Freewheelin’ #5 - Travel and new experiences
Travel, tourism, festivals, interior, magazine and flowers, what do they have in common? Me capturing it. Talking about diversity (or indecisiveness, I’ll let you decide). The last 6 months have been amazing in many ways again. Let me run you through my Freewheelin’ journey.
Quick Recap
Titles are often misleading but travel and new experiences actually cover my last 6 months better than I imagined. Whilst the first half year of 2022 was about projects at home, the latter half was about international travel and new experiences and projects. My first trip with On-Trek in July turned out to have a snowball effect, more on that later.
It’s absolutely crazy to me how many things happen in just 6 months. As a freelancer, you tend to deal with things relatively fast to continue your journey. But because you are dealing these things by yourself, you tend to experience a lot of things in a short amount of time. From travel, business and investments to personal relations and networking. There’s definitely more on your plate than working in an office job where tasks are subdivided. And I love it.
Let me take you through the last half of 2022 with my business and personal stories :)
Travel
Starting this recap with travel. I’m stoked I’ve been part of several international travels the last 6 months. And the best thing is; most of them were paid projects! Did I already mention I really wanted something like this to happen? Probably not, right?
My goal for 2022 was to travel every 2 months, so 6 trips a year. I’m glad to say I surpassed that amount! Although all travels were within Europe, I managed to visit Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Norway, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Iceland and Finnish Lapland!
Showreel drone
To give you a quick overview of my 2022 travels from a “birds-eye-perspective” (excluding Lapland), I’ve created a Year Well Traveled video!
The video wasn’t just special to me. It was picked for a SkyPixel 8th Anniversary Contest Selection and as nominee for Drone Video of the week 49 by Skypixel and Airvuz respectely.
Destinations
In July, I’ve got my first trip with On-Trek to Norway to capture a 6-day trekking. Unpaid at first, because that’s how most companies approach content creation (sadly). However, when proved your worth, it can lead up to paid opportunities and long-term relations. Consider it an investment, I guess.
This is exactly what happened after the trip to Norway. The result was mind-blowing for both me and On-Trek, so another trip to Italy and Slovenia were discussed soon after. This portfolio of capturing “group travel” later helped me get another opportunity with Beyond Borders Belgium to Lapland.
Here are all travels in chronological order.
On-Trek: Norway trekking hardangervidda
6 days of hiking and camping in the wild, an amazing experience. Though, pretty difficult as I had to carry around all my gear and wasn’t able to charge… I had to think about every shot. I’m glad I bought the Mini 3 Pro drone shortly before, it really came in handy with just 250 grams. The Hardangervidda region is beautiful and extremely photogenic. Capturing a group turned out the be cool too! I was able to experience what the were experiencing whilst capturing the most stunning imagery. Sometimes even making some friends along the way. My Norway page.
Germany meetup
After only speaking in zoom calls for several years, we decided to meet-up in Germany. And with us, I mean my travel group from New Zealand from back in 2020. Aside from some photography in the area, we kept a low profile and had a slow week of chilling and reconnecting.
On-Trek: Italy and Slovenia
After the successful try-out in Norway, I got offered two more travels. One 6-day trekking in Italy and a 8-day mountain bike trekking in Slovenia right after. The trekking in Italy took place in the Dolomites, somewhere above Venice. Besides hiking for 6 days, there were multiple “Via Ferrata’s” (iron roads) we needed to climb. This added another challenge to capture it all on video and photo. And surprisingly, I managed to keep up! Few participants had to stay behind because of injuries and blisters, so I’m glad I made it through, as well as my camera. My Italy page.
next up was Slovenia. We drove by car from the Dolomites to Bled, Slovenia to pick-up electric mountain bikes. And we needed them, desperately. Slovenia is beautiful but most (bike) roads are rocky and often steep. And, from a photographers perspective, a bike trekking is quite tricky to capture. You can stage some scenes but running around and anticipating on things that can happen is really hard. I’m still happy with how the video turned out. My Slovenia page.
