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Learning new tricks


Using lockdown to get extra skills can open doors – and the sky’s the limit


lost work, commissions and is owed money by one of her clients. “It’s been quite a challenge,” she said. Victoria has been grounded in Swansea since lockdown and decided to try out a new skill she had acquired the previous summer from a NUJ Wales Training course. She has since started Trot Around


I


Travel, a podcast about what life aſter lockdown will hold for travel and tourism across Europe. In the first episode, she discusses whether it is a good idea to travel to Spain this summer with the Daily Telegraph expert, Annie Bennet. She said: “It’s given me great satisfaction puting it together and it’s a good way to maintain my profile. I’ve done a few courses with NUJ Wales; they have all been good and are great value.” Andrew Draper, who runs a


translation and journalism agency based in Porth in the Rhondda Valley, has also put an NUJ Wales Training workshop on making videos on his phone to good use. He shot film for


t has not been easy being a travel writer during the Covid-19 crisis. Victoria Trot, who specialises in writing about Europe, has


a successful campaign to stop the closure of the 24-hour accident and emergency unit at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital. He now has a potential new client who showed interest in video production. “At £38 it was a great price and it’s always good to have another skill to offer,” he said


Charlote Graham is the proud


owner of a drone qualification – and no one is more surprised than she is. Charlote, a Yorkshire-based, freelance photographer, said: “I’m coming up to 60 and hadn’t expected to have had to acquire new skills to get work. But it’s been great. I’ve since taken some stunning pictures.” When the Covid-19 crisis started, she moved to where the work was – away from her more usual “fluffy” subject mater – to cover the pandemic news story. It was interesting work, apart from not being able to find a toilet or anywhere


to eat, she said. Ten the national newspapers’


budgets tightened and, as ever, the freelances were the first to be chopped. Charlote’s other sources of work, the National Trust and Royal Horticultural Society, turned to the Press Association to put out pictures, so she did the online drone course with a company called Heliguy. “I could do it from my kitchen rather than the classroom, which suited me,” she said.


It soon paid off, with a half-page picture in Te Daily Telegraph of a bird’s eye view of aircraſt being taken out of storage at the Yorkshire Air Museum as it re-opened to the public. She has since signed a contract with London North Eastern Railway.


Look out for the bi-monthly NUJ Active for a listing of training opportunities.


• You can see Charlote’s portfolio at www.charlotegraham. photography/ • Trot Around Travel: htps://anchor.fm/trotaroundtravel • Andrew Draper, Nordic International: htps://nordicinternational. co.uk/meet-the-team/


TRAINING


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