2022 - Year in Review
Time for my last blog post of 2022 - The Yearly Review.
I last did a proper one of these in 2019, then in the subsequent years they kinda fell off the radar as I did fewer weddings and photography work and more marketing work, but that’s all changed now, so let’s get into it!
**Fair warning**
It’s a massive long read where I go off on tangents :)
If you have more time than you know what to do with you can go back and look at all of my past year's reviews!
Jan to March: Big changes, moderate panicking, a small amount of free time.
So, I’m going to break the year down into quarters and give a brief overview of what I’ve been up to and how my life as a freelance photographer has drastically changed in the last 12 months.
I started the year continuing my job as a full-time employed digital marketer for a local restaurant group, I was in charge of everything to do with the websites, social media, content creation, marketing strategy, etc.
At the same time, I was also doing my own photography work, mostly weddings, but these bookings were down on the previous year, mainly due to just ticking things over and not really pushing my own social media and marketing.
I was also doing another small marketing job with holiday properties, mainly photography, website design, and a bit of sales + marketing.
And then there was an eBay side hustle (because I needed more to do ~sarcasm~ ) of selling a few Warhammer bits, a nice little bit of side money.
With regular 65+ hour work weeks, I was equally loving what I did and feeling the strain, but burnout was starting to take hold, with constant stress, exhaustion, and barely any free time to do the things I enjoyed.
Then February hit, with the unexpected news that I was being made redundant from my full-time marketing job, which accounted for the majority of my income. ’Oh, Fuck’. - But maybe this could be a good thing?
I had 3 months of notice till this job would come to an end, so all of my free time was instantly put to turning everything else I was doing up to 11.
But, I also saw an opportunity to craft a work/life balance that wouldn’t lead to burnout, so out of a bad situation came the idea for a much better life.
Roll on through March and I got my social media and website back up to scratch and really started to push the photography, and managed to secure 3 more bookings for 2022, enough to help see me through the year.
April to June: Getting to work
My initial panic of losing my job was starting to subside and I had till the end of June till I fully finished, however, I was lucky enough to be able to scale my work back to the bare minimum needed, meaning I had freed up time to work on my freelance business.
I carried on with a lot more social media posts and networking, as well as some Facebook ads and Google ads to give everything a little bit of a boost.
I picked up more photography work, as well as weddings I was shooting some product and property work, which all helped with keeping the income streams alive.
It was around here that I set the target of getting to the end of the year with enough work booked in 2023 to see me through that year too.
June rolled around and my marketing job needed almost none of my time due to everything being handed over, this coincided nicely with a 5-day hike along Hadrian’s Wall with my brother which turned out to be one of the most challenging things I’ve done, but epic and rewarding at the same time.
The end of June came and I officially ended my marketing job, it wasn’t a part of my plan but everything ended very amicably and I kept all of my doors open, which went on to work out rather well.
July to September: Back to marketing, for a bit
July was my busiest month for weddings, this worked out really well as I had the time to properly pour into the post-wedding marketing.
I always gave 100% on the wedding day and in the editing in the years previous, but dropped the ball when it came to post-wedding blogging, marketing, social media, and networking. So now I was giving suppliers photos of their work to share, keeping up with the blog, and getting content out of social media.
I took on a couple of website-building jobs and in my newly acquired free time got a load of work done around the house, built a new chicken house, put up a new fence, and went to The Photography Show - this new work/life balance was going well.
At the end of July, my previous employers got in touch for some marketing work for a local food festival, and as I had a very quiet August I took the work on and the event was a huge success, this extra money was the final piece to the puzzle for getting to the end of the year.
I also took a huge amount of photos at the festival and made sure that the suppliers all got copies, and made sure that they knew who it was that took them. I wanted to make sure as many people as possible knew who I am and what I do.
By the end of September, I had done a bit of second shooting and started to plan the last bit of the year. At the same time, my partner left her retail job to go fully self-employed, making ceramics + jewellery, we were both now 100% in charge of ourselves, a great but nerve-wracking feeling.
October - December: New gear, less work, more free time
The last quarter of the year came, October started with a trip away to Centerparcs with friends, a really nice time to relax and start to unwind.
I was finding more and more time to relax and do things for myself, my work weeks went from 65+ at the start of the year to an average of 30.
A couple of last-minute weddings took me up to the end of the year and a flurry of post-summer bookings for 2023 + 2024 weddings meant my calendar started to fill up.
Bookings for 2023 are looking good, with enough work booked in to see me through the whole year, a massive financial weight lifted off my shoulders. Bookings for 2024 were also coming in, meaning I could set the same goal again for next year: hit the end of the year with enough work for the following year.
I spent much of December planning for next year. While the workload was looking good In wasn’t done by a long shot.
I started making a few Youtube videos of my work and gear, I did a huge gear upgrade to the Fuji XH2 and started to plan hybrid wedding coverage as a new venture.
To sum up!
This year ended in a way that I couldn’t have imagined back in January.
What was an initial shock has turned into taking back control of my work/life balance. My levels of stress have fallen off a cliff, I have more time for myself, more time for my family
As I write this I’m sitting in a coffee shop on a Tuesday afternoon, with no massive workload over my head and only a few tasks to get done for the week.
Next year I’ll be building on what I’ve created this year, with more weddings and marketing work, as well as building a Youtube channel about my gear and working practice.
I hope this read was interesting, I find it a useful tool just for myself to review the year and as a sort of diary that I can come back to in years to come.
I’m very happy with how this year ended and can’t wait for 2023, a whole year of being fully freelance.
Cheers,
Col-