Iceland
Months prior to this trip, I joined an online community called “Filmspace”. On this platform, with mainly filmmakers, people can post travel plans in search for companions. Me and an Italian filmmaker reacted to a request to travel Iceland in assignment for Go Car Rental Iceland.
Besides shooting content of the 4x4 car we received, we were able to create content for ourselves. In 6 days, we drove around the island while passing by waterfalls, snow, fjords and the northern lights.
I asked the guys (Spenser and Senni) to capture some videos/photos of me as well. I was is dire need of content to use on my website, like a banner video and BTS stuff. And they delivered, beautifully! I returned the favor of course with photos and videos of my own. Best thing is, Go Car Rental agreed to do another collaboration. So we might return with the same group next year in summer to explore the highlands. My Iceland page.
Beyond Borders Belgium: Finnish Lapland
I forwarded my experiences with On-Trek to Beyond Borders Belgium back in October. They were impressed by my work but normally worked with videographers in exchange for the trip. As it’s my fulltime job, I couldn’t accept these terms. Though, because they liked my work so much, they asked me if I was approachable for future last-minute trips where payment was available.
Fast forward to the second week of December, they rang me up asking if I wanted to capture a trip to Finnish Lapland. I don’t know about you but Lapland had been on my bucket list for some time. So yes, of course! I had to reschedule one project as it was extremely last minute. And there I went, the week before Christmas on another unexpected trip. And potentially an additional long-term collaboration. My Finland page.
New travel plans
The first 8 trips are in motion for 2023, just as many as this year. Only this time, I already got these planned a year in advance. More might follow, and I’m hoping for it! As long as my time and savings allow it, of course.
For On-Trek I’ll be traveling to Morocco (trekking & roadtrip), Norway & Sweden (kayak), Spain and France. I’m allowed to bring a good friend to the kayak trip in Sweden which is just amazing!
Additionally, I’ll be traveling to Madeira, Dublin and (most likely) Iceland. I booked a plane ticket to Madeira with my Swedish friend Isak. We’ll try to get some companies and sponsors aboard to travel for free. So far we got a free waterfilter but who knows what we can gather before we fly in February. Dublin will be a family vacations as my little sister is in the city for her studies. And Iceland, as mentioned above, will be part two of a car rental trip!
A small roadblock
Hopefully I can add more trips to the calendar. Judging by how fast things have been moving this year, I think it just might happen one way or another. I’ve been in talks with Stray for a trip to Australia but I think the conversation will be shelved… too bad.
As I see it. the only downside of traveling this much is the possibility of cancellations of projects at home. And I still need these jobs to keep my revenue up. Traveling is fun and all but it’s not paying all your bills. Balance is key, and I hope to find a healthy one for the year to come!
Projects
Much like the start of 2022, I’ve had a great amount of projects. Only this time, very different ones. Only a few projects have been constant. What remains changes around a lot. This is also what makes it so great!
Development
I’ve seen some changes and developments with clients and projects. I enjoy capturing travel and festivals/events right now. The underlaying reason is the freedom and a “run-and-gun” style of shooting. I hate dreadful days of shooting just one scene. I like to be on the move, be out there. When a client or project lets me create by my own rules, I perform best. I’m can be pretty hardheaded, so I guess that’s a connection.
However, besides techno parties, travel and festivals, I managed to get two (long-term) interior photography gigs. Yes, weird right? It works though, because of the way it’s structured. I receive a list with names and addresses which I can schedule myself. This way, it doesn’t deprive me of my freedom, I get to visit many different locations and houses, and I can capture things just the way I see fit. Perfect.
Favorite projects
Amongst all projects I’ve decided to pick my favorites. These projects still give me the most energy looking back.
Dance Valley and Dutch Valley
In search for work in 2021, I reached out to the organisation behind Dutch Valley and Dutch Valley in the hope I could come to photograph the atmosphere of a festival. I never heard from them and 2021 turned out to be extremely bad for festivals. Then, suddenly a few weeks before Dance Valley 2022 I received an e-mail with an invitation to the festival. At first, I was confused as I had long forgotten I mailed them myself. I agreed to come and they asked me if I could come to Dutch Valley the day after too.
