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In any business, the means of growth stems from those that are willing to spread word of mouth because it means that, they too, believe in the foundation of one’s work. It’s not a matter of providing positive feedback, but rather going the next step and letting others know that they should at least give another’s work a chance. With photography, this is embodied as a sort of mutual trust between the content creator and the referrer, and it’s a very humbling feeling to know that someone would really vouch for what I really enjoy doing.
None could have been more true than when I had been contacted by Ashley, a student in the East Bay Area, that had been directed to me from Crystal, one of my college friends back at Cal Poly. It was a pleasant surprise that Crystal had actually thought of me to recommend to her childhood friend. After about a month of keeping in contact, I was excited to make the arrangements with Ashley, and made my way out on campus once our schedules had lined up.
I met her friends, family, and reunited with Crystal whom I haven’t seen in quite awhile. Almost instantaneously, Ashley and I built a pretty solid rapport and it had made the shoot much easier as we both threw around ideas of what they should look like. Coincidentally, we both had brought props and utilized them to our advantage in the way we’d compose the shots. The session, in itself, was straightforward, but it was fun to just build a dynamic with one another and her friends, as they too were absolutely hilarious and made the shoot enjoyable.
Opportunities can come from the moment we apply ourselves in what we are passionate about and, hopefully, it’ll exemplify itself in a way that eventually more chances to put out our work will come our way. I never would have thought that this shoot would come to fruition had it not been for Crystal. and I’m so thankful to my new friend, Ashley, for trusting me to take these photos in celebration of her accomplishments. I’ve been so fortunate to have friends and family to support me and point me towards more opportunities to shoot for other people. In a way, it’s an interconnected web that just continues to teach and allow myself to grow, and I hope that I can continue to do so with greater opportunities to build off of what has come before.