The antidote to the "don't give up your day job" blues: Chats with career crazies and freelance fun-makers on how to turn what you love doing into income!
After taking photos of pets as a hobby for years, it took Ken Drake answering the dreaded, “What do you do for work?” question with what he wished he could be doing (instead of the software engineer work he’d been looking for) to start him down the path of getting Paid to Play.
Ken’s wife Beck had similarly been in business and marketing for years, and when her husband’s sideline began gathering steam, Beck herself saw an opportunity to start bringing meaning into the work she’d already been doing.
The result is Zoo Studio, which produces fantastic images of people’s pets! These two were a request of my wife Vickie, and I was very glad to chat with them about going Venkman on one of the most joyous hobbies possible!
I wonder whether I’ve done Matt Bond a disservice. The most important thing to him is being a great freelance photographer. He’s all about the quality of his work and building his reputation on it.
In fact, one of the first things Matt asked me when we were discussing the interview was this: Could I avoid dwelling on the injuries that caused his switch in career?
Frankly, I don’t need to. Matt’s already racked up an impressive list of photographic achievements since he started his business in 2012.
He’s done portfolio shoots for models, publicity work for comedy gigs and fashion shows – he was even the photographer for Sesame Street’s most recent visit to Cairns. If you have any doubt about Matt’s skill, just follow the links in the show notes to his website and galleries!
If that’s not enough, Matt offers courses that demistify the complexities of even basic photography, teaching people how to find their way around their digital SLR cameras!
Still, you tend to view those achievements in a new light when working them meant Matt was in constant pain just from standing up.
Yet when Matt discovered his new passion, he embraced it and let nothing, not even pain, get in his way. It’s a story all of us folks who dream of getting paid to play can learn from.
In the end, we did spend much more time on just how Matt went about building his career, from his first portrait shoots to how he organises and executes his projects. So please listen to a great interview with a skilled photographer who lets nothing get in the way of his passions!
(CORRECTION: I originally had the start year of Matt’s business as 2010, and I think I mentioned it as such in the episode intro. It was actually 2012 – which makes his achievements even more awesome!)
