyone was very clear about how they wanted it to be. I had a real clarity of vision, but they were also open to ideas.

It felt very direct as well. Often you have your crew, your team, and there’s sometimes a few people hanging around saying, “Can we do it like this? Can we try that?” On this occasion, there wasn’t any of that stop-go-stop-go, the job had a great flow to it. 

Another job that I got, which was completely different, was a travel commission. The company does these travel guides for cities and they asked me to photograph for their city guide to Tokyo.

They just gave me a big shot list and said “there’s your budget, go to Tokyo”! It was a bit daunting. The budget they gave was all in. It’s nice in a way, but it’s also an admin headache. You have to book your own flights, accommodation, local fixers, travel, organise your own schedule, pay yourself a fee, and everything has to be within the budget.

What’s the value of personal work for you?

I do little bits and pieces that just get stuck in my head for no reason, random things that interest me – still life, botanicals. You can use personal work as a vehicle to try new things, lighting etc. It’s not about trying things just to use in jobs; it’s a way to play. No brief, no budget.

I like street photography. I get a lot out of it because I don’t have to plan anything; no plan, no expectations. 

If you’re doing still life or something, you’re cooped up on your own. Go out, start talking to a random stranger – it can be the most amazing thing. You could say to yourself, “today I’m going to take a stranger’s portrait” and use it as a way to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Although, I’m not sure how easy that’s going to be after eighteen months of COVID!

That’s something I really miss – that sense of exploration, meeting people, just talking to strangers, going up to someone completely out of the blue. I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to that.

People who’ve contacted me for work have remarked on my personal work, that they’ve had a look, they often say “oh I really like that random thing you’ve done.” I don’t think personal work necessarily has to have a direct connection, it all adds to your creative landscape.

What do you find most valuable in new clients?

Thinking back to the Aqua Bianca job, it’s having the clarity of vision – knowing what you want as a client. Having a clear idea of what it is they’re trying to do. That’s not holding up a tear sheet and telling the photographer that’s what you want. That’s the opposite. I’ve had that before and it’s horrible – a client referenced another photographer’s work and said “just do that”.

Being open to collaborating as well as having that clarity of vision is important.

I’ve been on jobs before where it’s been heavily art directed, they’d worked with the stylist before, so it was all set up and I just had to put the lights up and click a button.

The jobs I’ve enjoyed the most are the ones where I’m a part of the process, when I can bring something to the table. If they’re not asking me to bring anything, then I’m not going to have the space to go above and beyond what they’re expecting me to do. I feel you get more out of it if you can keep pushing it, and say “why stop here? Let’s try this, this, and this.”

Ultimately, we all want to do a really good job, the best job we can do.

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Are you a commercial food photographer? Check out our recently-launched platform creatives.new where brands who want to tell their stories can find and commission creative artists like you.

Through our smart search function, creatives.new matches creatives with clients and vice-versa based on content and style. You can read more about creatives.new and how we help artists here.

Her background in mathematics and sciences combined with an interest in structure, whether it’s the physical shape of a building or theory like formalism and constructivism, inspires the way she works and what she creates.

Bai specialises in architectural and interior photography, working mainly with eye-wateringly stunning residences. Her client list boasts a line up of high-end clients, including names like WeWork and AirBnB Luxe.

We spoke to Bai recently and dove deeper into her process; the ins and outs of her process and methods, behind the scenes on architectural photography commissions, why lighting is the most important tool to understand, and how to make work that really resonates with your own values.

What does the process behind an architecture commission look like?

Everyone has their own process. I’m very methodical about it and I like to work with the client to make sure that they’re happy with the end result. The best way to do that is to fully communicate and plan things out in detail. 

We’ll have a meeting ahead of the actual photoshoot on location, and then we’re looking at different angles. I’m looking at the sun, where the sun’s going to end up coming through the windows. Are there trees blocking the light? Are there other things I need to be cautious about? Is the view not ideal from this angle? What’s outside the window?

When I arrive on the day of the job, I already have a shot list of photographs to make because I already know which angles that I’m doing and I’ve already discussed this with the client – they’ve made their choices and they know exactly how many photographs they want out of this project at that point. 

So I’m dictating the whole day with a set schedule of what I’m photographing hour by hour. Sometimes I’ll know I only need to be there for five hours, other times I need to be there for fourteen hours. 

With architectural photography, you can’t just rely on a strobe and flash. You can’t work with just any lighting; you won’t be able to turn the sun on and off. So you have to make sure everything’s roughly going to work out in your favour and make sure you don’t have an intense editing job later. I’ll also be working tethered to a computer, meaning that we’re always seeing how the photographs look in real time.

Post-production is always part of my process. Going back a little, I started off with photography at a school newspaper. There we were trained by some of the LA Times photographers and photo editors, and there was an emphasis on documenting focused on realism and authenticity, and that’s something that I still love doing. I never want to stylise something into my own vision of what it should be, I purely document it.

