Hello I’m Steve Smailes. I am a freelance photographer specialising in editorial, commercial, events and wedding photography. After graduating from the Media Production course in 2012 I stayed put in Lincoln and never left! The work was here and the base of contacts I’d built up while at university was paying dividends, so why leave? Now over 4 years on, my partner and I have bought a house with our dog Benny. I work under my own name for clients big and small, mostly in Lincolnshire. Most notably The Lincolnite and its sister publications Lincolnshire Business and Lincolnshire Reporter which is a large chunk of the work I do with my images seen by over 500,000 readers a month! I’ve also worked with the Lincolnshire Showground, Macmillan Cancer Support, Visit Lincoln, LIVES, Relentless Energy Drink and even the University of Lincoln itself.

I also find time to help out students in my own time. I’m part of the university’s mentoring scheme that links students with industry (at LSFM many mentors are working graduates) to offer advice on life after uni course work and business advice. LSFM Mentoring is a really rewarding scheme for both parties and my mentee Emily has got to come on a few jobs with me, which I hope was a real boost for her work experience. I often go for coffee chats with her, and also students from Lincoln College too and have given talks to level 3 students and local camera clubs.

I recently have been focusing on promoting my business more and harnessing the solid range of high quality images I’ve taken over the last few years. My website is a showcase with examples of my creative work from across the photography spectrum in a bigger and clearer format than ever before. My aim for the year is to get my new look site www.stevesmailesphotography.co.uk on to the front page of Google for Lincolnshire photographers and even after a few weeks of the release of the site it’s showing great results and new work is coming my way.

Please give me your reactions to the site on social media and get in touch regarding any photographic needs via my Facebook page or on Twitter @SSmailesPhoto.

If you’re looking for advice on working for yourself drop me an email at stevesmailesphotography@gmail.com with any questions and seek help from the Uni’s Careers team and the team at Sparkhouse – both offer loads of advice on getting set up and let you know about grants and other things designed to give recent graduates a helping hand when setting up a business.

I post lots of images and other things on my social mediums which you can follow me on through the links on my website.