Adrienne Pitts: Life of a Freelance Traveling Photographer (#98)
Our Guest Today: Adrienne Pitts
Adrienne Pitts is an award-winning photographer and creative director originally from sunny New Zealand. She has a deep and a’biding love for the beach, sunny days and blue skies.
She’s been working and living in London for the past 10 years, and happily traveled around the world. Adrienne considers herself very fortunate because she is doing what she loves for a living. In this very episode, we explore Adrienne’s path to becoming a successful photographer – not only that, but also how she explores and unveils her brand identity that’s ever evolving since launching own business in the past few years.
Whether you are a photographer, an artist, or someone who’s just contemplating a career in the creative domain, you’ll find this conversation useful. We hope it gives you a different perspective, or perhaps confirms what you’ve already doing.
Why is this conversation important? Because choosing to work as an artist isn’t an easy decision.
If you are certain about your path to become an artist, we want to offer you some wisdom and support as part of your journey by introducing you to someone you can relate to or aspire to become. The opposite of that may be true too, we challenge you by asking yourself if you are willing to do the work and take the risk.
Feisworld Podcast has a constant theme of transitions.
We invited Adrienne to share her transitions. Like many of us, she worked full time for the majority of her career before she decided to take the leap and become a full time photographer. In a few years, she built a business of her own and found clients independently. We dug deep into this part of the conversation so you’ll know exactly how Adrienne got started, and the beliefs she had to march on during difficult times.
After winning the “PPA Designer of the Year award”, as well as “Travel – International iPhone Photography Awards”, Adrienne became even more recognized by a global audience. But it was so much of the heart and soul she poured into her work that made it happen.
To learn more about Adrienne and her work, visit her website and follow her Instagram.
Show Notes
- [06:00] How was it like to be born and raised in New Zealand?
- [08:30] Between the ages of 18-20 people usually go on an exchange program/experience, how does that work?
- [10:00] Where did all your friends in New Zealand go for their overseas experience?
- [12:00] Can you tell us a how did you get started in photography?
- [15:00] How was your transition, from your previous work (art director for Jamie Magazine) to your current job as a photographer?
- [19:00] How did you find and deal with your first customers?
- [21:00] Can you share some details about your first few freelance photography gigs? How were the assignments and how did you market your skills?
- [24:00] What are some of the communities you are involved with, that could be useful to other people?
- [30:00] You won three very important awards (Apple Best App, PPA, and iPhone Travel Award). Can you tell us about them?
- [34:00] What do you need to do, as a photographer, to be noticed by important brands and companies?
- [40:00] Looking at your portfolio, there are several brands and companies you’ve worked for. Could you take one example of your past jobs/assignments and walk us through it?
- [46:00] How can people learn more about your work?
Favorite Quotes
- [09:30] It’s very normal to be raised to leave. Most people come back, but I haven’t done it yet. I love it, […] it means that if I want to go anywhere in the world, I usually have a friend fairly close by, who I can catch up with.
- [22:00] [In this job] You forge connections with people as well, and that’s what I want to emphasize, the importance of a creative community. I think one of the best things you could do when you work in the creative industry is make sure you surround yourself with other creatives, and don’t try to work as an island, and don’t try to have all the answers, because you are never going to.
- People need to be honestly told that as a freelancer is probably the hardest they are going to work, ever.
- [35:00] Creating work that internally resonates with you and reflects who you are is the most important thing, because that’s going to be your point of difference. I think it is really easy to look at other people’s work and emulate that.
Word Cloud, Keywords and Insights From Podintelligence
What is PodIntelligence?
PodIntelligence is an AI-driven, plus human-supported service to help podcasters, webinar hosts and filmmakers create high quality micro-content that drives macro impact. PodIntelligence turns any number of long-form audio and video into word clouds, keyword and topic driven MP3 and MP4 clips that can be easily analyzed and shared on multiple platforms. Learn more: https://www.podintelligence.com/