Are awards important to you as a professional photographer?

Whenever I have a client call, I never actually mention the word “award”. I figure if they see my work and they like it, they’ll hire me, and if they’re interested enough they’ll find the awards. I’ve never had a client mention directly “you won this major award”, or ask me about awards.

Every other year I’ll have a sudden inspiration though, I think ‘I need to do this; it’s like showing up to the family dinner party, you don’t really want to but you should. So, that’s how I treat it – do I find a sense of purpose, does it boost my self esteem? Not really. It’s just something on a piece of paper.

Then there are some awards where it’s more about who you know. I would caution people to not apply to every award. You should do it because you could get something out of it so that if you do get some kind of recognition, it’s worth it for you.

How do you structure your fees for commissions?

I don’t do a day rate. For my residential clients it’s mainly calculated per photo so they can really control their budgets and I’m also not going to waste time photographing anything that they don’t need. I also fold all the usage and the standard post-processing into that flat fee per image.

For commercial clients, they tend to prefer a day rate and we break everything up – the day rate itself, post-processing fee, equipment fee and usage. And so for them, it’s better to cater to whatever system they already have in place.

For small businesses like local architects and interior designers, they like things to be simple and often don’t want breakdowns.

What’s the most crucial thing for you when you choose which clients to work with?

I like to work with someone who has a strong vision, where there’s a sense of mutual respect, someone who has their own cohesive style and character. It could be an interior design project that’s filled with florals everywhere to something that’s super modern.

Are personal photography projects important?

There were a few years in between assisting and when I actually had the courage to just go for it, where I was working in a corporate office. I did a lot of personal work so I wasn’t devoid of any creativity at that time, and it very much helped me build a foundation.

Nowadays, possibly to the detriment of some of my relationships, whenever I travel I will compulsively take photos. It was hugely important because working on personal projects is a really great way of figuring out what I really liked, how I like to shoot. 

Pre-pandemic, I was regularly travelling – here we only have two weeks holiday, so I really make use out of those two weeks and shoot maybe 500 to 600 photographs each day, completely freestyle. 

Then what I do is when I come back I’m really studying what I got – which are the best compositions, best angles, light? That’s what trains my eyes. I really encourage people to work on personal projects because it forces you to really look at yourself in the mirror and say what do I need to improve?

When you’re working with clients, they have certain expectations – you are ultimately doing them a service, they’re not doing you a service. When you do personal projects then you can really educate yourself on what you like, how you like to work, what lighting you like to use, what are things that resonate with you?

The most important thing to know as an architectural photographer?

Lighting and composition. If I had to choose between the two, lighting. That’s because of what we were talking a bit about earlier, you can’t just turn the sun on and off or change how it looks!

When you have to light a room, it’s really hard to make it replicate the way natural sunlight comes through, especially if you’re shooting something ultra-modern with two-story high glass windows and steel beams. You can’t put a strobe through that. 

You have to understand in depth how sunlight and natural light works in winter, in summer, in spring and in autumn. You have to be able to see good quality light and you have to have an eye for it.

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The thing about developing your own style and visual language as a photographer or creative of any kind is that you should only have to see it, to know who it is made by. Wallace’s work always falls into that category for us, he brings his own unique style, humour and in-your-face take on life to everything he does. He likes to be in the thick of it, at the heart of the action rather than floating around the periphery and that’s what makes it so compelling. He gets in there for us, so we don’t have to. 

“If something’s happening there, I’m going. You look for the most expedient approach, the easiest way in there, I want to take the picture without them even seeing me. I have a million decoys, I could be standing behind them flashing at something else. Sometimes you go in hard for the tackle, sometimes you just have to poach the goal.”  – Dougie Wallace

That’s why it was interesting to see what Wallace made of the pandemic, would he still find life, humour and interaction in a crisis unprecedented in its ability to shut life down and distance people. 

The project was centred around journeys on London buses, which of course had to keep operating during the pandemic to move essential workers around the capital. Wallace photographed the series through these bus windows using flash, which allows the images to show life in and around the bus routes, with people carrying on with varying and unique forms of PPE. The images also focus on the interplay with changing messages in the billboards and bus advertising and how they brought into focus the rapid change in the way of life. 

Ads for foreign holidays (Going somewhere? We suggest Malaysia) and ads for deodorant (Don’t Sweat It) suddenly took on an eerie and absurd juxtaposition to the faces of the passengers nervously riding together in their PPE. Shop windows with the messaging “No Time To Die”, referring to a product tie-in with the upcoming James Bond film, suddenly take on a genuine menace, whilst simultaneously highlighting the inconsequential banality of consumer culture. 

