When I started my business, there was no social media yet. There was Myspace, where a lot of artists had accounts, and it was mainly dedicated to musicians. So, I set up my account there. Anyone who remembers and has visited that space knows that Myspace was not very absorbing – more like a business card. At least, that’s how I remember it.

During the rise of the blogosphere, I also had my blog, and I was active on the Blogspot platform. I mainly uploaded photos, which acted as a kind of diary, with little or no text, possibly short descriptions to accompany the photos.

I remember that it took me a long time to get used to Facebook and even longer to get used to Instagram. I don’t remember when I set up an account on LinkedIn, but it was probably after those two. I also have a YouTube profile, mainly to make my three author project videos public. I’m not on other platforms.

At the moment, I find it hard to remember what it was like before the existence of social media. I can’t really recall an average day of my work without this virtual, engaging world.

Benefits – there certainly are.

I can see several benefits of being in the social media space that have impacted my professional life. Firstly, Facebook helped me to start writing more regularly. My posts became more substantive, even if just short. Over time, I started playing with writing, trying to somehow measure up to the juggling of words. I publish content that is shorter, sometimes longer, and occasionally I’m tempted to write more reflections or impressions. Nevertheless, this regular training made me feel the need to develop this skill, so I decided to start a blog again. This time, I write first and foremost, with photos more often serving as decoration.
I have also been writing privately for over 2.5 years now, which is taking an increasingly structured form.

Secondly, publishing posts has forced me to document my work. I’ve started taking behind-the-scenes, commemorative photos, which are a nice touch to the collaboration but also serve as a chronicle of my meetings. It’s always nice when we, satisfied, stand up to take a photo together after a photo shoot.

Thirdly, publishing on social media gives credibility to my professional activity. Admittedly, I take care of my website, and since I’ve been blogging, new texts have been arriving regularly. But social media are much more relational and help increase visibility. I know that often, potential clients, just before getting in touch with me, look me up online and analyze how I work.

Do I earn more through social media? Yes. Some clients decide to work with me thanks to the fact that they met me in the social media space, usually through mutual friends. They observe my activities, and this convinces them to book a photo shoot with me.

I am not the influencer type, and I am unlikely to ever be. Analyzing the dark side of virtual social media life, I find answers to why I won’t become one.

The shadows – there definitely are.

Algorithm. Do I want an algorithm to decide whether my content reaches the people I should be interacting with? Do I want the algorithm to popularize and serve me crappy content with no value and no substance? Do I want to take part in this mealy-mouthed game of shouting and pimping? No.

When, once again, the rules of the social media game change and, in order for our content to have a chance of reaching the people watching us, we have to start doing this and that differently, I also say no.

I try to run my channels in such a way that I don’t overstep myself in doing so. I just want to be OK with myself. So, there are things that I do and find pleasure in, and there are things that I won’t convince myself to do. So, you’re not going to hear a protracted ‘hello, lover’ from me on a live show about nothing. I’m not going to create dorky videos with scenes because just talking about things isn’t enough anymore. I also don’t mess around with reels (which I don’t actually do, except for a short photo slideshow) with loud disco music. I add birdsong in the background, because that’s how I prefer it. I heard once that this is boring. So, maybe I’m boring.

I value calmness and a certain balance. Clients find that in my studio. They can slow down, catch their breath, have a coffee, and focus on what we have to do. Music plays in the background without drowning out our conversations. I create portraits in stillness, a certain harmony that allows me to catch those fleeting subtleties that flow between me and the person being photographed. Part of the reason my clients are able to master the stress and anxiety of being photographed is because I create these conditions for our collaboration.

Anyone who has seen me working with a larger group of people knows that I lose my temper and everything flies out of my hands if there is a lot of commotion on set and loud conversations drown out my communication with the subject. I then ask people to behave more quietly because I can’t concentrate and my nervous system starts to glow red. The same thing happens outside of work, in my other activities. So, supposedly, why should I construct shouted messages in social media? After all, it’s not me.

Rather, I haven’t followed trends. I develop as a photographer based on how I feel about the other human being. I’m closer to the classics than to a pack of trendy presets; I don’t know how to take photos in a style that fits Instagram. I value quality and reliability, so unpopular these days.

