A frugal mindset - Action Sports Photographer and Creative Director Reuben Krabbe
Reuben left the life of full-time employment behind when he jumped in a van and started chasing athletes around. He’d graduated from photography school during the 2008 financial crash and, with no apprenticeship or staff job, he was finding his own way, meeting new people as he went along.
He talks in detail about how he found work and clients at the beginning and now, including through networking, pitching, making a film and forming a production company with other freelancers.
Reuben also talks about managing the seasonality of his business given that skiing, his specialist area, is a winter sport, and how he manages his cashflow and boosts his income as a result.
More from Reuben Krabbe
Reuben’s film, Nebula on Amazon*
More from Steve Folland
*That’s an affiliate link. If you use it you won’t pay any more and you’ll be helping to keep Being Freelance in biscuits.
Join us in the Being Freelance community
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Action Sports Photographer and Creative Director Reuben Krabbe and Steve Folland
Reuben Krabbe: Hey, nice to be on.
Steve Folland: How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Reuben Krabbe: I started dreaming about being an action sport photographer when I was in high school and then at the end of high school, whenever anyone asked you what are you going to do with your life, I didn't have a better answer than to just go give it a try. I did one year of photography school and then when I finished that, it was 2008 and the economy had crashed. I got a full-time job for a little bit and then after that moved into my van and started chasing athletes around British Columbia to try and build a portfolio, and try to get started. And now I've called this a full-time job for just under a decade.
Steve Folland: You went from college basically into being freelance?
Reuben Krabbe: Yeah, I did one extra semester of business education and then after that I still had a full-time job during that year for some of the time. But yeah, then I got into it. I didn't work at any other place as a staff photographer or anything like that or an apprentice.
Steve Folland: When you were, say you were chasing athletes around, does that mean that you were doing it for free, off your own back, trying to build up a portfolio or how did you build up that portfolio?
Reuben Krabbe: Yeah, I was trying to network with different athletes and try to find athletes at the same step in their career as I was in mine. you're young and you don't have a portfolio, you've got the chicken and egg problem: you need to find good athletes, but good athletes don't want to shoot with people who don't have a portfolio that shows that they're good. You can't get started, it feels like. I was trying to shoot with other amateur skiers who were looking to try to get into the world of professional skiing, and those people are interested in spending a bunch of time waiting on the side of the mountain for a sunset, while a lot of people are really not interested in slowing down their ski days for the camera. Trying to find the right people was super useful for building a portfolio.
Steve Folland: Nice. And then how did you build that into a business once you had that?
Reuben Krabbe: Two different avenues, I guess. In skiing and in mountain biking, at least this was the way it was running 10 years ago, is that there is enough magazines that you could send just stock photos too. You could shoot all winter and then take your library of photos when the snow melted, and send it to an editor and the editor would pick a couple. And that was a way to get published a couple of times, get some credibility and get going. And then, I knew that it was still going to be really hard to get the ball rolling even with that avenue. I still built an architecture photography business on the side, and that was just my bread and butter that I made it roll. And I kept the two things separate so my architecture clients never knew that I skied, and my skiing clients never knew I did architecture, but that greased the wheel enough for me to be able to actually pursue ski photography in the end, without just going broke trying.
Steve Folland: Interesting. And how long would you say that it took to sort of build-up, so that you were confident to leave one behind rather than have them both?
Reuben Krabbe: Well, it was more just that it naturally evolved. I didn't specifically drop architecture photography, but I just didn't concentrate on at as much. Let's say in my first year, my architecture was 70% of my business, second year, 50, third year, 40, maybe another year at 20 or so like that. And then it just sort of fell away because I wasn't trying to build new clients and architecture photography is also evolving rapidly. I actually had sort of an old-style by then, so I've got hired once or twice since, but that's sort of over.
Steve Folland: How did you focus further on gaining those clients in the action sports? Was it just a case that over time people started to discover you and came to you? How did you build that client base?
Reuben Krabbe: It's a lot of networking. Most of that in the ski world just happens in bars or on chairlifts, or just by still shooting all of this stock library and then sending it off to the athlete's sponsors because all of the photographs that you create hopefully have an inherent value, that they're portraying someone who's actually sponsored. So then when you send it to that sponsor, then they actually want to buy this photo of their celebrity skier. Then I also still concentrate on a couple other different methods of promotion, which were some photography competitions. Slide shows in photography at that time were actually one of the biggest, coolest things. I was trying to get into some of these slideshow competitions at Whistler and in Revelstoke to put my work on the screen in front of a thousand people at a time, or so. And if you get to that opportunity, where you can hold your audience captive for five minutes, then you can really show them a whole bunch of what you're about, rather than on Instagram where you're in and out of someone's brain within two seconds and it's really hard to make an impression.
Steve Folland: Yeah. I mean, you say you sent it to a sponsor for example, they might pay for it, how did you know what you were doing business-wise? Pricing wise?