As ever with Wallace’s work there is humour, warmth and laughter. This is what sets apart his work from many others, it doesn’t try too hard to search for gravitas, but it does find it amongst the humour and absurdity of daily life, and as ever Wallace puts us right in the middle of it. This is a lockdown project with a difference, it documents the fears and hopes of a city during what Wallace describes as “the biggest event of our lifetime”. The gravitas comes from how remarkable this document will be in years to come, as it portrays the spirit Londoners like to see in themselves, in the hardest of times.

Dougie Wallace’s Limited Edition book: Bus Response is out and available to buy now, published by Dewi Lewis publishing.

The book ships from the photobook publisher Hoxton Mini Press on March 8th, the day of what we hope is the start of the end of the last lockdown. Whilst this is a coincidence, it is fitting as East London Up Close is a timely reminder of the soulful spirit of London we all hope to rediscover in the summer of 2021 and beyond.

Mollica is a well known in the London photographic art community, not least through his work as the co-founder of Photomeet, dedicated to supporting emergence of new talent and projects, and his previous book Terra Nostra, a thoughtful document of Sicily, his place of birth and childhood. Terra Nostra examined the continued influence of organised crime on daily life and the soul of the Sicillian people. 

We caught up with Mimi to ask him about the new book. 

This is a project you have been shooting over a few years isn’t it?

Yes, I started taking pictures around London in 2009, but then from 2014 both geographically and stylistically the approach changed, because I didn’t feel the stylistic coherence for the images on this project between the two times. 

Then, a close friend of mine died and then my Father-in-law died in my arms, these were traumatic things I lived through. As a response I started going out and diving into the people, and taking pictures of passers-by, characters and detail. This is exactly what I needed; proximity and vibrancy to people. For a photographer it’s therapeutic to make work, and for me that meant putting myself into the context of the pictures and interacting with people. 

Everything that happened made East London Up Close extremely important, it fed my need to dive into the crowd, this was a decisive thing. So from 2014 until up to the start of the pandemic I have been photographing East London. Sometimes I went to make pictures on purpose but other times I just came across interesting things to photograph. I always have my camera on me, and even going shopping I would find something interesting to take pictures of.

There are parallels and differences in the styles of Terra Nostra and East London Up Close. There is a continuity of the aesthetic patterns and constructions you see in both works, but then we look at East London Up Close and its vibrancy in terms of colour is really striking. Is how you see East End life, articulated in the colour?

Absolutely I wouldn’t have done East London Up Close in black and white, the colour and vibrancy is the hero of the book. Terra Nostra the approach was different, it’s something you read with a slower pace. 

It feels like East London Up Close is very immersive, you’re in the heart of it. Whereas Terra Nostra is more reflective and observed from a distance. Is this driven by how you identify with the two places, the place you grew up and the place you live now?

It’s a very interesting question. It is something that I have asked myself alot, but to which I don’t have an answer and it’s strange because maybe I don’t really want or need an answer. I have a constant identity crisis, well that is how I explain it but for me it is not really a crisis. It is all part of the constant changing of oneself and photography accompanies throughout this journey. 

To be honest, East London Up Close and Terra Nostra projects have overlapped for years and I feel there are moments in my life where I identify and photograph more of my surroundings. East London Up Close is the fruit of the place where I live on a day-to-day basis so it came effortlessly. When you do something from more afar you have to work harder to bring together the narrative you see. East London Up Close from a developing perspective and from the edit perspective was a more seamless process and the editing was like building up a mosaic, so the whole thing has been extremely playful. 

When did you start shooting the work? Did you continue shooting it during the pandemic, or was it already shot?

No, I have not taken pictures on this project during the pandemic. For this project I needed people so it couldn’t happen in the pandemic .The narrative of this book is definitely the opposite of the COVID pandemic. But coincidentally the day we will ship the books is also the day when we start lifting the lockdown restrictions (March 8th).  

All of us crave that proximity again, for being in a crowd and for experiencing your surroundings more once again. So the book came at the perfect time, and the release date was a fortunate coincidence, we decided this weeks ago.

In terms of a photography career, how important is it to make books, and what does it give you as a photographer?

Let me start with how I think of books in terms of my own photography. The book gives me an outlet for stories I am interested in, but the idea for the story or narrative happens independently to the idea of making a book from it. If you do make a book, and the book is successful then of course this raises your profile as a photographer and the more chances you will have to succeed in your career, fingers crossed. But the book for me is to give life to the narratives that I want to develop. 

For example Terra Nostra started with an idea for a story, I didn’t think of the book when thinking of the project, only afterwards. A book will always be different to a magazine feature, an online slideshow, a website or an exhibition. It is something you hold in your hands and can feel it, so this format is a means for one to absorb photography. With my books I can go back to them, and the more I go back the more I can interpret them differently. 

