New world

Ayesha heading out to sea

Starting out as a professional photographer is very daunting but the ways and means of promoting your work has changed so much since i left university that it almost leaves me speechless.

These days photography students can start marketing themselves online and get a foothold on the professional ladder before they leave their course. Back when i was a student only a select handful of students had a website. Neither myself or any of my degree classmates had one, mainly due to cost, but all that has changed now with most students having at least one web page to promote their work. I just wish that we'd had the same opportunities ten years ago.

During 2007 i decided that i needed to create more of a presence online for the business. Little did i know that i would make some great friends along the way who are just as passionate about photography as I am.

One of the first ideas i had was starting a MySpace page in May 2007. At first I didn't really do anything with it, mainly because i didn't know where to start. During that brief period of inactivity i accumulated about five MySpace friends but soon, after inviting some photographers whose work i liked to be friends, i found that with a little effort i could raise that number quickly AND get some good friends too.

Currently my MySpace friends total stands at 611 but the number isn't important - it's the interaction with others, whose work continues to amaze me with its brilliance and quality, that's the important bit. There are some really talented people photographing in their own part of the world and posting it on their MySpace page for everyone to see. I've posted photographs and had comments within minutes about the images from the other side of the world. I still find that amazing.