Pal Hansen

By far one of the best lectures we had during London week came from Pal Hansen and his assistant.
Pal was the first guest lecture of the week and it was incredibly refreshing to have a guest lecture that wasn't there to simply sell us his new book at the end. He discussed the importance of personal projects outside of our work as a way to fuel our ambition and creativity.He believes in personal projects as being a great way to produce meaningful work that you can then take and show to potential clients and employers.
Pal later explained that it is important to lose out attachment to social media for pushing or work into the world, everyone does that nowadays and so the it is essential to find fresh creative ways to stand out from the crowd. He suggested that going to the effort of travelling to showcase your work in person with a nice printed portfolio is now rare and will surely put you out there as it isn't the mass audience and lots of clicks and likes you need to worry about as a freelance its making sure that the right people see your work. the kind of people that can actually pay you and give you jobs in the future.

Further more pal discussed the importance of a diverse skill set in today's world it simpy isn't enough to be a good photographer,employers need someone they can trust to do several things such as the writing or videography that may need to accompany the images you shoot. although the client will often only commission you for one of those skills at any one time it provides you with more opportunities to be commissioned

I also learn't that in order for me to become successful in my field i am going to need to spend a lot of time practicing and honing my social skills as this is a crucial skill when it comes to getting your subject to open up and provide a more authentic depiction of your subject.

Finally Pal gave the stage to his assistant for a while.Pat(Pals assistant) explained that assisting jobs are priceless gifts allowing you to get paid while providing you time to learn from a professional until your ready to move on and work for yourself.He reminded us to make sure we know what we are worth as it is easy to be taken advantage of by some professionals but that we should also be prepared to work exceedingly hard.