You Can Take It With You!

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All photographs ©2009 Erin Karp.

Erin, who's been working on her photography with me for two semesters now, wrote with a story that illustrates a core concept we've been discussing, namely: take your work with you everywhere!



At the cafe where she's dialing out the espresso, a customer offhandedly quips about work and busyness, and Erin replies something inconsequential about how the day is going, as one does, and then mentions that she's an aspiring photographer using the barrista gig to support the picture-making.



Erin writes:
We continued and he asks if I saw his collection of photos at ICP's museum recently.  I say, "Oh! You're a photographer?"  He says, "No, I'm a collector!"  I say, "Wow, cool! Want to see my portfolio?" Haha.  And so he looked at my photos and started to say, "Oh, these are pretty, but you've got to find a new way to depict the flowers since so many photographers shoot them."  Valid point.  Then I had to deal with tables, came back to this man (who was very genuinely evaluating my photos), and he says, "Actually, I completely retract what I just said!  You do see things in a new way, you have an incredible eye...."  He just went on.  And then he asked for my card. !!!! 



Fantastic. Who knows where the story goes from here. But one thing is absolutely for sure — if the work hadn't been there, the conversation wouldn't have even gotten started.


Here's the thing: you've already got so much time and money into this (cameras, lenses, computers, and the hours upon hours shooting and printing), let's jump to the next step: put the pictures in a binder or a box or make an iPhoto book (or any POD book for that matter), and keep them with you.

Start a conversation; you've got something to show.




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