In general terms creating a book, if the project allows it, is a beautiful thing. There are no rules to the way in which you can conceive or make a book, but whatever way you choose they sit on my bookshelf, and all these ideas coexist and my books become an extension of my brain. 

So the book format is extremely important for the photographer, and of course that is a banality to say. But for me it gives me the chance to give a deserving place to the project I have in mind and the narrative I am developing. The book will always stay, it is a definite statement about your work.  

Does it enable you to draw a line under a project, and be able to move on to thinking about things differently?

Absolutely, after making a book this is the time that you have to make some new decisions. Of course I can come back years later and think about how I could have made the same project differently, but if I do then I am not thinking about that previous project, I am thinking about a completely new project. The way you present, edit a project can give an entirely new perspective of the same subject. 

The book enables me to use it as a reference when I have to re-edit the project, say for a magazine story, or a talk at a university or a photographic event. So the book is a definite line that you have drawn and then you can move forward from there.   

Mimi Mollica’s East London Up Close is available to order now through Hoxton Mini Press

Talk us through your approach to selling art online

Absolutely. So I want to work as an artist, I don’t necessarily want to work as a print seller, as such. However, selling prints is what enables me to fund all of my other projects and is absolutely key to any artist’s success.

So I only do time-limited sales. By this I mean I compress an entire year’s worth of sales into a period of about 7 to 10 days on my online Shopify store. This approach to selling online makes it very efficient to organise and promote as you can create a lot of excitement, a real environment of passion leading up to the launch. I’ll get onto that in a moment. But taking a step back, there is also a psychological element to selling this way, it’s great for conversion!

Whilst the store is live I use countdown timers on the products, so you know how many days are left to buy. Why? If something is available to buy all the time, you don’t have to make the decision to purchase now, you can just do it next week. And then by next week, you’ve already forgotten about it. That’s a big problem for a lot of artists. The amount of abandoned checkouts you get is sky high because people are like, “do I, should I?”

With my sales, once that 7 to 10 days is over, you can’t get access to those artworks again. So there is a real incentive to buy if you like the piece.

I’m so passionate about my artwork, and I know it’s going to make people really happy once they get it. So I do these time limited sales to really focus on what my purpose and mission is in life. I take that message, and I promote it like hell.

Tell us about your promotion strategy

I think that with a lot of these timed-sales 90% of the work is done before you launch. Actually, a tiny amount of stuff is done after launch! It’s about the build up, getting people involved, creating that environment of excitement and sharing your passion. That’s the whole point of the artwork in the first place, right? 

There is a real benefit to having this compressed into a short period of time, and that is you can prepare a lot of content in advance. Before you launch your store you want to be doing the promotion 2 weeks in advance minimum, preferably 3 or 4. You want to be putting out as much content as possible, you want to be talking about the sale at great lengths. You have to just give up the fact that some people are going to be like, “Oh, she’s talking about the bloody art store again.” The reason I’m okay with that is that because I don’t run the stores all the time, so I feel I can push really hard during this period, and then you know, we can just talk about how cool space is after that.

What advice can you give for creating engaging social content?

If you want to become good at using any social media platform, the best thing you can do is be very conscious and aware of how you interact with it yourself. Gary Vee talks about this idea of 10×10, so take a social media platform and operate it for 10 hours and make 10 pieces of content. After this you’ll truly understand it. 

This is true of any platform, whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever. Whilst you’re using it ask yourself, Why did I scroll past that post? How quickly did I scroll? At what point did I decide to? This post was interesting, why? Become hyper aware of your own interaction, and specifically of the things that you found interesting, or more importantly, why you skipped past something.

I did this and created a spreadsheet. The posts I skipped past I noted info such as their length. Similarly for the successful posts. I was looking for patterns! You have to be really curious, because this is the key to success for dominating any social platform.

Doing this taught me how to produce content that is correct for each social platform. So for instance, TikTok is a fantastic platform if you utilise it correctly. My technique for TikTok is something I call ‘the grand reveal’. That is basically interesting little clips where the viewer is not quite sure what is going on, then bam! Have a big reveal of the final piece. 

The key to engaging content on TikTok is it has to be short and punchy, the shorter the better as far as the algorithm is concerned. This is because it really counts if someone’s watched the whole video all the way through rather than skipped. 

In general, you want to be sharing content about how you’re making your work, behind the scenes stuff. More importantly, look straight into the camera, get your face on camera… especially photographers, photographers are the worst for this! Naturally they are more comfortable behind the lens. But customers need to connect with your passion and your excitement for the thing that you’re doing. Don’t worry If you think you look ridiculous, people are always going to think you’re ridiculous, it doesn’t make any difference. You might as well be successful and ridiculous!

Talk about what you are really passionate about, talk about the adventure. That might be what you love, what you use. It could be as simple as talking about you as a person. Half the time people are investing in your art because they’re investing in you. So let people get to know you.

