Making Spec ads for paid work

Reebok Nano Ad

Make every second count

‘Hey can you work for exposure?’ – the one sentence sure to raise the hairs on any content creators neck. Exposure won’t pay rent of get me toilet paper now will it! Well this post isn’t about doing loads of free work for a profiting company (while I am vehemently against that its up to each individual to make up their own mind). 

This post is about making work that you want to make so you can learn a new skill or build your portfolio. 

For example, I wanted to play around with digital backgrounds and long exposure photography. The end result is the main image you see above, a spec advert for the Reebok Nano trainer with 99% of the image you see being shot in camera (obviously the logo and tagline added in post).

Now Reebok never paid me for that post, probably because they never asked me to make anything for them in the first place. But I was interested in learning more about digital backdrops (for the record this was my TV screen set to a YouTube video with crazy backgrounds) so I did it in my own time. When you don’t have a paying client things can be a lot more freeing. No one to submit drafts to or outline your ideas or inspiration. You get to shoot what you want, how you want it and that is always helpful in furthering your craft. 

Ultimately what the photo did give me was some knowledge on a set up that I really enjoyed and got me another product photography piece for my portfolio…oh and Reebok did get in touch in the end so thats kinda cool to I guess 😉