Reuben Krabbe: When I started photography there happened to be a very cool photography forum to started up by some of the bigger action sport photographers. They were noticing a bunch of amateurs coming in and a lot of them being pretty ignorant and not really knowing much about the rates. They started this forum to try to help build skills but also really to be also securing pricing and making sure that people actually communicated about it. In action sport photography, and I still say that I experience this now is that, things are really open, that I can call up my competitors who are also my friends and say like, "Hey, I've got this job, I was thinking of pricing this. What do you think?
Reuben Krabbe: And because of that attitude we're able to survive and make sure that we actually charge respectable rates and that young people who come in will on one side, not undercut the professionals, but on the other side, they'll actually make some good money because I want them to make money, I want any and all of us to succeed. It's better for me if you charge good prices, it's better for you if you do as well.
Steve Folland: Yeah, so actually it's better to embrace the competition?
Reuben Krabbe: Absolutely. And then, that ends up having different great feedback loops in other ways that I've received in giving photoshoots that I couldn't do to peers and competitors as well. It also is just nice that you're not feeling like you can't talk to a person. And they experience all of the same stuff that you do. They have all of these really ridiculous experiences and it's nice to have a sense of community around that.
Steve Folland: What's it look like for you? When it comes to work, do you wait for people to come to you and you sort of, I don't know who you have job after job after job, or are you pitching to people ideas of things? Yeah, how's it work for you?
Reuben Krabbe: It's a mixed bag. I have some repeat clients, I have some clients who I'm also sponsored by, different ski or clothing manufacturers. In that, I end up with a bit of loyalty from the people who work there. And then, I do a lot of pitching. I find that most of the work that I really enjoy is something where I create a concept, dream something up, tell them what that thing is that I want to do, or that I think is going to be interesting, and then I am able to go out and shoot it or produce it. That might be a photography project, that might be a video project with photography. But I've been coming up with these concepts to try to execute.
Reuben Krabbe: What that looks like is often, well, the people who work in marketing departments are often so close to their own wall that they're managing all of these different aspects of their marketing that they're not sitting down for a moment and just having sort of blue-sky ideas of like what's possible, what could be attached to our brand. And when you walk in the door and give them great ideas, then all of a sudden you solve problems for them that they didn't know that they had, that their all of a sudden they're like, "Oh, this is such an interesting idea that we don't even have to do a big ad buy." People will inherently want to see this on social media. And those kinds of solutions for a brand are very valuable. And then that's sort of what gets me through the door to shoot photographs.
Steve Folland: Is that constantly pushing what you want to do and thinking about how you might be able to help people?
Reuben Krabbe: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, just trying to offer value. If you walk in the door as an action sport photographer and you say, "Hey, I want to do the same stuff that you've already done, but I'm a different guy who does it. And I also wanted to get paid a thousand dollars a day," or more than that is a normal photographer rate. And if you walk in the door just with your hands cupped saying, "Can I have a whole bunch of money from you?" That's not going to work. You have to walk in the door saying, "What can I do that, if I turn up and I get paid this much, that you guys get so much value that that looks like a deal?" That's a huge aspect of what I'm trying to offer when I contact people.
Steve Folland: You mentioned film, was that something you did at first? Video, film, as well as photography or was that something where you spotted a need?
Reuben Krabbe: I've done a little bit of film, a little bit with a camera in my hand, but not so much of that. And I'm trying to branch into it because a lot of my concepts end up needing to be executed in motion. That's the kind of stuff that you see gets absorbed more, people are looking at that kind of product more, and because you get to hold an audience longer, brands are interested in it because they get to contact a consumer for more than two seconds on Instagram. They get to contact them for one minute or two minutes, depending how long the video is. And the concepts that I like to dream up might actually have quite a bit of thought behind them, and it's hard to get that across in a single photograph. Video's starting to become a larger part of what I'm pitching and what I'm trying to create. And sometimes I'll have a cinematographer doing the actual filming while I'm directing the piece.
Steve Folland: Cool. I was going to ask if you collaborate with others or you're sort of lone wolf in the mountains there. So how often do you have people that you work with and are you hiring them directly or?
Reuben Krabbe: Well, I have tried many different formats of it and I've tried just stitching together different freelancers. And unfortunately, businesses don't really seem to want to buy that as a product. They would rather go to a production company to make films because it's simple. They know how they operate, and then they know that everyone's qualified. After a different project that I did with two friends last year, I started a production company with them. Now, I'm a one of three people of Sky Island Pictures and we're pitching together to try to get video concept work. The most recent one was a two-minute tourism video that we've created.
Steve Folland: Cool. In a way, it's kind of the same setup. As in you've got maybe three specialized freelancers coming together and working together, but in the mind of the client, it feels different because you're presenting yourself differently.
