Why would you share commercial work?

‘Commercial work? Why would I want to see commercial work?’

The CD of a large New York ad agency looked thoroughly perplexed when asked about sharing commercial work on a photographer’s website.

This was in a private Q&A I ran for my clients, and the answer didn’t surprise me at all.

The fact is that most decent advertising creatives (you do want to be hired by someone decent – yes?) go to great lengths to see the work you make for yourself.

They’re innovators and their job is to create new work for brands.

So why would they want to look at their competitor’s work, or work they’ve previously made, other than to understand what to avoid?

There may be a place for GOOD paid work on your website, but it’s not for the creatives.

And if you don’t have some lovely personal work to inspire those creatives, you won’t NEED the paid work there, because you won’t get that far down the line.

Ask any decent rep. In a private forum one very established and respected photographers’ agent recently said:

‘I can say with 100% confidence that the photographers in our group that show the most amount of personal work over the course of the year, were typically the busiest by the end of the year.’

Thanks to photographer Sam Harris for this shot made as part of his fantastic personal series ‘Neighbours’, which has recently inspired clients to hire him.