Time usage and the hours involved...

This is the first in an on going series of blog posts where I will try to answer a few of the questions I get asked on an almost daily basis.

Everything from gear, the business side of things, technique etc I seem to attract a lot of questions, and rather than answer the same question 10 times over in the same month I thought I would just blog about them instead...

Right now that's said, this first post is on time usage and how long I spend doing what I do...

One of the best things about what I do is not being a slave to the 9-5 , when I'm out on a shoot its worse than that though , its more like 7-10 ha

If you want to get anywhere in such a competitive market you have to be willing to work your ass off...


( This is my Desk/Bedroom...as you can see this is a day when i have just come back from a trip, and getting ready for another one, so its a bit of a state...camera gear everywhere! )

In an average day at home I'm:

• Up at 7-8am depending on if my phone bleeps with an urgent email...

• 8-10 is sat catching up on emails and urgent edits etc that have come in over night or from the previous evening

• 10-12 is keeping up to date with everything that's going on online on all the sites ( http://jacobgibbinsdotcodotuk.blogspot.com/2011/01/sites-i-visit.html ) and social networking ( http://jacobgibbinsdotcodotuk.blogspot.com/2011/02/social-media.html )

• 12 - is lunch, I'm a slave to my stomach ha i can tell when its 12 without a clock...

• Then in the afternoon I either spend it editing photos/videos depending on what deadlines and work I have on, if I'm quiet though I just spend it bodging new camera toys, riding, shooting personal stuff, or working on my site/portfolio/blog etc

They say 10,000 hours at any one thing and you should be pretty much an expert and for me I would say that's nearing the truth...since 2005 I have spent almost all of my spare time buggering about with cameras, photo shop, websites etc , no shit almost every weekend for the last 5 years I have been in the outdoors taking photos, now I'm no mathematician but that has to be nearing those kind of hours...

You cant just coast, do a bit here, and bit there. To really get good at something you have to give your all to it.



So I guess the point I'm trying to make is, despite the rather lovely life I appear to lead managing to post up photos of me on the trails on a Tuesday morning...its not all it seems.

Ta

Jacob