As part of a team of 8, we captured both festivals from all angles. I was allowed back-stage, next to world-famous performers. It was an experience, let me tell you! Hoping for more festivals in 2023. With my new portfolio, I can now reach-out to new parties. See portfolio here.
Travel photo and videography
Already explained in the travel section, I just love to travel and when it’s for work it’s even better! Hoping to travel more with On-Trek, Beyond Border Belgium and Columbus travel in the upcoming year!
Recruitment videography
It’s 2022 and the world just went even more crazy, every single company is looking for people to employ but there are not enough workers. What do you do? You increase salaries, have better benefits and you advertise your vacancies. For Autogroep Ursem | Barten I created a short recruitment video. The video was used to send out on their social media platforms as well as local television.
VGS Congres aftermovie
Aftermovies are nothing new, but the activities often are. I was filming for two days during the VGS Congress in Den Helder with representatives from townships all over The Netherlands. They had guest speakers, activities, a boat trip, lunch/dinner, late night music and several meetings. I captured bits and pieces of every single thing that happened. I just love these kind of projects where things are constantly changing.
Interior photography
As mentioned at development, I managed to get two interior photography gigs. It’s another one of those projects I’d never thought to find myself in. But turns out I can do it, so why not. So far I’ve photographed a couple of houses and a showroom. Curious about next year’s locations!
Techno / Event photography
Somewhere this year I was asked to photograph a techno event. As one can imagine, Techno events are pretty dark and often have epic lightning set-ups. You want to capture the atmosphere without having people to pose and look in the camera.
As I said with festival photography, I really like these kind of projects. They require me to capture the scene from my own perspective. And I’ve been able to do so for a couple of events so far!
Collaborations
Not everything is a paid projects. Sometimes you invest time and material for future (paid) collaborations, you consider it as a project out of passion, or you just like the activity. I’ve had all three lately. Passion projects often went hand-in-hand with trying out new gear or skills. Here are some notable collaborations.
Polarpro filters
I’ve been collaborating with PolarPro since my trip to Ireland in March. Afterwards, we got multiple collaborations for drone and camera filters. I received the products for free and delivered content in return. So no revenue but also no costs. Especially for products you were already going to purchase anyway, it’s a great win-win.
Dutch Shooters meet-ups
I’ve talked about the Dutch Shooters community before in the Freewheelin’ series. It’s a great group of passionate photographers who like to meet up from time to time. Few months back we met up with 6 people to watch the grunting deer at Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen. Everybody got their own version of the things we found. That’s what I love; everyone sees the same thing but interprets and captures it completely different. Always a pleasure!
Passion projects
After building my full Canon R5C handheld camera rig, I wanted to test some footage and capabilities. So my first intuition was to shoot a message to Heidi Barten. We’ve shot portraits together and I was interested in shooting a low-key fashion video. So we went to both Amsterdam and the forest to get some different surroundings. It was a good experience for the both of us :)
Shortly after, I went to the forest again to shoot an idea I’ve had in mind for a while by then. I wanted to make a “VR glasses vs Nature”-kinda video. I made a small storyboard with some shots I needed and we just went for it. Northing to special but we laughed a lot during the recordings and even during edit and while rewatching it over and over. So, for a passion project, very good.
HeyHoneyGuide Instameet
After my trip to Extremadura with Columbus Travel, my name was passed on to HeyHoneyGuide. They are an online blogging platform and frequently organize instameets across The Netherlands. It’s a great opportunity to meet other creators in the Instagram space while creating for the Tourism sector. Unpaid, yes, but your network grows significantly and you can use the content and story for your own platforms as well.
We went to Helmond back in October and had a day-filling program. From chocolates, nature and a brewery to eating dinner in a castle. These trips get you to places, not going to lie. Hopefully one day I can join a PR trip somewhere abroad, but I’ll need some more followers for that I guess.
