A reader asks:
would you hire a person based only on their portfolio?
ex…
would you hire someone that shoots like this..?
if you knew that.. this guy is
17 .
yes.. 17.
Yes, I hire photographers all the time having never met them and sometimes without talking on the phone. I try to be unbiased in my assessment of whether a photographer and subject are a good match based solely on the photography.
But, it's impossible to be completely unbiased and so I usually end up in the personal photos section and then tears and finally the bio section to help me confirm or discredit the decision I'm arriving at.
Your Bio is really important. You may not realize that we're reading your bio's.
Back to Joey. His bio states that he's 17 and not based anywhere (which we all know is a trick so you don't just call him for jobs in his home town don't we photographers-living-simultaneously-in-LA-and-NY). While I'm not really into his photography I'll bet there's a few advertisers out there who wouldn't mind a 17 year olds perspective on their product so I wouldn't discount it either.
8 Comments
I am so glad you don’t like his work. overdone child’s play. i bet he has a million friends on myspace.
Wow. What a great response.
Heh, if you like his work or not that’s fine, but I’m pretty positive he is up there compared to the other 17 year olds trying photography, including myself.
When you’re so quick to berate and discredit someone like that it starts to sound like jealousy =) Or just snobbish. heh.
Anyway, his age has been getting him a lot of attention. I wonder sometimes if he would get equal exposure if he was 30 years old. I wouldn’t know. Regardless the more we talk about him the more people will introduce his pictures to their friends or colleagues … in this situation coupled with his age, so yes it is important.
i recently came across joey l’s site through a colleague and i couldn’t decide if i liked his work because he was 17 or in spite of the fact he is 17.
but best of luck to him…not sure if he’s a photography ‘phenom’ but he can probably only go up from here.
Interview:
http://tinyurl.com/2z35xl
Mr. Editor: What should a bio say? What souldnt i forget to put in my bio? Great blog by the way!
Jens, Sweden
He’s actually Toronto-based (I recognize a lot of the locations he’s used, being a TO local non-pro shooter).
I’m not big on his stuff, but more because I’m not a fan of his processing. He’s got superb lighting chops.
Age will screw him for a while longer. Trust me on this one. I still lose jobs because of my baby face, and due to client’s who pre-assume a lack of experience based on appearance only. That’s the break of being good at what you do early on in life, yeah?
Oh, and if this Joey L. kid is not related to Dave Hill then there’s a problem…
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