Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Victoria Chetley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Victoria, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I always had a passion for photography but it wasn’t until I went to college and had a fantastic professor who told me I could actually make photography my career that I even realised it was an option. After that I was adamant that’s all I wanted and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I went to Brighton university to study photography but couldn’t afford to intern for free, so when I moved to London after uni I felt a bit like I was already way behind my peers. I guess because of this I went a bit of a different route and sought out jobs that would allow me to pick up a camera daily even if they weren’t the glamorous fashion jobs I’d dreamt of. This included working for a children’s amusement centre and taking any freelance job that came my way. I did eventually land a part time job shooting for a vintage company which gave me exactly what I was looking for but the fact that it was part time made it really difficult to afford living in London anymore.

After six months I moved to Manchester, arguably a weird move when at the time London was “the place to be”. However, I found the industry here was much more open and the first Senior Photographer I worked under was keen to get me shooting campaigns and growing my skill. Without him I don’t think I’d be half the photographer I am today. I worked for various fashion and beauty brands in Manchester growing my skillset and experience until I felt ready to take the plunge and work for myself.

I as always worried about not making enough money, and frankly not being good enough. It took a dear friend of mine who was also a freelancer sitting me down and saying “you know you can do this right” for me to take to leap. And since then it’s been pretty similar to my first few years, lots of “no”s or usually a no response but also lots of “yes”s and lots of moments where I’ve had to pinch myself that I’ve come so far.

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

So I’m a freelance fashion, beauty & product photographer. I’ve worked for the past 7 years either in house or on a one off client basis for companies all across England.

I was always fascinated by cameras and photography growing up, and my poor dad used to go out with me at 5am to photograph the streets of Suffolk when I was a teenager. I did the usual arts college thing but eventually found I learnt the most on the job, and have tried to squeeze as much as possible out of every opportunity. I’ve been fully freelance for the past year and work closely with different clients to create eye-catching imagery for their brands.

My style is routed in my love of colour and fashion, but also my joy of simple and iconic design. I prefer a set that has depth, but is free of mess and too many props. I’m also a very technical photographer, always wanting to try different and sometimes unnecessarily complex(!) lighting set ups to elevate to the next level. I create a lot of still life imagery for various beauty brands which is where I often really get my teeth into experimenting with new ideas.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think there is still so often a view that creatives and artists are not worth being paid as much as other workers, and I’ve seen it pretty often this past year when my invoices don’t get paid on time and I have to chase repeatedly for months. No one can create confidently and with freedom in a system where they’re constantly having to send out chaser emails to get their rent paid. It’s such a simple thing that anyone working with a creative or any freelancer can do, pay them for their time, on time.

There’s also been a massive decrease in arts funding over the past decade and that immediately makes it harder for working class people to attain a career in the arts, or even consider it a possibility. We saw during the Covid pandemic that a Tory government doesn’t consider the arts a viable career option when it was suggested artists and creatives should re-train, so how can we grow a thriving creative sector under that kind of leadership? It worries me that we’ll end up with a much smaller viewpoint as so many people are priced out, and the joy and importance of art comes from the way it can tell every story if we let it.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

My career started at an interesting time where social media was certainly a thing that existed but it wasn’t really being used as a business platform, and it was something that wasn’t ever mentioned during my photography course. Now it’s pretty much vital to my business and every other photographer I know uses it to source clients and update people on their work.

I’ve always been a bit rubbish with social media as I’m very much an in the moment person (also why I’m useless at getting bts content on campaign shoots!), so I’ve had to really teach myself how to get it to work for me. It’s something I imagine or at least hope is discussed at a higher education level now as it’s so crucial to having a creative business in this day and age. It’s an ever evolving beast so it’ll be interesting to see how it moves on in the next decade and what effect that’ll have on photographers and other creatives.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.victoriachetley.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriachetley/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriachetley/

Image Credits
VC_1: Kea Dias (model), Ryoko Ushio (MUA), Lewis Foster (retoucher) VC_2: Jess (model), Lucy Hart (HMUA), Olivia Roseanna (AD & stylist), Lewis Foster (retoucher) VC_3: none VC_4: India Alexandria (model & makeup) VC_5: Meg Taylor Lilley (model), Ange Oatley (HMUA) VC_6: Lucy Hart (model & MUA) VC_7: Grace (model), Mariah Davies-Brown (MUA), Sarah Newman (stylist), Doku Designs (earrings) VC_8: none