My first year as a unit stills photographer

So as many of you know. I took a massive career change. Ok it might not seem massive, but it really was!

I was comfortable as a book cover photographer. Albeit a little burnt out by my own hand. I’m one of those people who is not comfortable being comfortable. I love learning, I love growing, I love increasing my income too. There I’ve said it! I am getting to the point where I’m not ashamed to admit I am money orientated to a degree. Yes money can’t ‘buy’ happiness, but man it sure makes things easier and more comfortable.

Anyway I’d hit a ceiling with book cover income. The balance wasn’t sitting right with me anymore so I infamously split. I’ve written a whole blog post about that, this however is about my next step.

My first year as a unit stills photographer.

So. I did The Souvenir Part II - my first ever job and it’s a feature film. This is pretty unusual. Actually, let’s call it like it is. It’s almost bloody impossible. I still look back and am flabbergasted at how it happened. The producer was incredible to take a chance on me how he did. I left my meeting with him with a vague “We’ll get in touch if we need you.” and I turned around in my chair, looked him dead in the eyes, inside I was shaking like a leaf and just said “Give me one day, if you don’t like my work, tell me and don’t pay me.” I think my moxy paid off because he smiled and said “Come in on Tuesday and we’ll go from there.” - I was there for a few days overall doing dailies and my life changed.

My first gig was a big one. This is not the usual way. At all.

(My little photo here was published in Empire Magazine October 2019!)

Anyway, I was hooked and decided this is what I wanted. From November last year I spent months after that with NOTHING happening. I couldn’t share my work, I couldn’t show anybody anything. I was not good at networking at all. I didn’t even know how or where to begin (I’m only now just beginning that journey if I’m honest.)

Thanks to a friend of a friend I managed to work for the Discovery Channel for Combat Dealers - that was an awesome gig to have and I had such a good time. It was a very different change of pace compared to film so great experience for myself too. Loved working with the team at Discovery.

So somehow I bagged another feature film in my local town, only two days but it was something. This was in March. It was after a random meeting in London with a girl who just happened to know the producer of that feature film and got me a meeting with her. I did one day on set and low and behold… COVID… bloody covid hit the UK and everything stopped. All productions stopped. The production called me and said they had to postpone (I’ve since heard from them and they had to cut me for isolation reasons).

I felt as if my entire career was taking not just a simple step back but huge years worth of energy back. This obviously wasn’t the case but I was having a little breakdown so bear with me.

People warn you that this industry is hard to break into. It’s the biggest understatement.

It’s punishingly hard.

Generally, everyone in the industry knows and tells you ‘It’s all about who you know.’ - I didn’t know a damn soul. But regardless, I spoke to all the right people, had meetings and had started to make those contacts and connections for them all to be severed. Why would people remember me in the midst of a pandemic whilst trying to hold their productions together, having to postpone everything, costing them so much money in the process. I would not be top of the list by a fucking mile. I’m not going to lie, I cried. I had a full sob session about it. Pity party of one. I say pity but I was just exhausted and questioning everything I had done.

Also, the photographs I was so eager to share was being pushed back another year because of the pandemic causing cinemas to close. This hit hard too.

After my sobbing session, I managed to claw myself back together. I accepted that nothing was going to happen until the pandemic was sorting itself out then I began. I began contacting everyone I had connected with, wrote to new connections just with a simple “I hope you’re okay, safe and well”. Then creating pages for producers, publicists and everyone else I could think of to go too and see my work without a one-to-one meeting. Offering meetings on zoom, google hangouts and even an American version I hadn’t used before. My stubborn trait shines through when I’m having a moment or shall we call it determination at this point in 2020?

A couple of months of hits coming in on my website I finally got a few threads of possibilities. Some panned out and some went down the pan. My determination was paying off, a little, a slither and a slither was all I needed.

I connected with another incredible stills photographer who actually offered me assisting work. I kid you not I never thought I’d assist again. Not out of pride mind you, just never crossed my mind! I jumped at the chance and learnt a hell of a lot, made a life long friend and meeting another woman in this industry felt like I had interacted with gold dust. Due to that experience I got two days work from it too.

During my shooting days with her I got a call from the BBC to work on Silent Witness which completely floored me. The BBC was somewhere I had struggled to communicate with and the man calling me had actually found me by complete chance after looking at underwater photographers. I jumped at the chance and have done a few days for them and have a few more booked in. I LOVED working on Silent Witness, loved loved loved it.

Next I got a call from a producer of a Netflix show, The A-List Season 2 - I asked him how they managed to contact me and he said a publicist at Netflix recommended me. This is an odd one, I’m 90% sure who it is BUT this person never replied to my emails or messages. It proved to me that some people genuinely don’t have time to reply to you but are still rooting for you/fighting your corner and I loved that. I covered two days for them and had an absolute blast, meeting some incredible young actors too.

Things have slowed down massively, lock down after lock down and generally in productions the winter months are way quieter but I felt like my inner fire had been rekindled from the brink of extinction.

So. It’s been fucking tough. I cannot begin to explain how tough. I know my journey is nowhere near it’s end of tough calls but the little determined Rekha who sits inside me is smiling, my slightly crooked smile knowing if I can create something out of a pandemic I think I’ll just about survive this trial by fire. Fingers crossed huh?