Every time they see this content they’ll smile, because they know that they got to support someone that they believe in. That they played a part in the journey.

Content creation is time consuming. How do you manage this?

So for TikTok you really need to be thinking specifically in the TikTok mindset of how you’re going to film it. But with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you can basically just document everything you’re doing. Document yourself setting up your artwork, setting up your Shopify store, the conversations of trying to figure out what sizes to offer. Creating the artwork itself. Document all of that process and you’ll have the content ready to go when you need it.

Show the amount of effort you put in, tell that story. People often don’t understand just how much we put into our art, so you have to make them aware.

How do you talk about the actual artworks for sale?

Hold the prints in your hands. Reassure your customers of the quality, this is my number one rule! Talk about the density of the inks, get them used to the details, talk about the quality. A big portion of what I do is I talk about the paper I use, the German Etching Hahnemuhle paper. It has the nicest feel…such a weird thing to say.

Treat your artwork with care, always wear gloves, treat it with a level of reverence. These are important artefacts that you’re creating. Who knows, in 10, 20 years, when you’re a super famous artist they could be worth a lot of money. So treat them like they’re already there, 20 years into the future!

Also preview it for the customer, how it could look in their home. Put the artwork in a frame, mock it up on the wall in Photoshop. Really show them.

How do you get traffic to your online store?

Your email list is your number one tool for selling as an artist. No matter what you’re selling, you need an email list! Every single platform for me links to an email list sign up, I use Klaviyo. I love it. This is where I communicate and launch my timed sales. 

So my sales are limited in time, but they are also exclusive to those who have signed up to my email list. You can’t get access to my store without the link and a secret password! Why on earth would I restrict it like that? It allows me to create a really exciting buying experience. 

With any email marketing, number one piece of advice, make sure everyone double opts in, so that you’re GDPR compliant. People have to confirm that it’s a valid email address otherwise, they’re not actually effectively signed up. 

In the month preceding the store launch you want to be dropping them a “Hey, I’ve got this whole catalogue of exciting things, it’s going to be launching, it’s only going to be available for a short period of time. If you want to purchase something join the email list to get the password” 

I write these emails as if I’m writing to a friend. I don’t do anything fancy. Most people won’t be able to tell if I’m emailing them directly, or if I’m emailing them en masse. They look like a normal email, and that’s done with great purpose! I treat it like a real inbox, so when people reply, I always respond to them. It’s about creating a personalised experience. 

So build your email list. In every single post, it doesn’t matter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, whatever, always have the link to sign up. And be really clear and honest about it, don’t hide it in a load of text.

How do you convert these sales? Talk me through the store launch process

It’s all about the countdown. Creating this exciting experience, this anticipation, a buzz. Before a launch you can see the Twitter feed going crazy with people refreshing their inbox, waiting for the password to come in.

3 days before launch I’m saying on social media things like, “I’m going to be sending an email to everybody today, just to check that you’re getting my emails – if you can’t see my emails, and you find it in your junk, put it to your saved list”.

This gives everyone some warning that the launch is almost there, because come sale date, if you’re not in there quickly, the limited items are going to be gone. Artwork is a supply and demand based economy in some ways. I don’t like to boil it down to being as cold as that, But it really is. The reason why artwork goes up in value after an artist dies, is because no more of it can be produced. It’s as simple as that. The way I sell my work in this way allows me to create a similar demand.

Then we’re doing the whole, 3 days to launch, 2 days, 1 day, 12 hours, 6 hours, 3 hours…I even do a live stream roadshow, where I stream on all the social platforms. We do half an hour on Facebook, then the next half an hour on Instagram, the next half an hour on TikTok, talking about the fact that we are literally about to launch. 

Then Bam! The store opens and the surge comes in.

Hi Rosa, you were recently named the AOI’s ‘Grad to watch’ – How has life been since you graduated? 

Yes that’s right, I’m very humbled to have my work recognised by the AOI, an organisation I look up to very much, I believe this accolade has helped a lot to get my work recognised since graduating last year during the pandemic. As you can imagine, it’s been challenging going out into the art world and seeking work during a pandemic! I still haven’t had a graduation ceremony, final year show or anything, so it’s been a bit of a kick in the teeth! I hope to be able to have a solo show as soon as things open up again. 

I expect that emerging into the professional world during the pandemic has limited the opportunities you’ve had?

It’s been really challenging, it’s meant I’ve needed to adapt my plans, in practise this has meant heavily focussing on growing my online presence and print sales business. Previously my aims were to focus primarily on gaining commissions and commercial work, but in the circumstances we’re in, I’m pleased to say a silver lining has been the growth of this side of my practice. 

That’s very interesting, how did you get started with selling prints?  

