Case studies : Freelance commercial photographer: Holly Booth

Holly is a freelance fashion photographer. She studied a BA (Hons) Commercial Photography degree at the University of Derby and graduated in 2010.

After graduating and still finding my feet with my freelance career, I carried out two internships that were organised by the Career Development Centre at my university. One of the internships was working at a local arts and culture magazine, helping them with their social networking and organising a creative fair.

In September 2010, I became self-employed but continued with my internships alongside until the start of 2011. Since then I have been working full time as a freelance photographer.

My degree programme is very relevant to my current work. I studied commercial photography, which is what I'm now working in. I specialise in fashion work, and the skills I learnt and experience I gained during my course definitely prepared me for my career choice.

Every day is different, which is one of the joys of being self-employed. I am either on a photo-shoot or planning for one, editing or meeting with clients. I always actively use social media to promote myself and my services, so time spent keeping things updated is also incorporated into most working days. Being self-employed means I get to choose my own hours, which is probably the only difficult thing as it's hard to switch off.

At the moment I still feel like I am at the start of my career, but I am already working for a variety of clients throughout the UK and have had a number of images published in magazines. I hope for this to continue and for my workload to grow.

I really enjoy meeting new people and working with a team, I find it very rewarding to work together with other creative people to produce a series of images which we can all be proud of.

When work quietens down it can be a little worrying, but all jobs are affected by seasonal changes so it is to be expected. I try to keep myself busy and not let myself be put off. Work always comes up eventually and surprises me.

I have been interested in photography for almost ten years now, so to have a job that I love is very rewarding. I really enjoy working with and being around other creative people so I find working in the creative sector to be the ideal situation for me.

The advice I would give to any graduates wanting to enter this type of work is to network, but very importantly, don't spend too much time looking at what others are doing - focus on your own work and finding your own style. If you're passionate about what you do, others will recognise that, praise you and maybe even pay you for it.