I’m going to be brutally honest here now. I was a content creator who lost my passion for what I do. Getting paid for my video and photography work made me stop pursuing it in my spare time. It became a case of, well, if I’m not getting paid to do it why should I waste my spare time doing it. This was a bad place to be in. My love of photography is what set me down this path in the first place. I used to be a land surveyor. A job that I HATED. I studied Graphic Design and then as I was looking for a job I started surveying. 10 years later I was still stuck doing it. But my passion for creating beautiful imagery never went away. This passion only grew stronger when I moved from the UK to Australia. Having all these new places to explore was a catalyst that would drive me to learn new skills. To be able to capture the beautiful scenery how I imagined it in my head. I was completely self-taught. My mentality was if I couldn’t do something then what do I have to do to make it work. I started to put out content on social media. I would get up early and shoot the sunrise before I started surveying. I shot a timelapse video around my local area, Manly Beach. It was picked up by someone on Twitter and they asked me if I would come and shoot and timelapse film at a large event called Sculpture by the Sea. Hang on a minute. I can actually get paid for doing what I love? Sign me up! That was to be the start of the next chapter of my life. Suddenly after Sculpture by the Sea other work started to come in. Eventually, I was having to turn down work due to my surveying commitments. So, I decided to take the leap and quit my life as a surveyor.
It wasn’t easy. Equipment is expensive and rent is high in Sydney. I had to build up my gear as I went. There where dark times when work would dry up for a period and panic stations would kick in. But I had to keep going. I had tasted it now and I loved this life I had created for myself. I was passionate about creating beautiful content for my clients. Content that people would share. It would be engaging and take people on a journey.
But something happened. The passion that started it all began to leave me. It became a job. Yes, I was the boss, but it was still just a job. I would wake up and go to work. I would get home and switch off. If I wasn’t working then the camera would sit on a shelf. I stopped looking at equipment and reading photography magazines. My work became stale and repetitive. It wasn’t that I had built my business wrong. I will still getting a diverse range of projects to sink my creativity into but I wasn’t giving it my all. I stopped educating myself on trends and techniques and just went with what would get the job done most efficiently for me and the client. I wasn’t willing to try anything new.
Then COVID hit. The world changed. The world I used to explore was no longer available to me. My freedom of movement was gone. I was locked down. And something clicked. I looked back at my life and my time in Australia. I started to browse ways to improve my photography and video skills. I put my savings into educating myself. I learnt so much in a short space of time it was like I was revising my a major exam. When lockdown started to ease it was like the exam was upon me. I headed back out into the world armed with my new skills. Work started to come in and I gave it my all. I actually put up my prices after Covid. When some businesses would take what work they could I did the opposite. My skill set had grown and my clients could see it. I was producing my best work and still am today. My clients were blown away with the results. Video and photography content has become so important in this new world we find ourselves in. My clients love that they are at the forefront and ahead of their competitors.
But it’s not just my work that has improved. I am now getting out shooting whenever I can. I get up to shoot the sunrise every day. I have started a personal Instagram account that I add to just for the enjoyment of others. I feel like I have gone full circle and I am back at the start of my journey. This time loaded with more skills under my belt. I’m excited again about capturing content. Whether that’s for clients or passion projects. I shared a video recently that went viral on Facebook. It got huge media attention and I would never have made it before Covid. Check it out here.
Just yesterday, the weather was miserable. It was wet and windy. The old me would have stayed indoors but I thought, let’s do something different. Let’s make a grey and wet day, beautiful. The result was this below.
So that’s my story and I wanted to tell it because I thought it may help someone. There is a lot of doom and gloom out there for a lot of people. I want you to think about what makes you passionate. If you have been made redundant recently. Was your old job your real passion? I don’t believe it was. If it was your passion then you wouldn’t be doing it to build someone else’s dream. Build your own life around your passions. We only get one life and as we have all seen recently, it can be thrown into turmoil at any time.
I wouldn’t say I’m lucky to do what I do. It’s been a bloody hard ride getting here but I’m only here because I started and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
Thanks for reading!
Gareth Carr
Cinematographer & Photographer based in Sydney, Australia
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Exposed Wolf is a video production & photography company based in Sydney, Australia. With over 20 years of industry experience, they can help you with planning, shooting and editing your projects to give you months of powerful content to raise your business and brand.