In the past I’d had a few enquiries from my followers on TikTok and Instagram, asking if I sold prints. In response to this I setup a simple print store at the start of lockdown, at the time I had hardly any prints available, but once I‘d I launched these I was amazed at how quickly they sold out, I then realised that I should give this more focus, having only previously printed with Risograph and Screenprint methods, and without access to the print studio I use for these due to the lockdown, I started looking into Giclee printing and added a range to my store. These are printed on demand as my orders come in. They’ve been really popular so far so I’m now adding some exciting new limited editions as well as adding larger sizes.

Initially I launched the print sales as a sort of side hustle and as a cute addition to my main focus of getting commissions, I didn’t expect it to be a significant part of my business, but surprisingly this has become ‘the main thing’ for me, and a core part of my business, with commissions proving to be secondary to this so far! I was always told at university that selling prints would never be the main part of my business, it’s been invaluable so far.

Amazing that it’s become such a strong part of your career and that you’ve seen such a great response! You’re very active on social media, has this been a driver of sales? 

I had no idea how quickly it would take off, the success of the print sales is completely down to social media and the audience I’m able to reach. Particularly TikTok, where the majority of my sales have come from, the engagement can be really strong, some of the videos I post really go off and I’ve managed to sell hundreds of prints from a single post in some cases, so it’s an incredibly effective tool for getting this type of content in front of the people that enjoy my work. 

I can see you work hard on creating interesting, engaging content. Which are you finding is the best platform for you?

I think Instagram is fantastic for building and maintaining a portfolio and creating a profile that shows your work and style in a strong visual way. Instagram is a brilliant platform for sales, it’s very good for presenting a product, with multiple pictures and info, that people can instantly click and buy. 

However TikTok is better for connecting with your followers and for them to ‘get to know you’ as an artist, I gain lots of followers from TikTok, and it has shown to have a massive reach, morseo than instagram.

Ultimately I think they’re both very powerful in their own ways, I wouldn’t be without either. Using them together forms a great combination and allows me to present a complete profile of both my artwork and to show a bit about me, my motivations, inspirations, and shine a light on the artist behind the artworks. 

For other artists who may be reading this, how important do you think it is for people to focus on social and become really good with it?

If you’re selling prints, and looking for commissions, it’s the most powerful tool you have. Most of my clients and commissions have come directly from social media and I don’t think I’d have ever sold anything without Tiktok and Instagram! So for me it’s crucial. 

It seems that now more than ever, it’s crucial to give your followers a behind-the-scenes insight into your practice? To invite them to get to know you as an artist in more depth?

Yeah I think that in these times, with more choice than ever, and with people spending less time shopping on the high street or buying in traditional ways, and instead spending more time on social media and exploring art and the things they love, seeking out individuals and creatives that are aligned with their views and passions. Despite the pandemic and everything else, I think it’s a pretty amazing time to be working as an artist, and it’s been amazing to start my career and have success straight away, which is all thanks to connecting with a group of people that are passionate about the same social causes and subjects that I care so much about. 

I think people now are far more conscious about shopping small, turning their backs on the large and often unethical shops and retailers, instead they’re more interested are supporting small businesses and buying things that are ethically made, with better conditions for workers, as well as being environmentally friendly. They’re more interested in where something comes from and who’s behind it. Clearly, this is what needs to be happening!

People have more choice than ever and it’s really positive that people are using that choice and  freedom to support people more fairly and to be more ethical. I think this is a really exciting part of the art world at the moment.

That’s a very interesting and encouraging trend for artists creating original products. How do you see your career developing? Where do you want to focus in the future? 

Having done well with sales lately it’s given me the freedom to take a step back and focus on new projects. I’m keen to work more with music and video, in collaboration with musicians and other creatives. I’m very motivated by topical issues, I want to keep up with the times and keep making artworks that provide positive and thought-provoking dialogue about the issues we see in the news and that are happening in the world. 

Making work around these social issues is also very good in terms of engagement on social media, it keeps people interested in my profile as an artist, some of my most successful pieces have been in response to a news event, a social movement, or a topic that’s in the public consciousness. People are naturally drawn to it and also more inclined to share content that’s current and topical. If a subject is blowing up on social media or in the news, artworks around that always get better traction. 

Now when people get in touch about a commission or project, it’s one of the first things we talk about, they usually reach out to me to create something that is about social justice and diversity or any of the topics I make work about. I think that is part of the reason I’ve had interest and success so far with my work. I think showing what you stand for and the things you care about marks you out in people’s minds. I love that people identify with the artworks I create. I’m really proud to know that my work resonates with people in this way. 

In many ways this is the dream scenario for me and I imagine most artists! To be able to make work about causes that I deeply care about, and sustain a career as an artist, that’s the dream! 

It’s great that through your passion and self-motivation in this area you’ve received such a brilliant response from art-lovers and commissioners who share your values and passions. Thanks so much for talking to us Rosa!