Graphic designers and agencies
I’ve made some interesting connections lately and more and more are graphic designers and agencies. As these companies often need photo and/or video content, they need someone to create this. So they act as a middle-man. I create the content, they use it in their designs/campaigns etc. to sell to their clients. Another connection I didn’t see from the start.
Network
The biggest part of getting clients and projects is your network. That’s common knowledge. But getting a vast network of clients is a real challenge. How do they find you, or how do you find them? Honestly, in freelance photo/video, most work comes to me word-to-mouth. And almost all other comes from me contacting potential clients. It’s about making yourself visible but still putting in the work (emailing, for example) to acquire new opportunities.
here are some things I’ve been busy with trying to broaden my network, as well as the ability of being found.
Broaden network
Broaden my network has been going pretty smoothly. It’s been a mix of word-to-mouth, emailing and some communities. Lately, I’ve integrated LinkedIn in my social strategy as well as I find it helpful on business-to-business level.
Word-to-mouth
Most of my projects come from word-to-mouth. I started small with a few clients but my services are being spoken off. Tags on a client’s post go a long way as well. Most potential clients ask me if I do a specific type of photo-/videography that they need at that moment. Most of the time I just say yes, and start to figure out how exactly I’m going to fill-in the gap. Worked everytime so far. As long as your creativity and technical abilities are aligned, you can come up with solutions on the spot.
As long as you’re delivering good results, your name will spread around. The only downside is when a project fails (whether it’s your fault or not), the bad news will spread faster than the good news.
Emailing
Emailing has been a dreadful thing for me in the past, especially when I started. I know how to write to companies and draw their attention, that has been one of the great advantages of my study as business engineer. However, without much experience, you can’t really show much to your potential clients… And “fake it till you make it” doesn’t always apply.
At first, I used my experiences from word-to-mouth projects to promote myself for likewise projects. Afterwards, I started to create content without clients to show-off my potential, like the fashion and VR glasses projects, but also product photography. By creating an example library of photography, I was able to show my work. Lastly, its important to send your potential client tailor made experiences and content, like specific portfolio items and a showcase/media kit on their main business.
When reaching out today, I always get a reply saying how impressive my work looks. Great! Although most companies only write your name down, that’s way more than nothing. You made your name known, showed what you’re capable of and you are in their system. It happened to me that 1,5 years after being in touch, they reached out to me for a quote. You can reach out yourself in the meantime as well.
What works best in my experience is “inspiring” a potential client with a project or type of content, something they haven’t thought off yet. Most people don’t need a photographer at that moment you contact them, but they might get inspired to start needing you. “Giving away” an idea to start the conversation is often worth it.
Emailing is about having a long breath, that’s the downside. But is works wonders if you start early and email frequently.
LinkedIn
I always underestimated LinkedIn as a tool to promote myself. In the past it’s been all about professionality but nowadays there are more casual posts as well. So, I decided to start posting recaps of trips or projects, like about my recent trip to Lapland. In just a few days, it normally reaches around 2000 to 3000 people, which is currently more than any other of my social media channels. People are reading and looking through your work more seriously I feel like.
And it works. I get direct messages, website visits and even a local agency that reached out for a project (we’re planning a long-term collaboration now, big win!).
YounG Creators / Dutch Shooters Communities
Online communities are great for finding work. The Young Creators community offers a way to place opportunities for other members of the community, like a photoshoot or portfolio projects. Dutch Shooters is a community on Discord where people can look in the “jobs-and-projects” for potential work. Every time you react to a call like this, you might be able to turn it into a long-term collaboration.
Because of Young Creators, I’ve worked for almost a year with My Dear Beer on product photography. We stopped our collaboration because someone else was taking over the marketing department and decided to do the photography themselves.
Skypixel Creator whatsapp group
I’ve been part of DJI’s Skypixel Creator program for a while now, and they now created a Whatsapp groupchat. In this group, there are many talented creators which I can reach out to and work together with in the future. Also, Skypixel is picking up the pace with collaborations, so I have big hopes for 2023!
