The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own.  I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before.  In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.  Please DO NOT send me your work.  I do not take submissions.

Today’s featured artist:  Adam Ewing

Early in my career, I realized the importance of shooting personal images to coincide with the work I was actually assigned to do. I started shooting as an editorial photographer after a long tenure of assisting editorial and commercial photographers. When I would get to a location I was assigned to shoot, I would quickly scan the area as I scouted for the job and take notice of things that interested me.

I made a habit of taking mental notes during jobs and then for a few minutes at the end of an assignment I would shoot something for myself in a style that wasn’t what I was professionally hired to do. After a while, I built a large enough library that my commercial clients took notice. One day I got a call from Anya Mills, an art buyer at the Martin Agency, an advertising agency I was doing a lot work for at the time. One of the art directors at the Martin Agency, Ty Harper, had seen some of this personal work on my site and wanted me to shoot a project for the paint company, Benjamin Moore. It was a dream assignment.

They flew me to different cities around the United States to find things I wanted to shoot, and to shoot them in my signature style. They sent me with an in-house producer, Ross Skinner, and together we spent a few weeks on the road, looking for buildings and townscapes that would fall into what the client wanted for an image library. I would see something I liked, and Ross would seek out the permission and get the proper releases so Benjamin Moore could use the images commercially.

I normally shoot portraits, but every so often someone sees this personal work and it leads to inquiries about licensing or to a new assignment to shoot in that same style.

To see more of this project, click here.

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s.  After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty.  Follow her at @SuzanneSeaseInstagram

 

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