Explore more of Rosa’s work here

Chinoiserie was an artform of the 18th century, a sort of export art from Chinese tradition. Many people think it’s Chinese, but it’s actually a European concept of a mythical, fantastical, far eastern idea. I was fascinated by the craftsmanship, the art form’s use of unique patterns, and the beautiful panoramics, the designs are often scenes of ‘paradise,’ of trees, birds, nature. The detail and the craft of the style is incredible, painted by hand onto silk, using the finest brushes possible, these wallpapers were often sent to palaces, aristocratic homes, the highest of the high class. You still see them now in stately homes and national trust houses, a sign of extreme taste and exotic opulence. Having this finery from the far east was considered the height of sophistication in the 18th century. I worked in this field for many years, creating artworks, as well as travelling the world touching up and preserving wallpapers for private clients. 

It sounds like a unique experience. So this led you to creating your own artworks, and to branch out as an artist under your own name?

I had my second child and began to realise that I couldn’t continue to travel so much, work long hours at the studio, and work in the same way I was, as well as being a busy mother, even just considering the cost of childcare, it just wouldn’t work. So I knew I had to rethink the way I worked. This led me to wanting to focus on my own projects and artworks and wondering if I could do something of my own, which I’m happy to say has been a great change for me. 

Initially I went with what I knew and began offering handmade, bespoke wallpapers under my own name. I had a unique set of skills, and a lot of experience. The first project I completed after giving birth to my second child was painting her nursery! I painted her whole nursery in really bold, colourful, designs, which took me almost a year to complete! I was really proud of how it came out. I asked a friend to photograph them professionally, then built a simple website in a couple of weeks, launched it, and honestly, it took off instantly! Within days I’d been contacted by Vogue asking to feature me in the magazine, I received so much interest from people, asking me to create similar works for their homes. The colours and the boldness really caught peoples eye and it was amazing to have so much interest straight away. 

I love the craft but one thing I’ve started to become aware of, is that after 4yrs of working this way, creating pieces by hand, for individual clients, there’s very little scope to scale my business this way, I can’t hire any new staff, as my clients understandably hire me for my specific skills. Due to the time it takes on any bespoke commission, I’m only able to take on a handful of jobs per year, it’s very demanding of my time. My aims now are to try to scale the fine art print side of my business, alongside the bespoke work I love so much.  

I know you did some charity projects recently, tell us about those and how that led to your interest in print sales?

After seeing the unfolding protests in America, in response to the death of George Floyd and many others, and the BLM movement that was forming, I woke up one morning and thought is there anything that I can do, with my art to help? I created an artwork in aid of Black Lives Matter charities, had it added to my store in a couple of days, launched it, and it went viral!

I posted it, and it got reshared by some accounts with millions of followers, some of my peers like Deliciously Ella, and other celebrity accounts, which was so great and so generous of them, I kept getting orders for the print, it raised almost £13K in profits, which was fantastic, I gave 100% of the profit to charity, split between a US charity and a UK charity. It was a really proud moment to be able to help them in this way, I knew the money would really make a significant contribution towards their work. The UFFC charity is a coalition of families whose family members had been killed in police custody, or psychiatric care. The NAACP are doing amazing work fighting for racial justice, equity and advancement. 

When this project got so much visibility and also a significant donation to the work they do, it meant the world to them and to me. I absolutely love that it resonated with people, there are now hundreds of my prints on people’s walls, with a message of hope.

It was a moment of realisation for me personally too. I realised that there was real potential here to transform the way I work, and my career in general. I didn’t initially know about your on-demand service, but since I found out about Shopify and your fulfilment system, suddenly the whole process was transformed, I now have more time to focus on creating artwork, and leave it to you guys to do the fulfilment and handle the printing and dispatch, this has been a real game changer.

So what happened for me also, was that people found me through this campaign, started following me and bought other artworks, it became a real discovery tool for my work, so not only was it a hugely gratifying to run such a successful and meaningful campaign for the charity, it also really helped with my own goals of growing the store, I sold so many prints after this and it helped introduce many more new followers to my artworks. 

So from then, it really clicked, I started really selling, you need to bring people to you, you can’t just expect them to find you, I’m starting to really get into facebook advertising, and understanding marketing and generating traffic much more clearly. It’s an exciting new challenge. 

I had to turn off the Shopify app notification! It becomes very addictive to hear the ‘cha ching!’ when you make a sale, I do a happy dance for every one! Which was getting awkward! Haha! Each sale means the world.  

It’s been such a change in how I work, and who I work with, my customers now are my fans and followers on instagram, who are the nicest and most fantastic people, I love them all. They provide such warm feedback and it’s just the nicest thing in the world to hear people’s enthusiasm for my work. I get such satisfaction from talking directly with the people who really value my work. 

