We were lucky to catch up with Teo Crawford recently and have shared our conversation below.

Teo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

In 2018 I applied for my studies at the university I wanted to go to, but got a rejection, so I decided to look for some work for a year and then try again next year. I ended up getting a position at a marketing agency that offered all sorts of services including video production. I became a part of their video team.

It was in that work environment where I gained my first experience in being a professional of sorts and to this day I am very thankful for an important lesson they taught me, which was : The details matter.

After some time in this job I was gaining my colleagues’ trust and they gradually offered me more responsibility. One of the newer jobs I was working on were some social media videos for a big supermarket brand and the marketing team had to send my videos back to me repeatedly for minor (but important) mistakes. Things such as forgetting to insert the logo, or misplacing it slightly or just making things mildly off-brand. I didn’t understand the value in branding, consistency and detail. One day the head of marketing got quite angry with me because I yet again sent them my work, which was overall not terrible, but just quite sloppy. The head of the video team then kindly sat down with me to see what was going wrong and taught me the importance of working meticulously and with precision, because that is what makes sloppy work become good work and that is what makes us professionals.

Nowadays, I look back at my past self and shake my head, because I can’t believe how sloppy I used to be. Now that I’m producing my own videos for my own brand I strongly relate to the value of precision in my work. And while that moment in that job back then was a little scary for me (basically being told off for bad work by my boss), I am incredibly thankful for the way it worked out. They gave me the chance to improve and taught me a lesson that I still live and work by today.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a photographer and filmmaker and run a YouTube channel that documents my journey with photography as an artistic medium. On my channel I publish a variety of videos including behind the scenes videos of shoots and photo-sessions or discussions and essays on anything about the art of photography or filmmaking.
What I like to think sets me apart or makes my brand are my stylistic choices, the relaxing character of my videos, the meticulous work I put into the videos and the fact that I talk a lot and share my thoughts on my process and the results, which is something that wasn’t as common when I began doing this.
I believe what my audience gains from my videos is inspiration, relaxation and I’ve often read comments of people kindly pointing out that they can learn a lot from my chatter, which I’m very happy to hear.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

My entire social media presence simply began with me sharing my experiments publicly. I played around with the medium of video a lot and simply shared the results. As my interest in photography grew I also just shared the lessons I learned. Basically I was publicly documenting my journey.

This mostly didn’t gain any audience, however I think it did play a key-role in what the YouTube channel became. It was practice. From October 2016 until February 2023 I produced one video every single week (after that I continued to stay consistent, but only posted 3 videos per month instead of 4). This inevitably lead to the videos gradually becoming better. It took until 2019 that I finally made my first videos that I was not ashamed to show to my friends (ironically I found it easier to quietly publish my videos on YouTube than show the videos to my friends). It was then that I finally saw some realistic potential in this becoming more than just practice.

And finally after six years of weekly uploads I had grown the YouTube channel to a point that I could at least try to go full-time, which I did and of course going full-time meant maximum focus on this project, which boosted the chances of success. Luckily, it went well and the YouTube channel became a functioning business :).

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I like to think of myself as somewhat resilient when I look back at my obsessive consistency, especially from October 2016 until February 2023 when I rigorously produced one video for every week. My rule was that something had to be published by Sunday 6pm, every single week, no exceptions – even during exam season or Christmas, this rule is what mattered most to me in this time period.

Was that healthy? Absolutely not. Did it work? Seems so. Would it have worked without the obsessiveness? I don’t know. Was I going to find it out and try my pursuit with less dedication? Absolutely not. Do I think this in some way shows resilience? I guess…?

I ended up dropping the rule in March 2023 and since then I usually publish 3 videos per month in order to slowly find some more balance in life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.teocrawford.com/
• Instagram: @teo_crawford
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@teocrawford