Priscilla Gragg

Who printed it?
I printed the cover myself using my office’s hp desk jet 3755 printer. The images were printed with https://www.artifactuprising.com

Who designed it?
I designed it myself and I was inspired by the French company that makes photo books called Innocence (https://www.innocence-paris.com/fr/). Melissa McGill helped me edit the final selection for printing.

Tell me about the images?
The images are from a trip we took this summer to my home country Brazil. We went to Bahia, a place that I had never been to. We try to go to Brazil once a year and usually we just go to my parent’s home in São Paulo where I grew up. This year I wanted to try something that would be exciting and new for all of us, including my parents… so we all met in Trancoso. I was very excited about the location we were going to and I knew I wanted to photograph a fashion editorial story while there, so I packed a few looks for the girls that would be appealing to fashion magazines. Before Trancoso, we had a quick stop at Salvador to see Pelourinho, a historical town of Brazil. The first day was awful: the girls were super tired from our 30+ hours traveling (we missed a flight and had a few hiccups to get there), they were hot, they didn’t like the food, so it was complaining over complaining for an entire day. At that point, I thought: “there is no way I will get an editorial out of these girls”. Then I had to stop and manage my expectations given the fact that my daughters are not professional models and they just wanted to have fun on their trip too. So I took it easy, and every day for the next 7 days we were there, in the afternoon when the lighting was it’s most beautiful, I would ask my daughter Naya (7) if she would let mama take her photos. Most days she would say yes, some days I would bribe her with ice cream. Bia (4) only did it if there was ice cream involved. It would take us 10-15 minutes max each time. Of course, I took tons of iPhone photos of them during the day, but for this project, I took my Fujifilm X100F that is way lighter than my regular “work” camera to travel with and gives me decent file sizes. Upon my return, I shared the images with Milk Magazine and a fashion editorial was born. They must have really liked it as they published almost 30 images! That is very unlikely for fashion spreads. I was very pleased with the project too.

How many did you make?
I printed 300 copies which is a very small number and it goes by really fast!

How many times a year do you send out promos?
1-2 times per year

Do you think printed promos are effective for marketing your work?
It is really hard to say because nobody calls you and says: “Hey, I just got your promo, I have a job for you!”. I recently went to Minneapolis with my agent Kate at Apostrophe for a handful of book shows and meetings with prospect and old clients. At a lunch meeting, photographer Jeff Vallee who was also joining us asked an art director what are the promos that usually stands out to her. Her answer was: “The ones that have some type of meaning to it”. That really stuck with me and months later after that trip, when I was trying to decide what to promote, I picked the one that was the closest to my heart. I noticed a more positive reaction from receivers for this promo than my previous one. Last time I sent out 2k posters featuring new images and never once I got an email about it. This time there were emails, texts, tags on Instagram… art directors and photo editors were kind enough to show their excitement and it means the world to me!

Recommended Posts