T500 for the second year in a row
The T500 is a list of 500 talented people in digital work till the age of 30. I’m part of the list for 2023 and it’s the second year in a row I made it. There are several events in 2023 where I can meet-up and link with other people of the T500 list. As they are all young entrepreneurs, the chance is high they need content at some point. So connecting with them, in real life as well as on LinkedIn, will be great for my network moving forward.
Being Found
As photo- and videography are considered art, I still compete in several competitions to get recognition and to reach potential clients. A nomination or award can go a long way, and tap into a completely different network than I’m used to. Furthermore, I frequently update my website and socials with my latest projects and even got Google Ads to promote my website at some point.
Awards and prices
In the last half a year, I received another “Commended” awards for my “Blooming Endlessly” drone collection in the biggest drone awards by Siena Awards. Aditionally, I won two competitions with a pool photo and travel photo by Skypixel and 500px respectively. Airvuz selected two videos, my cinematic Iceland & Year well traveled videos, as nominees for video of the week.
Last but not least, I won a local competition with a drone photo of tulips of my region. Next week, the photo will be hanged in a regional museum where I’ll be receiving a price as well. Probably nothing big, but I’m very honored!
Website updates
I put every significant project or moment on my website. This includes portfolio, showcases, blogs and prints. As my work and interest change over time, I change around my pages and structure as well. I introduced pages like “Showcase: Tourism” and multiple new country pages. I’ve updated my homepage with a banner video and full-screen images per subject. I want my website to be content-centered, so people can see what I do instead of reading about it. Especially video content proves to be effective these times.
Google ads
I’ve ran a trial with Google Ads to promote my print store and homepage. As I monitored the progression, I saw a lot of new visits all across The Netherlands but no new contacts or messages. After 3 weeks of the same pattern, I decided to put the campaign on hold. I feel like people search for very specific type of photographer when googling. I might be to much in travel to promote myself locally. But maybe I was just unlucky. When the time is right, I’ll re-enable Google Ads to see if the pattern stays. For now, I’ll rely on word-to-mouth and my own emailing/reaching out.
Business
A bit of transparency from my part. Working as a freelance photo- and videographer brought in more revenue than I expected this year, but it’s not a high pay considering the amount of investments and additional costs. I did, however, almost reach the revenue I was aiming for in 2022.
Revenue
For 2022, I aimed for a revenue around 40k. Especially for a first year of being a fulltime entrepreneur, I felt like it was a good goal! And compared to 2021, I wanted to increase my revenue with at least half.
Revenue 2021: €23.724
Revenue 2022: €38.256
That’s a 61% increase in comparison to 2021! Most revenue came from videography (roughly 60%) and photography (19%). Other activities, like editing, design and the print store, made the remaining 21%.
Most people can make basic photos but good quality videos is still hard. Video also takes more time, planning and editing. So the pay for videography is normally higher. Plus, video content is booming right now. Most companies consider working with video and often need external creatives to fulfill their wishes. In 2023, I think my videography percentage will only grow larger.
Profit
Revenue doesn’t mean much without knowing the profit. I made a decent amount of profit in 2022, enough for a fulltime income (minimum wage). Though, as I was still investing, I only paid myself around half of the profit.
Aside from investments, which I can write off, I kept costs relatively low and was able to pay for all my travels and expenses without compromising myself.
The plan for 2023 is to pay myself a steady amount of €1.500 per month. This is minimum wage, leaving me room to travel on business expenses and expand my gear even further. This will be a change of mindset for me as I used to pay myself when there was money left.
I plan to move out in 2023, so a somewhat steady income will be very helpful. After 2022 I feel confident I can reach this goal.
For 2023 I hope to achieve around 50k in revenue, and securing around 30k profit.
Investments
Earlier this year I made a few big investments, these were a camera (Canon R5C), lenses (RF24-70 & RF 100-400), camera gimbal (Ronin S3), drone (Mini 3 Pro), tripod (heavy duty tripod) and materials for my hand-held rig. In the last 6 months, I added another lens (RF 15-35) and yet another drone.
