“The Work Will Not Speak For Itself” - Sarah Tulej's Creative Career
An opportunity to be nosy but also to shout about talent
Welcome to a slight divergence from my usual newsletter (which, yes, has been MIA since August) in which I fulfil one of my most pressing wishes, to find out what people do in their work lives, how they ended up doing what they do, what they get paid, and how to manage all the nitty gritty behind the LinkedIn profile. In this instance, I spoke to the photographer, Sarah Tulej who is the magical eye behind my own headshots (where I look like me, but honestly, a much better version.) I asked her all about her career transition from sustainability consultant to portrait photographer.
I’d love to know what you thought of this new section of the newsletter, as well as any other questions you’d like to ask creatives. Let me know in the comments, or by replying to the email.
I’m in a career transition right now. Having freelanced for a year across a range of projects, from strategy and engagement to branding and communications, I’ve decided the time has maybe come to look for a permanent role within a company. The reasons for that are many and varied: freelancing is lonely, insecure and fragmented. I want to work with a team again, and be challenged, working both strategically and creatively. I want to work somewhere with a proper budget. I have my energy back and I want to use it. However, I also LOVE freelancing. I love working on my own terms, choosing which projects to take on, and generally enjoying a slower and much indulgent pace of life.
It’s both an exciting and frightening time, trying to work out what comes after Founder/CEO and it involves a LOT of coffees and conversations with interesting people. Luckily, I like people. One person I’ve met on this path to career-joy is Sarah Tulej - who I met up with recently to have some new headshots taken, to mark my new path as a creative consultant, and separate me from my time at BGP, which is represented by my what I call “laughing at a wall in my sister’s jacket” pics by the brilliant Jess Schamroth (whose work I love so much, I persuaded her to be my wedding photographer!)
I “met” Sarah in a whatsapp group I co-founded back in the day to get women and NB people paid. I saw that she was a portrait photographer, and that her pics seemed laid back, modern (OK Grandma) and high quality. So, when I could no longer bear to look at that photo of a 31 year old activist (now being a 37 year non-activist), I asked Sarah for her services. As part of the contract, we included an interview with her, on me ol’ Substack and here it is. I hope you enjoy getting to know Sarah as much as I have.
Oh and bonus alert! Sarah’s also shared a link at the end to download her brilliant free guide on how to use brand photography to grow your visibility!
Enjoy,
Gabby x
Interview edited for clarity and length.
“The Work Will Not Speak For Itself”
Sarah, I’m a bit obsessed with knowing about people’s jobs, especially as I’m sitting in what I’m thinking about as a creative transition. I know you’ve been through something similar, so can you tell me about your job life?
So I have two jobs. I like to say I'm a portrait photographer, but if I'm talking commercially, I'm a personal branding and headshot photographer. I work mainly with people who consider themselves to be change makers and who are also camera shy. And I am a sustainability consultant: I have a background in sustainability and I work freelance on sustainability projects.
When we did our shoot together on that rainy day in East London, you talked about how you’d only started photography two years ago. What was the impetus behind that move? Also what skills did you need for that transition?
Way back in 2016, I did a career change course with Escape the City as I was becoming quite disillusioned with my job. We did all of these creative exercises and I just kept coming back to photography as something I’d love to do. I had this narrative of photography being very male, very competitive and cutthroat, but actually this was a misconception.
Then, my hairdresser told me about Creative Live. And while I was on furlough during the pandemic, I just spent all this time on it, learning. It gave me all the basics - how to choose your niche, how to market yourself, create a website, building your portfolio.
And that led to a whole plethora of other things that I realised I needed to get better at: how do you actually work with someone on a shoot and guide them and get them to pose naturally? How do you choose the right kit and the right setup?
But most useful, was the work around marketing. How do you actually find clients? How do you talk about what you do? How do you speak to a particular segment of people that you want to target?
I have spent more money than I care to admit on memberships and courses teaching me how to do all this stuff. Shout out to The Photographer’s Voice and SNAP who do a tonne of stuff to support photographers.
And you decided your niche would be camera shy activists and change makers! Why did you choose a hard to reach group - aka people who don’t want to be in front of the camera?!
The majority of people that I meet say that they are awful in front of the camera and I actually think the vast majority of people fall into that category. I find that a lot of photographers don't acknowledge how terrifying it is to get in front of the camera. And so I make that part of my message because a big barrier for people is being incredibly nervous about being photographed. It’s been a deliberate choice to go “I'm that person that's going to hold your hand, make you feel comfortable.” I take the fear factor out of it.
That makes sense - you’re meeting people where they are, rather than expecting them to come to you.
I think loads of us would jump ship to creative work land, if we knew we’d be able to pay the bills. How easy is it to make a living from this kind of work?
It's been a painful process, figuring out what to charge for services! There's a lot of internal narrative… “Who do you think you are? That's a lot of money!” or it’s the other way around, not charging enough, and you end up feeling like you’re exploiting yourself.
The tricky part is that so much of the work is not spent taking photos. So much of the work is marketing, and you have to actually price that in. And so, being completely upfront, it's not my only income stream. It's not enough - more of my income comes from sustainability consulting, because I have over a decade of experience, there's a lot of work and I can get a good day rate. Plus, I won't just be getting a day's work, I'll be getting weeks of work. Whereas photography, it's job by job by job, so it's more patchy. And the thing that makes a huge difference to the consistency of getting work is the size of my network. I have lived in the Netherlands for three years, so it's a slow burn to build up that network of people who will vouch for me.
I love your transparency. I’m going to push for even more. Can we talk numbers?
I probably turned over about £40,000 altogether in 2023 and three quarters of that has been consulting and a quarter of it has been photography. I'd like to get that to more 50/50.
I'm not the cheapest photographer because the work isn't just the shoot. I invest a lot of time in making people feel comfortable and figuring out what they want to say with their photos, and there’s worth in that. I don't want to just be in that bottom price bracket, but I do think that means I get less work because the starting price is £300 and it goes up from there. So I would say the big determinant of earning money is having a word of mouth referral network, which just takes time to build. I think in another few years it should be a lot more regular.
Finally, thinking about these creative transitions, moving from sustainability consultant into photography, what advice would you give to somebody engaging in that type of transition?
If you want to do something new, have another source of income as a back up. I'm so glad I kept the sustainability work because it's kept the money coming in and gives me a baseline income to take the pressure off a bit.
Because it takes a while, especially if you're going to do something quite different. It takes a lot of time to build a new business.
The other thing would be is that you've got to learn the numbers side of things - you've got to learn about marketing, selling and pricing. And taxes.
You need to know whether there’s a market for what you want to do, to make it financially sustainable. If not, there’s the tough choice of whether it needs to stay as a passion project on the side of your main job.
One of the biggest determinants of how successful you are working for yourself is the size of your network. You have to be really prepared to put yourself out there and be visible and tap into your network. And tell people what you're doing. I think especially with creatives, I see so many that are quite shy and think (or hope!) the work will speak for itself.
But unfortunately… the work will not speak for itself. You have to tell people 50 times “this is what I do. This is how you can work with me” before they’ll take notice.
It can feel really obnoxious but no one is paying as much attention as you think. So…the best thing is to have a word with yourself and start putting yourself out there.!
Find out more about Sarah…
To download her free guide on how to use brand photography to grow your visibility click below.