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 Moran
When the world started to shut down due to Covid 19, all my future shoots were cancelled/postponed, and like many other parents suddenly my wife was working from home full time, and we had lost our childcare. Since I had no future work, I was there to take to over the childcare full-time for our daughter Mabel who was almost 2. She’s a kid with a lot of energy, she wants to be out running, chasing squirrels, climbing stairs, or just about anything active. Since I could no longer take her to the playground we only had a small grassy park in our neighborhood and our backyard as our little world to burn out her energy.
I take a million photos of her already to share with our families on the East Coast, but suddenly I found myself taking more and more since we were together 24/7. I would shoot a photo either on my iPhone or mirrorless that I bring everywhere, and then I started to notice funny similarities between some of my sports and fitness work. Sometimes it was the light and lines, sometimes the pose, and sometimes it was just a funny coincidence. I quickly realized that at times I couldn’t help it, I was trying to frame photos the same as I did at work, when she was just playing around. After a few weeks I started to dig into the drives, and match up the photos for fun, and then I started posting them on my instagram account. I’ve kept my instagram mostly work related for the last year, so this was suddenly making my daughter more public on there, but in a funny way. After a few shots I started getting so many messages from people to keep it coming, and they were looking forward to it each time. In the end I did 16 match ups with Mabel and athletes like Mike Trout, Tony Hawk, Megan Rapinoe and more. My time with Mabel is a break from all the craziness in the world right now, and I think these photos matchups were a simple way to keep things light, when it all seems so heavy. At one point I was stressing that I didn’t have a “corona project” like everyone else was talking about, and then I realized I didn’t need to come up with one, my project was our life together, and I just getting to shoot that is the best project possible.
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 @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
2 Comments
I am very prejudiced about this particular topic that you chose. Adam Moran is my son
and Mabel is my only grandchild. Adam and Sarah work diligently to keep their East
Coast relatives appraised of Mabel’s growth and development by sending emails
daily. Some days we get 4 or 5 and other days 20 to 30 photos. They are terrific kids
and we are very proud of them.
You have made my day! It is just so wonderful to know that this personal project is near and dear to your heart. Your son is a wonderful person so good job on how you all raised a kind, caring, talented man. And your grand-daughter is a beautiful mix of Adam and Sarah!
Thanks so much for writing! And I hope this finds you all healthy!
Suzanne Sease
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