Day in the Life of Ian Mitchinson

Read all about a day in the life of Ian Mitchinson, photographer and owner of Westside Studio.

What does your average day consist of?

The great thing about being a photographer is that days are rarely the same. In my line of business depending on when a big shoot is coming up the days can vary.

An average day would be to sit in front of the computer for at least a couple of hours and work on editing. I do a lot of shoots and I have to turn them into the final product — a print job or a customized album as an example.

During the week the shoots are not big jobs unless they are for corporate clients, so I'll usually go and meet a client and do a shoot at a pre selected location for an hour or two. I tend to have a couple of meetings a day, so I have to drive around and meet clients to present my work and discuss their specific requirements and of course try and win the business. A lot of my day also includes going to my various service providers and collecting finished jobs and also dropping off work to be printed, framed or turned into an album. I have dreams of going bike riding or to the gym, but I usually find my self returning to the office and back on the computer doing more editing and processing - that part is never ending! On weekends, it's usually long days of shooting, early morning drives out to locations and shooting shooting shooting.

What is the best thing about your job as a photographer?

The best thing about being a photographer is the fact that I am my own boss, and I feel satisfied that I made it over the hurdles all professional photographers have to go through to create a business that is actually a profitable enterprise. I also love the fact that I can always learn and grow and become better at what I do, and I know that the sky is really the limit. I am the kind of person that needs something to focus on, and I love to be creative and bring ideas to reality in terms of imagery. Like a surfer seeking the perfect wave, I'm constantly seeking to take the perfect picture. It's a lot of stress, but a lot of fun when you get it right.

And the worst?

Cape Town Traffic!

What makes you passionate about your work?

Constantly seeing my work improve, the business grow, but most importantly my business is purely about my clients, and nothing drives me more than pleasing them and constantly over exceeding their expectations.

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to be a photographer?

My biggest advice to anyone who wants to become a pro photographer is to work in the field for at least 2 - 5 years as an assistant. So many people either buy a good camera or do a course in photography and then think they are a photographer. In fact out of the 2000 people in Cape Town that call themselves photographers, truly only about 20 - 40 really are.

The reason I say this is if you want to sustain a full time career as a pro, you will need to know so much more than one thinks. Sure, anyone can get the odd job shooting their friends wedding or something like that, but in this competitive field you need to be able to provide products, services, customer experiences, and oh yes, you also have to constantly re invent yourself and start from scratch.

I meet a lot of people who want to work as photographers and just can't be humble enough to put Photography Assistant on their business card, and want to start right at the top. It's a struggle to make it through the assistant phase and most people (even college grads) drop out. Be humble, network with the local pros, beg them for work, work your butt off, and eventually through perseverance you will make it and then the sky is the limit.

Also, choose one sector of the market and try and specialise in it. A jack of all trades is a master of none... especially in such a wide spectrum of work that falls under the title "Photography"

What is your favorite photography and why?

My favourite photography is the photography I'm doing! But my favourite thing outside of that is looking at the work of my peers and trying to learn from them. I love advertising photography and it is my long term goal to start working in that sector. But for now I'm still working at setting the standards in my current field.

Who is your favourite famous photographer and who inspires you?

My favourite famous photographers would have to be Annie Liebowitz and Patrick Demarchelier.

However my favourite photographers are Chris Gordaneer & Mat Barnes of Canada, and Bryan Traylor of Cape Town! They are the ones that inspire me, because they are all unique and true visionaries in their own right and they both started with nothing and made it to the top of their game, they stay there and continue to set the standard in their sectors of the Photography industry.