THE STORY DETAILS:

What: Wild Women turns one!

When: 10th January 2024

Where: Hackney

A birthday that nearly passed me by…

A year of the Wild Women community

Wild Women turned one yesterday. Since having children, the months and years seem to fly by, lost in the haze of busyness and unexpected dramas that come with having small people around you. Yesterday was my first proper day back at my desk after a Christmas/New Year ‘break’ that felt like it lasted about 78 days thanks to sickness bugs and plenty of time in the car. I am thanking the Amy of November 2023 who decided to keep January clear of shoots so she could get her business systems in order instead. I’m having a slow start (for slow, read: not leaving the house much) and filling lots of pieces of paper with all my ideas so I can start making sense of them. However, in classic spinning lots of plates style, I still totally forgot the significance of the date yesterday until ten minutes before I did the school run. Of course, I am effectively running three different businesses side by side - Fields Photography Stories, Fields Photography London and Wild Women - so keeping track is hard anyway.

Wild Women 1 was my first Wild Women event back in January 2023. Anniversaries are both important and irrelevant to me; dates are insignificant really when it comes to remembering your wedding day, or the day you lost someone special. Those are big moments you carry with you everyday, things and people you think about all the time, feelings that catch you at unexpected moments - and, usually, when you happen upon a photograph (but that is another blog post for another time). At the same time, dates coming around again mark a passage of time that takes you further and further away from whatever it is that happened on that date. That passing of time deserves acknowledgement, and that gives an opportunity to reflect and to look back. And so, I welcome the chance to look through the archives (and lots of unedited RAWs!) and reflect on events, moments and how my thinking has changed in the last year. This blog post explores the biggest three things I have learned in my first year of Wild Women business.

My top three lessons in my first year of business

Me popping up from behind the sofa at Wild Women 1. Image by Sophie Askew

1. In person networking is the single most important thing you can do for your business

I don’t like people. Depending on how you met me, you might find that hard to believe! I am friendly but I have been told that my natural inclination to be quiet and just observe in new environments can be taken for aloofness, when actually I am just a bit unsure of myself. I don’t mean that I actually don’t like people, I mean that I don’t enjoy small talk. I don’t like walking into rooms full of people, I don’t like being swallowed up in the busyness of central London, or even being in a busy supermarket with long queues and noise and people bumping into you from every direction. I am a woman of the wild; I am never happier than when I am out in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around, or just with my husband, family or a friend. It makes sense that I find the opposite hard. But, but…I also love nothing more than the power of community. I love it when I can work with people towards a common goal, when I can be part of something bigger than myself. I always loved being in an orchestra rather than playing as a soloist, because nothing beats that feeling of teamwork and community, and you can’t feel the power of a symphony when playing alone.

(If you want an insight into what it feels like, play this, turn it up LOUD and stand in the middle of the room. If you are impatient, know that the first climax is at 2 minutes and then just wait for the rest, wave upon wave. It is worth the listen, I promise!)

The same applies in business. I can’t be an expert in all the things - SEO, planning timelines, camera settings, marketing, and on and on and on. I can (and do) take courses and learn new things from YouTube and books, but absolutely nothing comes close to having experts on tap in your phone contact lists. The exchange of ideas, tips and tricks that has come through Whatsapp chats, Instagram voicenotes and Wild Women coworking events has skyrocketed my business for me. You have made things that seemed impossible part of my weekly habits, given me shortcuts to processes that have made my workflow quicker, and taught me that we are all in this small business world together.

Above: images from some of the Wild Women workshops and coworking events in 2023

How to get this community? Well, there is no shortcut for this one. You’ve got to do the small talk and follow your instincts. You have to step over the edge and ask someone for coffee, or a go to a workshop, and find YOUR people. The ones who get excited by the same ideas as you, the ones who question you gently (and not so gently) and help you refine those ideas. However you choose to network, just make sure you’re doing it, and doing it in person. Making connections IRL bonds people in a way that the internet alone just can’t. And I promise I AM really friendly - just don’t try to hug me too soon into our relationship!

2. Making time for play is the single most important thing you can do to improve your skill level

It is very easy to get to a ‘good’ level in something like photography or music, and then keep doing the things you know you can do well. You’ve developed a skill that you can consistently get right and be successful with, and you can produce work almost on autopilot. Well done! That means you have practised enough to know how to get something right first time. However, maybe that doesn’t fulfil you creatively anymore. Maybe there are things that you want to be able to get right first time when you’re on a shoot, but you know you can’t yet.

That’s where play time comes in.

Above: a small selection of images I made in the name of play during 2023 - some to challenge my creativity, some to test new equipment, some simply for fun.

Whether your play time comes from a workshop, or a challenge (such as Emily Joan’s self portrait challenge, or the Wild Rose 52 - both of which I can wholeheartedly recommend!), or even from you heading out with a pal for a walk with your cameras, make sure you are planning it into your work time. It might feel counterintuitive to stop working on a client gallery to go and ‘mess around’ for a bit, but it will pay dividends in the long run. The variety of shots and standard of work in my portfolio has increased exponentially in the last year because I have given time over to play. And the best bit? You can use this play time to build your own portfolios and give yourself content for blog posts and social media. I have enough images and behind the scenes videos from Wild Women workshops to easily fill a year of marketing needs (if I could just build in the time to sit down and edit them! This month!).

3. Set your standards high but let go of expectations

This, really, is revisiting some key learnings from 15 years in the classroom. You can design (what you think) is the best activity or experience for a group of people, but then something happens and it doesn’t give the results you were expecting. It’s fine - in fact, when you’re teaching 17 different classes in a week, I would say 1 or 2 activities every week would go completely wrong. Sometimes it would be down to the overall mood of a class (a falling out at break time, a bad lesson earlier in the day, even the rain sometimes!), but sometimes it would be due to a mistake in the planning process or something that got overlooked in the set up. It is fine for things to go wrong. What matters is how you respond to that ‘failure’ and change things so that next time it works better.

After every Wild Women event, I have asked participants for feedback - honest, raw, feedback. This is not for the sake of my ego; it is from a genuine curiosity of knowing how to do better. It is a challenging thing to do with adults - somehow it always felt easier and less personal asking teenagers what they thought of a lesson! - but asking adults to give their thoughts on a workshop you have just run is one of the scariest professional things I have done. I feel fortunate that people have been open with their thoughts on their experiences, as it has allowed me to continually refine and expand my offerings. You are the reason this community continues to grow and get better.

Me living my ethos at Snap by Emily Joan

A final thought… community means different things to different people. I’m doing my best to shape Wild Women the way I see community, which is that we can all belong and we all deserve celebration. We all have knowledge and support to give, and we all need knowledge and support from others. When we approach networking and collaboration with curiosity, open hearts and open minds, magic can happen.

I’ll give the last words to Bugsy Malone and Blousey Brown: ‘...it’s been decided, we’re weaker divided, let friendship double up our powers/you give a little love and it all comes back to you’.’ Couldn’t have said it better myself.