How does it feel to be a photographer on Samui?

Why and how I became a photographer

A tale is old, like time. You're buying a camera and it makes you a photographer. So I think it happened to the majority. Well, except for those whose parents had a camera and taught them from childhood. First was the Canon Powershot A95 (commonly referred as a "soap dish"). I used to make thousands of photos a day. Everything I saw. Really thousands. Then I selected one. And so for half a year there were 50-100 photos accumulated, which I was not ashamed to show.

I made a small site (I was fond of html then) and had the opportunity to show it to my friends. I invited all my acquaintances to a photo session. After a dozen of such trials, again, after thousands of photos, a new section appeared on the site, “The Portraits”. I updated the camera to Nikon D80, then I also bought a couple of lenses.

Next were a few wedding photo shoots, free of charge. Although now I understand that it is difficult to call it a photo session, but nonetheless. I got wedding photos. Now I could call myself a wedding photographer. Well, and here we go ... In the first year of i have got 5 weddings, 14 in the second year, and more than 30 in the next.

Since I got a SLR camera, and dove into commercial shootings, more than 10 years have passed. It is difficult to say the exact figure, but during this there were donee:

• Wedding and other couples – more than 600
• Portrait, individual – more than 700
• Family and children – more than 300

Returning to my thoughts at the moment when I bought my first camera, I understand that I didn’t even have an intention to become a commercial photographer. And even more so I could not imagine that I would live and work on a tropical island. C'est la vie and it's beautiful!

How does it feel to be a photographer on Samui?

This is one of the frequent questions from colleagues and friends. The answer is simple: it's great, at the moment. Why's only now? Let's say ... the first six months or a year were not easy. Diving into another culture, with all it's restrictions for foreigners, poor knowledge of English and other trifles prevented, in a way, a normal life and growth.

Now everything is fine and I like it more and more here. Great places for shooting, interesting people, year-round great weather. But what about the rainy season? What about hot weather on Koh Samui? Let's just say, after 10 months of heat, sometimes you feel like it's ok to cool down a little.

Freelance Photographer. Or revelations of a multy-handed

Some time ago I wrote about how I became a photographer. And if someone told me that I would be a photographer 10 years ago, I would laugh very loudly and of course I would not have believed it. But being a commercial photographer is not just photographing. When you are a freelance photographer, you have to do a lot of small work, which in a large company is done by individual specialists.

And all the time you should be in touch 24/7. This is especially difficult now, when your clients live in all time zones.

So, a freelance photographer includes:

• Photographer
• Editor / Retoucher
• Sales Manager
• Designer
• Advertiser
• Accountant
• SEO specialist
• Copywriter

And by the way, this applies to almost any freelancer. What functions, duties of a freelancer, have I forgotten?