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Gavin John is a photojournalist and social documentary photographer based in Calgary and is currently one of Canada’s top conflict zone photographers. His work with Canada’s Globe & Mail and other national media organizations has focused on stories of adversity and resilience, often in underserved communities. As his career has grown and the demands of life have changed, Gavin wanted to find a work-life balance that kept him closer to home while also collaborating with a wider variety of clients, brands, and organizations. He signed up for our Client List Build (Custom) service to take his career to the next stage with a verified list of industry contacts.
My experience as a marketing professional in both the nonprofit and creative sectors has given me a range of administrative and personal skills that I use when working with photographers. In an industry where many of your colleagues are also your competitors, running a business as a freelance photographer can be isolating. It helps to have an impartial voice in your corner, and I strive to advocate for all my photographers, allowing them to understand their goals and work through their roadblocks.
A Client List Build (Custom) offers a verified list of industry contacts, perfectly suited to each photographer’s specialties, aesthetics, and goals. Each new project with a photographer begins with a one-on-one call to learn about their work, passions, and the setbacks and successes they’ve encountered so far in their career. A photographer’s ability to create art comes from both their background and the “why” that drives them to continue on this difficult and demanding career path. I firmly believe that understanding these elements is the key to connecting with photographers and the foundation that every consulting project relies on.
After the initial call, I always determine the past clients a photographer has worked with. This ensures that I’m not including these contacts in their list, and gives me a sense of the networking connections that have led from one job to another. Many freelance photographers rely on word-of-mouth referrals for their next projects, and based on this information I can usually determine the markets they’ve been able to tap into and where they can still amplify their reach. With this in mind, I research agencies, brands, and publications in the target markets to deliver a list of potential clients to whom photographers can market themselves.
Gavin’s strong sense of empathy, desire for social change, and his Indigenous identity has guided his path within the industry. He is a member of the organization Indigenous Photograph and successfully pitched and completed several projects for Globe & Mail documenting stories in these often overlooked communities. In addition to long-form assignments, Gavin has also captured historic moments like Pope Francis’s formal apology for the Canadian Residential School system in 2022. Furthermore, Gavin is certified to work in combat zones as a war correspondent by the Global Journalism Security organization and in 2016 covered the Battle of Mosul in Iraq where he was embedded on the frontlines with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
Through our conversations, I understood that Gavin strongly identifies with his own background and did not want to lose these aspects of his work. He was, however, also worried about being “typecast” in the industry and overlooked for other types of commercial opportunities. Moreover, a month-long job away from one’s family is hard to manage several times a year.
To meet Gavin’s needs, I focused on finding clients in the commercial sector who operate closer to home. Although he expressed interest in Outdoor/Adventure magazines and brands, I felt that he would be most successful marketing to NGOs and nonprofits. And, rather than spreading our research out over multiple industries, I knew that targeting one vertical at a time would produce a focused list that could yield results for Gavin.
While still employing storytelling in his work, a shift toward nonprofits and NGOs meets many of Gavin’s needs while also being a great market for his social documentary style. Depending on the organization, the subject matter would greatly change, but the projects would be more consistent with shorter assignments closer to home. He would also have the opportunity to work on projects that aren’t necessarily about the experiences of First Nations and Indigenous peoples, while still using his perspective to bolster the piece. Geographically, we targeted clients in Canada and the US, either close to the Pacific Northwest or cities like New York and Washington DC, where many international non-profits are based.
Gavin’s final list was roughly 70% Canadian organizations and 30% US-based/International. They range from institutions like the Canadian Council for Refugees to Right to Play Canada, while others focus on wildlife and conservation. I also looked for organizations that identify as First Nations or Indigenous or whose marketing teams publish Indigenous-related content. Before Gavin’s list, I had never researched these verticals and geographic markets, but a few hours combing the web for contacts on LinkedIn provided excellent results. Determining the correct individual at a nonprofit organization requires careful research of the size and scope of its operations. At smaller organizations, for example, it usually isn’t immediately clear who is in charge of photography as there often isn’t a budget for an art director. For that reason, I spent extra time researching those in marketing who represented aspects of storytelling.
As we wrapped up our sessions, I handed Gavin a unique list of 50 nonprofit clients and their contacts that he could use in his future marketing efforts. In our final conversations, we discussed the importance of continuous marketing and using relevant keywords when targeting specific clients. Finally, we drafted a template for a quarterly newsletter that Gavin can use to pitch case studies covering his long-term projects and articles for the Globe & Mail.
Gavin was delighted with the list and felt it was a great starting point for the next phase of his career. The list had local and international dream clients who appealed to his identity and perspective. Given how specific and unique this approach was, I found the process both challenging and extremely rewarding. I am so deeply moved by Gavin’s images and personal philosophy that I was inspired to help him find success in his photographic journey. The only difficulty we encountered was when he was away on assignments as we could not correspond during those times! I can’t wait to see which organizations discover the beauty of his work and find ways to incorporate his incredible vision into their own projects.
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Further Reading
Case Studies: Client List Builds
Specialty: Breaking News
Expert Advice: Email Campaign Analytics