I purchased the DJI Avata FPV drone. Why? This type of drone projects (First Person View) has been everywhere lately. The business world adopted these videos extremely fast due to its creative and interesting style. I originally started with assembling FPV drones before moving towards stabilized DJI drones (Mavic 3, Mini 3 Pro). To try and get a piece of this new market, I decided to take a small leap and start. I still need to practice flying as the skill gap is very different to other drones. Hopefully, I can be operational within the first few months of 2023.
What’s next?
I currently have my eyes on another camera (Canon R6 Mark II) and a lens (RF 70-200). With this camera I can match scenes with the R5C (10-bit, 4k video) and the 70-200 completes the holy trinity of lenses. The R6 Mark II is also superior in low-light conditions (due to internal stabilization), something I still needed.
Both are heavy investments again but also complete my bottom-line. This bottom-line is all the gear I need to do practically every project that comes on my road for a while. Whenever I need an upgrade, I can now sell my last model and get a new one. This way I always pay less than I did over the last two years. This will help me reach a more stable income as well moving forward.
As I already invested quite a lot in 2022, I’ll wait for the first of January 2023 with my purchase. This will help me lower my taxable income in 2023. Playing it smart.
Personal life
Working for yourself makes sure your social life and work life are intertwined quite often. many epic things and good stories occur during my work as well. But besides Mite Visuals I got a few stories to share.
I became an uncle!
My sister got gave birth to a sweet little boy called Domien! Which means I became an uncle on my 25th. I’m extremely proud but it still feels weird sometimes; I’m traveling the world and have no plans of settling down anytime soon, and my sister just got her first child. Bit shifted some sometimes but I’m living my best life and so does she. I can be the cool uncle now :)
Canon Weddingphotography workshop
During COVID-19 I won a photo contest (Intimate portrait) by Canon Nederland. The workshop was postponed twice due to the pandemic but in July we finally got a date. With a group of other winners we got a workshop and were able to shoot some photos of a wedding couple as well.
As I experienced before, I disliked the pressure on the “perfect moment”. Surely you learn how to predict these moments with experience, but I dislike these kind of scripted moments. I like to run around without a plan, shooting what I see fit. So, even though I really liked the workshop, I don’t think I’ll ever shoot weddings. Maybe if someone asks me as a second shooter but no intentions for now.
Lowlands
I finally went to a multiple day festival. I always disliked the one-day festivals due to the travel time. This time, we went on Thursday and came back on Monday. I love waking up after a night of partying and seeing how everyone struggles to get out of their tent, it’s a vibe. Making some instant coffee, talking through last night before heading out to the new day. Lowlands is a pretty low-key festival as well, so everything was chill. Hoping I have time in 2023 to go again!
Salsa dancing lesson
Went for a salsa try-out lesson a while back! I don’t dance often and especially not like salsa, yet I like the concept and intimacy of dancing. I’d love to go to actual lessons with a partner in the future.
2023
Alright, so 2023 is here! As discussed in the subjects above, I got a great amount of plans and thoughts on how I want to develop this year. Here are the highlights:
Creating a steady income whilst expanding my business
Get into the FPV Drone market
Travel more but not at expense of losing clients at home
Grow on social media to create new opportunities
Expand my network and experiences
More festivals, events, travel and tourism projects
Make the most of whatever comes on my way
And have loads of fun while doing it :)
2023 is going to be amazing, I feel it.
Social Media standings
Growth on every channel once again! I wish it could move faster but going viral overnight isn’t something I would want either. I’m growing faster on 500px and Skypixel in comparison to Instagram. Sadly, most creator deals are connected to follower count on Instagram. Hoping 2023 will be a year to reach 5k-10k followers, that would help a lot with my travel/tourism deals further down the road.
See you in the next one!
Cheers, Mike
More of this series
GOOD TO SEE YOU!
My name is Mike Tesselaar, in short MiTe. I’m a photographer from The Netherlands with a heart for traveling and adventuring.
I write blogs about photo- and videography, travel, freelancing and personal related stories. Hope you’ll find inspiration and feel welcome to stick around a little longer!
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