Sunday, 11 August 2013

Two Reasons why Writers Become Photographers These Days (guest post by Vincent Paul)

Today's blog post is a guest post by Vincent Paul - freelance writer and photographer who usually blogs over at Revonoid - A resource for artists. He was kind enough to give us this insight into his work and a fresh perspective to this blog!


Two Reasons why Writers Become Photographers These Days


As a freelance writer and photographer, many people have asked me the question “why both?” Is it because you’re not happy with the current job you have? Or is because you’re bored of writing altogether?  Well, I can honestly say that it’s not that at all. I’ve never been bored of writing or not happy with it, in fact I’m always looking for ways to get more work. The way I see it is simple;

There’s two reasons why someone that is known for their writing would all of sudden become a photographer.

1 - Passion for telling a story – Writing is a great way to express your feelings or tell a story but sometimes it’s not enough. Have you ever heard of the quote “A picture is worth a thousand words”? That’s exactly it! By taking photographs you are entering another world and another way of communicating with people. When writing I feel that I need to add more and sometimes writing isn’t going to provide that “more” I’m looking for. Not only are you given this chance to create and use the artistic freedom that everyone has but your voice is so much louder through photographs.

It might be surprising to try something new like photography. I remember when I first got into photography, I didn’t understand how a DSLR worked or the terminology that everyone was using at the time. Wouldn’t you say that’s like trying anything new for the first time? Getting that feeling of disappointment; also known as feeling clueless. Well, I admit that I felt that way but I didn’t let it stop me from getting started with photography.

The best part about trying something new like photography is the fact that anyone can do it. The barrier of entry is extremely low and it seems that everyone has a camera these days. Even if you don’t have a camera you can use your phone camera to get use to taking photographs.

This overall made the process of writing a lot easier because I can simply take a photograph to help describe what I was talking about in my writing. Ever give an example in your writing? Well, to help support my example I took a few photographs. This isn’t just for the idea of photograph in fact it relates directly to illustrations to. The next time you’re talking to your graphic designer (illustrator) let them know you want some extra photos that can help promote your work! They might be able to do some banner work for you that are going to provide some huge support for running your eBook campaigns.


1.     Creating Original Content for Multiple Purposes - I was able to use photograph as a way to not only help tell a story but promote myself. If you’re a writer for an eBook series and you want to get some people excited about your book what are you going to do? At one point, I leant that taking out my camera and shooting a few photographs of things related to my eBook series was affordable and useful. In fact, I was able to use those photographs inside my books because of it being “original content”.

It’s a great medium to explore because you can use it for many things. For example; maybe social media is important to you and you feel that everyone around you on the internet needs to see what you’re up to each day.  By taking photographs of what you’re doing or what you’re about to do it makes things easier compared to writing about it.

Shooting photographs is fun and always worth trying. You’ll find that each photograph comes out differently and that’s the exciting part about it. Sometimes it’s a good switch from the writing that you do. I’m always in my office working on page after page for my photography eBooks , it’s a nice break but I’m still being productive. 

Conclusion: Anyone can start your Photography Experience!


Everyone is an artist, and the company I write for; Revonoid , believes strongly in that concept. That goes for writers, illustrators and photographers! We all have at least a little creativity in our mind.

­For more information about getting started as a photographer visit Revonoid.com 


If you’re interested in getting know more about me; Vincent Paul, than visit my authors page. http://www.amazon.com/Vincent-Paul/e/B00DYINGBA/

Last but not least, I wanted to mention that all these photos were taken by me and you can see more of my photos at my flickr account here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vincent-paul/

Thanks so much to Vincent Paul! 

If you are interested in doing a guest blog too, then email me at izzybean@izzybean.co.uk





 




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