Often I get contacted after people have purchased a print, they’ll tell me how they saved up for a piece and are so happy with it, they tell me all about why they love it, they show me it on their walls, it’s such a direct and personal relationship I now have with my audience, it just means the world to me.

You’re absolutely right, traffic is key and with any ecommerce project, you need to work hard on driving traffic to your store, I often speak to clients who are disappointed by their sales, and when I ask them about what they have tried to drive traffic, they tell me they ‘added a link to their website’ and that’s it! It’s very interesting to hear the ways you’ve found success through fantastic initiatives like the charity projects you’ve done and also peer-sharing and delving into targeted advertising on social media. What are the main areas you focus on with your marketing?

I only use Instagram, and a little bit of facebook, I’m trying ads on FB, which I’m slowly getting the hang of, prior to this, it was only my friends and family liking my posts! Social media is hard work, it’s very time consuming, I can’t complain as it’s where I get all my traffic and ergo it’s where my sales come from, but it is challenging, I find that it gets quite all-consuming, like for example replying to comments while you’re doing the shopping etc, I’m trying to consciously find balance here and not let it affect my work life balance too much.

But it can be very rewarding and I’m enjoying the challenge, I’m still learning. For example, one thing I’ve certainly found myself recently, is that it’s the videos that I post that are getting me the most new followers and interest. I post 30-60sec videos of me painting, I’ve honed the style of these videos down through experimentation, I’ve kinda locked it down to a style that my viewers seem to like, I’ll try and film clear strokes of key parts of an artwork I’m creating, everything needs to be fast! People want to see a piece take shape before their eyes, and the nature of social media means they want it quickly! Certain videos can increase my following by 1-2K in just a day. It’s all a learning experience that I’m finding really interesting. I’m learning about making really, really good content, consistently, and I love it. 

It’s great that it really fits for your work now, it also sounds like a very interesting journey that you’ve taken, from your studies, through years of perfecting and honing your craft, in many cases for such an elite clientele, and then realising you wanted to create artworks that are attainable and can be acquired by a much broader range of people. It almost seems like the opposite of what so many artists aspire to, they aim to steadily increase their prices as their careers progress! So it’s refreshing to hear that perspective. 

I’m happier than I’ve ever been, now working in this way. I love that I’m now very free to paint in my own way, with total freedom, it’s the purest I’ve been in terms of expressing myself through my artwork in so many years. It’s ultimately the dream of most artists, to express themselves fully through their art, and I feel I’m doing that much more now.

So would you say then in fact that the way your arts business functions now allows you to be more creative? 

I’m a real perfectionist, I take such pride in my work, I have to have complete control of what I create and sell, and this led to working in this way, now with selling prints, I’m able to create a perfect print, that I’m totally satisfied with, then I can hand that over to you guys and I know that it will be reproduced perfectly every time. It’s incredible to be able to paint one artwork and make a much higher revenue than if I was to sell the original artwork alone. 

The quality is totally consistent, my aim is to keep my business as small as possible but grow it as large as possible. I want to be a ‘chillpreneur’ if you’ve ever heard that phrase, not hiring too many people, keeping it small and manageable, but growing my business on my own terms, by using the creativehub system I can create work, have it produced by people I trust, and grow in a scalable way. That’s really where I want to go with my business.

It’s inspiring to hear how you’ve built this, following years of your craft and passion, found an audience who love your work, and are now building your creative career in a different direction, it’s heartwarming to hear of your passion for this and how it’s being received.

My followers love it, when I release a new collection they often get snapped up, they love the quality, they share pics of the prints up in their homes, they love how accessible it is.
I adore theprintspace, they’ve had my back all the time, and I’m always on the phone chasing orders! All of your staff probably know me by now! Haha! I must say that throughout all of it, the staff there and the team at theprintspace have been superb, they always solve any issue or question I have within minutes of me raising it, and it has allowed me to run the business I’m running. I am eternally grateful, I get replies to emails within minutes on most occasions, and any issues such as prints getting lost or arriving bent have been dealt with every time without hassle. Customer service is of the highest importance to me, it’s essential that I am working with suppliers such as yourselves with the same values. It’s hugely reassuring as a small business owner who is relying so heavily on theprintspace as my ‘business partner’!

It’s a pleasure to hear that! I’ll pass that on to our hard working team in the studio!

It’s an incredible world for artists right now, I used to get messages from young artists saying their parents won’t let them focus on art because there’s no way you can make a living from it and I find that so sad. I now tell them that that’s absolutely wrong! Follow your heart and there are so many ways to make a career out of it these days, I see the ecomm trend and the way that artists can make money now as a kind of revolution. It’s amazing that artists can now thrive online, doing what they love and on your own terms.

See Diane’s work at: dianehill.co.uk/

Instagram: @dianehilldesign

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