50 | Who you are, where you are.
Hello all,
Welcome back to another edition of The Practice.
Last week, I wrote about seasonality and longevity, which I continue to think about daily. In line with this, I am reflecting on what I’ve learned in the last couple of years and developing intentions for the future. It is a season of shifts, and I enjoy riding the wave.
This week, I am touching on the idea that your work doesn’t depend solely on where you are but on the confluence of who you are and where you are.
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Five years ago, I left a full-time job in journalism and the booming Salt Lake City area for a midsized city in the Rust Belt for my partner’s work. We moved to South Bend, Indiana, a city of over 100,000 people, often known for a prestigious Catholic university on the city's north side and the current secretary of transportation.
Looking back, I realize some simple tactics (with a certain amount of luck/timing and privilege) were integral to building my creative practice and business.
Seeing opportunities
Early in my service in the United States Peace Corps in Cambodia, a fellow volunteer shared the phrase, “Bloom where you are planted.”
When I heard it, I was 22 and quite naive and overly earnest (still am?), but the idea that there is a place to grow if you recognize it resonated with me. This message encouraged me to see the reality of the place, look for a way to be rooted and cultivate growth that served others and myself.
I only recently realized that this mentality was essential when navigating the uncertainty of starting a business in a new place.
What has worked is:
A willingness to work with what you are presented.
Creating space for the work you would like to do.
Every location has unique limitations and opportunities.
Higher education and manufacturing are vital industries in my region. Coming from a background in journalism, my portfolio needed more experience in these areas. But, after recognizing what industries offered consistent work, I dug into building these parts of my portfolio.
I could channel my energy into areas that would produce stability for my creative work, which inevitably shifted how I viewed success.
Success = stability
When I set out to be a photographer, I thought success would be found when my photos appeared in the most prominent newspapers or magazines.
A sliver of that is true.
My heart races when a photo of mine lands in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Businessweek, etc. But these are fleeting feelings mostly tied to my ego and the hope of being a part of “something important” more than anything else.
More recently, I’ve realized success can also be stability.
Achieving this required shifts. My portfolio now consists of more commercial work, and I’ve spent countless calls, emails, and conversations educating clients on the value of creative work and its price tag.
When I went independent, I needed to become more familiar with this education of clients. Coming from staff positions, negotiations were rarely a part of the work, but now, I am constantly negotiating expectations, pricing, etc. These conversations are integral to developing a stable business, which I am continually learning has less to do with the creative aspect and more with professionalism, timeliness, etc.
Over the years, I’ve found that success in stability is something far more within my control and motivates me to take action. This can look like sending a cold email, passing off a business card, or pushing back on a bad contract. These can feel uncomfortable, but creatives who want stability in their business will quickly see the benefits.
This growth in my business has allowed me to have the time and space to meet my clients' needs and pour myself into the creative projects I am personally focused on. Additionally, this stability allows me to pursue creative projects or educate myself to continue developing my work.
Who you are
In February, while covering an event, a speaker mentioned the phrase, “It’s not where you are. It is who you are, where you are.”
I immediately thought about how this applies to being a working creative.
Where you are contributes to the opportunities and community you will be a part of. It can set the baseline for where you might begin. For me and my work, this impacted the type of photography I was doing to sustain my business.
But who you are as a creative goes beyond the scope of the frame (for photographers) and incorporates you into the work you create and how you do it. It can be how you work with clients and negotiate, the style of imagery and techniques you use, or how you incorporate the community into your practice.
For me, who we are as creatives has felt tied to a personal perspective or voice. I usually attribute this to past experiences. Recently, I realized that this was only a portion of it.
Who we are as creatives comes from our experiences and how we see those experiences within our current context. Additionally, it comes from how we utilize the knowledge and know-how from those experiences in our current lives.
This has meant identifying how my past has influenced my present and examining the overall impact of my environment. Often, I feel as if I am constantly writing through the lens of reflection on what has happened, but it is in this headspace that I begin to see the path behind me more clearly and look ahead with more directionality.
I can see how curiosity has often guided my work, and I can see that in my work today. More recently, I have seen how that curiosity and willingness to adjust my work have helped cultivate a place to continue growing as a creative person.
Photographing my photographs
The portraits below were commissioned as prop headshots for the “A Chorus Line” cast at the University of Notre Dame. You can also view the simple setup I utilized to offer a variety of backgrounds for the portraits.
The 2x3 poster board was easily changed depending on the character's outfit and personality. Lastly, you can see the headshots utilized in the performance.
This is the last week that I’ll be selling a myriad of travel prints and a couple of my past zines. The online store will close at the end of April.