Did you know that learning new skills can help you survive the crisis. Many photographers and retouchers have suffered financially during this pandemic. I know two USA based photography colleagues who have seen a massive downturn in their income.

One has resorted to becoming a UPS courier, the other delivers fast food. I also know of a photo editor that is currently packing meat for a supermarket chain to keep his head above water.

I am sure in all professional sectors there are people in the same type of predicament. Having lost their jobs or seen a major reduction in earnings.

Learning new skills can help you survive

I used to gripe about my clients, the skill I advertised myself as, is a “digital photo editor”. Quite often I started out retouching photos for a client. Halfway through the job, they mention: “These photo edits are for a website I want built, do you by any chance do website design?”

At first I said no, but it got me thinking. As a self employed photo editor. I found myself on the odd occasion, between retouch assignments. I decided to learn some basic website design. Not long afterwards I did my first website.

My first job was retouching an interior photo for him and ended up doing his luxury apartment developer website for him…

I have had other clients ask me to do logo designs. I am by no stretch of the imagination, nor do I advertise being a graphic designer. What I have found is, if you deliver a professional service, in my case quality edited photos. This will lead to enquiries about other skills you may offer.

Even if you tell your client that you are not a designer. They have developed confidence in you and insist that you give it a go.

Currently I am working on a video edit from the University Of The Bahamas. I started out by editing graduation photos, and now am the video editor and title designer! I could go on and on with all the new skills I have picked up over the years.

Learning new skills can help you survive the crisis and earn more money

The current Covid crisis is the perfect time to consider learning new skills. I am sure many people have a lot more free time on their hands. Learning new skills in your free time can be productive. both financially and on an emotional/mental level as well.

What professions can compliment yours?

What I suggest is; think about which skills can compliment your profession. If you are a photographer, for example, have you ever considered video production? A video director once told me that a good cameraman learns their trade being first a photographer.

Most Digital DSLR cameras have a video recording function. So you do not need to invest in purchasing a video camera. If you have decided to go down that path. You can also consider getting into video editing, special effects, colour grading and titles.

For those of you who are considering this as an option, try DaVinci Resolve. It has a free version and it is a great video editing application. It can also be used for special effects and colour grading as well.

Other quality video editing and effects software is the Adobe Creative cloud package.

If you use a Mac computer, there is an amazing application called Keynote. The Mac version of Power Point. It is the best new app that I have learnt to use.

Apart from being able to do really professional presentations. You can create amazing video animations, introductions and a ton of other stuff!

I used this Keynote tutorial to learn the basics. It is a fun video and helped me gain the confidence to use this app.

Digital photo editing and graphic design. Are also skills that as a professional photographer, can compliment photography.

The best thing about learning new skills is that there are so many free online resources that you can use to learn them. All you need to do is do a search online for whatever application you would like to learn. Youtube has tons of great tutorial videos to choose from.

Learning new skills can help you survive the crisis, and I would even go as far as to say that after the pandemic is over. Having learnt these skills, would not have been a waste of your time. I am sure that you can continue to earn money from them.

I hope this post has been of help, keep an eye on my blog for regular news, opinions and photo editing tips.