© Allison Hunter whose multi award winning series, 'Freedom to fly', was created on The Series Project.

When is an idea not an idea?

7 November, 2024

If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll have heard me say on repeat (like a broken record) that personal work is your number one marketing tool.

Especially personal projects with an idea behind them.

So what is an idea?

  • It’s not a topic (Football is not an idea, neither is vintage cars, even cold water swimmers- they’re all topics: starting points but certainly not ideas.)
  • It’s not a visual description (that’s how it’s going to look, which you can’t possibly properly know until you have an idea)
  • It’s not a book or an exhibition. (That’s final delivery of the idea)
  • It’s not a clever technical approach. (That’s how you execute the idea, and sometimes simple is best)

In fact most the above things are inaccessible until you understand the concept.

  • What do you want to say about this topic?
  • How does it make you feel?

When you have these answers you can hone in on your own unique perspective and that’s when the idea starts to take shape.

In the ad world, if you show a half decent creative a project you’ve made, and they like how it looks, they’re going to ask you about it.

Curious beings they are.

‘Why did you make this series? Tell me more about it.’

(And you can trust me- with a few exceptions they really truly do not want to know what camera you used or how you turned water into wine.)

With interesting well researched projects these questions can result in fantastic conversations, extended meetings, and long term relationships.

When you don’t know the answer it can be a conversation ender.

(And ‘just because I liked it’ is not really going to cut it.)

You’re a visual communicator so showing you can understand and communicate ideas is a brilliant way to get noticed.

Ignore this at your peril, and remember to treat your personal work with the attention and thought you’d give your client briefs, together with the development time to make sure you’re starting from a unique place.

This is one of the things I’ll be talking about in more depth in Sydney and Melbourne at my upcoming workshop ‘Stand out from the Crowd’. I’m heading to the Head On Photo Festival tomorrow and will be part of the weekend events as well as my workshop on Tuesday.

You can see all my upcoming events (including dates and links to sign up) here.