I call July 2022 the start of the 10th chapter of my life. I have done so many different art/design/business pursuits in my life, and I thought they would coalesce around my 40th birthday. Hah! That wasn’t even close. But now I think it IS time that they all come together. I don’t know how yet, but this writing has me going back over these chapters to see where they all tie together.
pivotal moments
I love working with words. With this series I distilled a look, an action, and a word into the most minimal elements.
weddings, but different
I’ve tried to photograph weddings. Mostly for friends. My experience was usually like this: Mother of the bride asks if I have any OTHER photos of the bride and groom. “I was hoping to find one that matched the photos from my other kids’ weddings”?!?!?!?
Fun stretching my creativity
I used to call these my “fun” photos, but as I was writing this I thought ALL my photos are fun for me. In between all my portrait commissions, where I am challenged to bring out my subject’s true personality, I usually have a number of projects going on whereI create the personality in the photo.
Out of the more than 10,000 portraits I’ve made at my events, this one is the standout.
Greensboro History Museum, Fourth of July celebration. Mom brings her 5 kids. When she sees their photo on the monitor she starts crying. She says she hasn’t had a photo of them together since they were little, and now she’s so happy that she has this memory of them.
You can be TOO FAR AHEAD with predictions
In 1987 Deborah Exum and I started reTHINK Strategy. It was conceived to be a design consultancy, with the two of us as principals. I had just left The Limited, where I had been creative director, and we had some new ideas about what the retail industry needed to thrive.
Wry humor paired with preposterous stock photos fuels a cheeky ad campaign for a luxury spa.
In my 7th chapter I had a company called “reTHINK Strategy.” It was a consultancy where I showed clients how to approach their business from an unexpected direction. The Emerson Spa in upstart New York (80 miles from NYC) approached me, with my fashion history, because they wanted to attract the New York fashion crowd.
In 3 days, 1246 people wanted to show me their history.
The Putnam Museum, in Davenport, Iowa, promoted their 150th anniversary ONE by ONE Community Portrait so well that at the usual end time of 4 hours, there was still a 2 hour wait for people who wanted to participate.
Before the internet a store concept that simplified a woman’s shopping experience.
The internet changed everything about shopping. But before it was ubiquitous, I, along with my partner Deborah Exum, came up with a store concept as a way to shop for a woman who was interested in fashion, but with family and work obligations had little time to actually shop. See what we did to RETHINK shopping.
I can guarantee that your company group photo will never be obsolete.
You know the story…you’ve just gotten everyone together to do a group company photo, then next week, the person right in the middle says they’re leaving the company! Never again with my method. Read on to see how you can have your own “never obsolete company photo.”
Museum uses photos of over 300 of their guests, created during my ONE by ONE Community Portrait event, to populate an entire branding campaign.
The Oakland Museum of California’s Director of Marketing, Mary Beth Smith, saw my ONE by ONE Community Portrait as the ingenious way to collect photos of over 300 of their members and guests, which became the core of their new branding campaign celebrating their 50th Anniversary…I did it for them in 4 hours over 1 evening!