 From pharmaceutical sales to professional portrait photographer
Kate Griffiths LBIPP is enjoying her first year as a professional photographer. After qualifying in March 2006 and gaining her Licentiateship, she has set up her own business "LittleOnes Photography" and landed a massive advertising opportunity with the BBC.
Kate's photography is a relatively recent venture as her background is predominantly a medical one. Kate started photography as a hobby and became addicted. Although Kate had a good eye and natural approach to photographing children, the help and advice she received from fellow BIPP members was just what she needed to help turn her hobby into a career. Len Dance FBIPP gave Kate the opportunity to work in his studio to learn some basic yet vital skills in lighting. "The experience was invaluable and very much appreciated" says Kate. Kate then went on to gain her Licentiateship qualification with the guidance and encouragement of Llewellyn Robins FBIPP.
Kate wasted no time putting her new qualification to use and after attending three courses in photoshop and sales and marketing, LittleOnes Photography was born! 
Before setting up the company, Kate followed a recommendation from Ray Lowe FBIPP to go on a Peak Photography course which transformed Kate's images: "My images started to look professional overnight and improved 100% - I had taught myself Photoshop and learnt so many bad ways that I was destroying good images just from not knowing how to use the software."
"I also took advantage of my BIPP FastTrack foundation course and went along to a Neil Warner FBIPP marketing presentation. That gave me a good insight and was very interesting." Having a background in pharmaceutical sales, Kate had a good knowledge of sales techniques, but lacked the marketing input. "I am very good at coming up with good ideas, but not so good at implementing them! So the course was great for me to formulate some good marketing plans for the company."
Kate was thrilled when the popular BBC programme "What not to wear" approached her to photograph a family session for one of the episodes scheduled to be televised in October 2006. Not one to miss an opportunity, Kate got T-shirts made with her company name and web site on the back. "On the advice of Llewellyn Robins FBIPP I explained to the director that I would not be retaining the copyright for the images and she was welcome to use them, but I asked if she would mind putting LittleOnes Photography on the programme's web site. Of course she said 'thank you and yes'!"
The bulk of Kate's business is children's and baby portrait photography. Kate's aim is to create a collection of images which tell a story about each child and show their individual character. Kate particularly loves taking photos of newborns and presenting them as a big compositional story board.
"I feel very blessed to be earning a living doing what I love and to have had all the support and guidance from my family and particularly from Llewellyn, but also Ray and Len, for which I am extremely grateful."
Visit http://www.littleonesphotography.com | 
