Port Douglas

16Apr09

Port Douglas. Love this town. I’ve been back here about 10 weeks now, done about one photo job for every week I’ve been here. Which is a nice handy pace considering I’m working my ass off as one of the coordinators of the towns annual Carnivale, 5 days a week. I’m working towards that day when Carnivale is all over (June 1) and I can focus on being a full time photographer here.

To that end I just tied up a sponsorship deal with the local Chamber of Commerce in which I become the Official Event Photographer for 2009 Port Douglas Carnivale. This means that I am going to do a truckload of free photography for the community events which are a part of Carnivale in an effort to get my name out there. I hope that doing this will pay off for me:

1. by getting my name and services out there and widely visible,
2. and that the commercial event managers will employ me.

Doing pro bono work as a photographer is sometimes seen as betraying yourself and your fellow photographers by devaluing public perception of photographers rights & services, but you know, community participation is vitally important and none of these community groups have the money to pay a professional photographer. Yet without great, dynamic images, the entire event suffers because it’s so hard to get decent media coverage. So actually, rather than devaluing public perception, I hope that I actually garner some respect and support and the whole action-reaction process society runs on will see me get rewarded with paid work.

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Tags: Carnivale, photographer, photography, Port Douglas, pro bono, sponsorship