Reuben Krabbe: Yeah, I think so. I think it feels like you're buying a better quality product if you're going to a specific production company, rather than just saying like, "Oh, I know Bob over there and I know Sally and the three of us can probably make this for you, but we have conflicting schedules, and we don't know what's going to happen." And then, it just doesn't feel as dialled. I think that's probably part of why some of the concept pitching that I've done before has sort of fallen flat because I didn't have a specific avenue to say, "We can pull this off," and a specific portfolio to say this is what we've done.
Steve Folland: How have you found working in that way with those people? Has it all been plain sailing or any challenges?
Reuben Krabbe: It's been challenging, for sure. I always used to wonder why everyone's called business so hard amongst friends, but I think that it's dependent on whether or not you're actually part of the same business. If you're all freelancers turning up, everyone has very defined roles, and no one has to work together on marketing, no one has to work together on the corporate bookkeeping together. Where then if you have it in one spot, you can have blurred expectations and slightly different trajectories. And if your trajectories are a little bit different, that can end up with a little bit of rub because yeah, freelancers and creatives are really passionate about where they want to go. It's been a great learning experience because of that but interesting and different.
Steve Folland: Is the work you do very seasonal? I'm just thinking of snow, but that may just be my experiences, but maybe there are bits of Canada where it's there all the time? Yeah, so far we've heard a lot of the word skiing, so I'm imagining it's seasonal.
Reuben Krabbe: It's incredibly seasonal. And then even within the ski season there's very particular timing of how it can work because the busiest part of the season is Christmas, and that's also during the time when they're actually selling seasons passes and figuring out are we going to make money this year or not? And how did our marketing from last year work? No one in a marketing department sits down to really think about it until January. And then you're already about a third of the way through the snow season. Then you negotiate ideas, concepts, and then everyone wants February and March. There's sort of two months where you're trying to stack up most of your production, and then April is questionable or some resorts are closed. Or that's when you go into the really, really big mountain terrain that is normally too dangerous.
Reuben Krabbe: It's incredibly seasonal and it's constantly difficult. And like this year with COVID-19, the ski hills across North America just closed. I have two standing contracts that we're looking at, wondering do we just let it go? Is this gone or do we try to produce in the backcountry, and is that ethical? If we bring an athlete out into the backcountry and they break their leg, that's normally a really, really bad thing but it's a risk that we accept. But overburdening the healthcare system right now is a pretty terrible thing to be doing so we might just not be able to shoot for this whole company.
Steve Folland: In general, how have you managed your business to cope with that seasonality? How do you manage your year?
Reuben Krabbe: Yeah, I'm doing a lot more than just the skiing. Skiing is just primarily the work that I'm known for. At different times of the year. I'm shooting mountain biking, I'm shooting just sort of normal tourism stuff like people drinking white wine at sunset. But as far as the passionate work or the work that I'm known for, that stuff's all skiing. As far as managing the cyclical nature of it, honestly, it's just trying to continue cram as much work in as possible most of the time, and trying to stay frugal in your mindset because you don't know how long you're going to go hungry and dry for. If you can minimize your financial outflow and that seems to be for me, the best way to just manage the rollercoaster of finance in the freelance world. Because if you look at a large cheque as a large opportunity to go live large, you're going to find rock bottom really quickly and also just live with a lot of stress.
Reuben Krabbe: I know other people will use the line of credit to be able to float that and there's just different styles for that. But I've just tried to stay away from debt and right now with things looking like I might not get work for three months or six months, now that is looking a little bit stressful.
Steve Folland: Have you come up with a system of asking, do you get paid stuff upfront before you do work? I imagine there's a lot of expenses, travelling expenses, in a job? How have you figured out how best to deal with that with clients or is that just an industry-wide accepted way of working?
Reuben Krabbe: If you're working on a large job that's over say $10,000 of expenses and fees, you might get a deposit on the shoot, before that and under that it's very unlikely. And then, the ski world is also notoriously bad for cashflow. The payment date on your invoice is borderline irrelevant. Some places are going to pay in five days, some people might be paying you in five months. And that's a really hard thing to manage and I know that that's the specific reason that a lot of people have actually just left the ski world. They're just like, "Nobody cares about my work and they don't respect anyone. They don't respect workers," but the nature of their business being snow, being seasonal, their cashflow is really messed up too. I've tried to be able to avoid being the invoice hunter as well, and that's ended up being able to help maintain some of these relationships. And if my expectation is that this invoice is going to be 90 days and that's just how it works. But you just have to sort of accept it as the rules of engagement before you get into the ski world, I guess.
Steve Folland: You obviously do a lot of client work and some of that is you suggesting particular styles to people, but do you do any of your own work? Do you have a revenue stream which is based around your work rather than needing to be paid by a client, if you see what I mean?