I recently had a conversation with a writer who told me the story of the publication of her first book. At the same time, the publisher was publishing a book by some YouTube guy with quite a social media reach. They invested in him – promotion, photo shoots, etc. The writer didn’t receive that kind of support because she wasn’t anyone famous. The punchline is interesting. The sales of the book were at a very similar level, and the YouTube guy with big reach sold not much more.

So, there is a battle for reach and the number of followers, at any cost. And I will not pay that price. I will not forcefully stir up controversy, show my intimacy, flaunt my naked body (I allow nudity when it is related to the personal projects I create). Ah, opinions. You can rest assured that the opinions my clients have written on the Google business card are real. I didn’t buy them.

With all the awareness of what the world of social media is like and how easy it is to fall into a scrolling reel, I fell into it myself. For years, I started my day with social media apps. It’s bloody hard to fight this habit. I have trouble concentrating, I feel overstimulated, and I sometimes succumb to the feeling that everyone else is doing so great, but I’m just so ordinary.

So, I try to focus social media on two things. I publish texts and photos relating to my work (and sometimes hobbies), and I support people I like and/or whose content I value. I’m slowly trying to unglue myself from the screen – although yes, videos with cats are always fun 😉 But I’ll quit that too eventually.

Is running my business easier since there’s social media?
I don’t know. When I started using them, my business was already over 10 years old. There are businesses based only on such platforms, but mine is not one of them. They have certainly made a few things easier for me. After all, it is easier to reach potential customers and gain their trust. Social media have also forced me to rethink self-presentation and can support image building and personal branding.

But I also feel that it is necessary to make running a business independent of social media platforms. This means that it is obligatory for me to have my own place online. The basis is a website where I can publish whatever I want (within the limits of general social norms, of course), and I don’t have to, for example, blur my nipples in a photo that is obviously not pornography but an artistic nude. For this reason, I have also set up a blog on my site so that I can write texts without worrying that the algorithm will pick up a forbidden word and block my account. I can also link without fear of having my reach curtailed for taking people outside the platform. There will also be a newsletter – not to bombard you with sales offers—but mainly to keep in touch in case one platform or the other closes down, or the rules of participation are no longer acceptable to me.

I value consistency. I rather can’t do otherwise. I am not good at pretending, artificially raising the stakes, or playing people off like pawns on a game board. I talk about my professional life a lot in public (this series of texts contributes to that), but I leave a lot of my private life to myself. I do not shout. I do not exhort. I don’t push. That’s how I choose to do it, which is completely out of step with the trends. So what. I’ll get through it somehow.

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You can find the texts in this series under the ‘I have a company‘ category. Or click the tag: 18.

It is this December (2024) that the company I founded in 2006 celebrates its 18th birthday. And actually I’m celebrating this birthday, because in the case of a one-person business, combined with a personal brand and being an author, the company is me.
Over these eighteen years, I have accumulated a whole bagful of experience. My business has gone through several transformations, I’ve caught up with crises and doubts, and I’ve also enjoyed a huge number of successes.
In all this time, photography has been my only source of income.
I don’t know if I can count how many people I have photographed, how many events and places.

Of course, a one-person business isn’t just – in my case – about photographing and post-processing. It’s also a huge amount of work: communicating and meeting clients, running the website, social media and the shop, writing the blog, running workshops, dealing with documentation (invoices, contracts, etc.), promo activities, strategy and trying to get away from the day-to-day to draw visions and plans. It’s also personal development, education, new competences.
And a whole bunch of crap, such as servicing my car (which is my work tool, after all), taking care of the studio or running to the parcel machine with a delivery. So it’s not just a crap.

To celebrate my anniversary, I have decided to write a series of texts about how I run my business, what difficulties I have encountered and what goes lightly. Where I get my inspiration from and where I look for answers. What values do I hold dear. What my typical working day looks like – do I even have such a thing as a typical working day. And I’ll probably catch a few more ideas in between. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I’ve experienced some total fuck-ups 😉 Fortunately, moments of elation and happiness were more frequent.