freelance work – Tyler B. Humphries

It all started back in January; my job was hosting some events and needed someone to take photos of it. They already had a professional photographer, but they needed someone to take photos for live and scheduled social media postings. Everyone knew that I went to school for film (scriptwriting) and they have all seen my study abroad photos so I was a natural choice. I did that event for them, using their camera and then for the next event, I used my own camera. I was using my Mirrorless Nikon 1 J4 to take the photos. I did another event where I was the second shooter and my images were used for promotional work. After that, I was hired on to do some non-work-related event photography and I even took some portraits for a media kit.

Up until all that happened, I’d never thought about photography as a second job or a career choice. I’ve always loved photos. I collect them, like a weirdo. I draw inspiration for my stories from the images I collect. In fact, I had 25GB worth of images on my old computer. I’d accumulated those photos over a decade span, but still, that’s a lot of photos.

When I started traveling, I realized I really liked taking photos to document things. So, if you ever get a peek at my travel photos, not the ones that I post, but the ones that are saved on my computer, you’d see pictures of everyday things. Photography turned into a hobby of mine. I had to take classes that covered basic photography when I was in college because of what I studied. I also was part of the photography club on campus, but again, I’d never thought about photography as a possible job until people actually started paying me to take photos. It’s silly, I know. Someone really had to say, “Here, take my money,” before I thought about the financial benefits of photography.

But once I started thinking about the possible financial benefits, I immediately wanted to better myself. So, I went back to school… sort of… I took some online courses on photography from sites like Lynda and Skillshare (although I do not like Skillshare and I would not recommend it, the class I took was excellent). YouTube is also a great place to learn new things. There is a tutorial for everything and I needed tutorials for Lightroom and Photoshop. I also upgraded my camera. I went from my Mirrorless Nikon 1 J4 to my DSLR Canon 80D and yes, I did cry a little bit on the inside when I bought it. I cried out of excitement and out of fear because I knew I’d just spent a lot of money on something that may or may not make the money back. And I’m a stickler for at least breaking even, even on passion projects such as this.

I think I’m going to add a Photography section to this website to keep you updated on what I’m doing with my photography. I have two upcoming photo shoots and I can’t wait to share them with you.

November has been the month I failed at everything and I’m okay with that.

I’ve been looking forward to participating in NaNoWriMo since last year when I started watching vlogs about it. There is something so inspiring about watching someone complete a book in thirty days. As the year went on, however, NaNoWriMo slipped to the back of my mind and by the time October of this year rolled around, I started thinking about it again. For the first two weeks of October, I debated with myself on whether or not I should actually participate in it. A week before NaNoWriMo started, I told myself I was going to do it. I had it all planned out. I was going to write two thousand words a day and it was going to be so easy. I was going to have everything on a schedule. I was going to be ahead of the game and although the book would not be finished when I hit fifty thousand words, I was still going to feel like I’d accomplished something.

And then two days before NaNoWriMo started, I decided to start a new, lighter story–something just for NaNoWriMo. Needless to say, this idea blew up in my face big time. I didn’t start actually writing until the fifth day of November. That day, I wrote close to four thousand words and then I gave up. Not because I didn’t think I could catch up, but because there were other things going on.

So, I’ve been expanding this website and trying to plan out my future, or at least figure out what I’m going to be doing for the next few years. I have a degree in Scriptwriting but I live in Missouri. I can’t really use my degree until I move closer to one of the coasts; I’m just being honest with myself. During this economical draught, all of us in St. Louis are experiencing, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to either get a second job or start marketing myself as a freelance writer for a little side income. You see, although the main focus of my degree was film and television I had to take the same core curriculum as journalism, mass communication, and public relations students. So, I’m actually well versed in commercial writing and I’ve been trying to market my services.

Around the time I started NaNoWriMo I actually got a client that wanted me to do some technical/legal writing for them and build them a website. I was super excited about this opportunity but I was really nervous because I’d never done legal writing before. If you can understand something and mimic it, then you can learn any type of writing style but the thing about legal documents that will catch you up a bit is the fact that there is rarely an example or template you can work from. So, while I was coming up with a story for NaNoWriMo and trying to get caught back up, and expanding the website and promoting my other services, I was also working really hard on something I’d never done before. I wanted to do well on this, not just because someone was paying me to do it, but because it was a legal document that was going to help them start a business. I was very upfront with them about not having done any legal/technical writing prior to their assignment but they had faith in me and they were patient with me. The final version of the legal document turned out very well and after it gets notarized by an attorney, I’ll get started on building my client’s website.

As far as NaNoWriMo goes, I’ve failed and I’ve come to accept that but I’ll be ready for it next year.