Reuben Krabbe: Selling prints and products to consumers directly? I do a little bit of that. I do get some people contacting me to just buy some prints of some of the different projects that I've worked on. But there's not too much of that. The most recent time that I did that with this Nebula project where I tried to basically take a picture that looks like it's from the Hubble Telescope and then fit a skier into it. And the movie around that ended up generating some buzz so people will end up contacting me every once in a while hinting for a print.
Steve Folland: Is the movie all about trying to capture one specific very hard to get photo?
Reuben Krabbe: Exactly, yeah. It's mostly me being extremely stressed out, trying to shoot a single photo. It's a bit of a comedy. I didn't mean for it to be a comedy, in any way. During the premiere, people were laughing really hard and I was like, yeah, I guess this is actually very funny, watching me just run around stressed out at night. This was a different side of passion, creativity and also a little hint of marketing, was trying to create specific images that would sort of break out of the form where you're just feeding Instagram. Where I think a lot of people are looking to try to consistently feed Instagram every day, but that means I need a 100 or 200 photos a year that they need to put into that thing. And producing that much content to just throw into Instagram, which may or may not be in a revenue stream, is really hard.
Reuben Krabbe: I started thinking about what could you do with ski photography that's going to hold attention and be interesting outside of the internet formats, and what actually draws some eyes and what can people engage with? This Nebula one was the third of three. The first one was Northern Lights and skiing. The second one was a solar eclipse and skiing, and that one got funded by in a movie created by Salomon ski brand. And then this last one Nebula, was self-created and that's the one that started that production company that I have with two friends of mine. And that last one, I wanted to make the movie partially because I knew that the photograph would probably just look like Photoshop to most people without being able to see the backstory. There's sort of, the photograph needed the movie and the movie needs the photographs. They sort of had to be a two-piece package.
Steve Folland: That is so cool. As you say, it's a form of marketing in itself as well as just something creatively to enjoy. And is it available to buy?
Reuben Krabbe: Yeah, you can find Nebula on Amazon Prime and iTunes and nebula-film.com, or through my website, reubenkrabbe.com
Steve Folland: Can't wait to see that. Clearly, you're doing something you love, but how do you feel like your work life balance is?
Reuben Krabbe: I think it just really switches around from, sometimes when you're very busy you just go with it because you know that the slow times happen. But then, also sometimes during the slow times, if you're a little bit hungry you don't know that you should just actually be taking a break. It's honestly hard. And this last year has actually been one where I worked more than ever. I was just pitching and pitching and pitching, and nothing was getting through. That made me just want to work harder and as a result I didn't actually take very much personal time. It's honestly incredibly hard to do and the only thing I'm starting to try to think of now is, I need to start flipping my priorities here and actually just prioritize putting in rest, putting in time with friends, and putting in recreation without the camera bag. And then, I know that photography will fill every waking moment around that if I allow it to anyways.
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Reuben Krabbe: You can't escape cliche or you can't escape being and experiencing all of the things that people tell you. I find it funny just growing older and I'm seeing this in a lot of at different places right now, how people warn you, it's like, "Oh, it's better to go to business school than it is to go to photography school." And you're like, everyone tells you this and then you go to photography school and you're like, "Oh, I definitely need some business education." And now looking back I'm like, "Oh yeah, I could be a very bad photographer, but if I was good at business that would be fine." And then just seeing, I turned 30 this year and it's like the first half of your thirties is when most ski photographers leave the industry, and they go elsewhere and shoot other things.
Reuben Krabbe: And I don't think I'm going to leave skiing, but I can see that I'm actually right now intentionally branching out and moving around just because I'm growing tired of standing around in a dangerous avalanche train all of the time. If you, to my younger self, I used to always be like, "Oh no, I'm going to do this for my entire life and I'm just going to go to a photography school, and I'm going to be so good at this that people, it doesn't matter if I'm bad at business, I'm going to be good enough at photography." And now all of those things are starting to ring true. And this, I think just a little bit of good wisdom to be carrying forward into different aspects of life as well.
Steve Folland: Right now, it's interesting, it sounds like you're planning for your future, but are you just doing it in a gradual way, or are you doing it in quite an intentional way?
Reuben Krabbe: I like to be intentional with where I'm going and how I'm spending my life. There's intentional progression and branching out, and I think that I've been quite lucky that occasionally I've had a season where I travelled a bunch, and the snow back home was really bad. And then the next year I got all of my work back home and the snow was good. And I could have been on either side of those and accidentally have booked it wrong, and that might've been in the end of my ski career. Trying to diversify it as both a business strategy and also just an experience strategy. I want to do different things, I want to keep trying, I want to keep sucking at things because I want to keep learning. I am looking to different experiences and trying to figure out what those might be.
Steve Folland: Reuben, thank you so much and all the best being freelance.
Reuben Krabbe: All right. Thank you very much, Steve. All the best of you too.