There comes a time in your life where you must either jump or be stuck on that mountain. Aug 2015, I stood on the top of that cliff and jumped. To be honest I didn’t even know I had made it to the top and jumped till I got home and started freaking out!
Two days previously I was scrolling thru Facebook and came across this lady in the classified section looking for a photographer who could come and photograph this event for her cosmetology school. I currently was working for the local new media group and had been for the past year. So, felt like I could kind of kill two birds with one stone as they say and help her out while covering it for the paper as well.
I applied thru email and immediately had an interview setup for the following day. The lady had asked me to also bring my portfolio along. At the time I didn’t have one for my work with the paper since everything could be seen on their site. So, I quickly downloaded a few images to my tablet and brought that along. It was during that interview that I handed Devri my tablet to show her my work and she proceeded to click on my personal portfolio gallery…. not the business one! It just so happened to be the folder that contained all my favorite photos. Portraits, headshots, beauty work etc etc.
She immediately asked if these were my images and if I wanted to shoot her 2016 Caper images for Paul Mitchell The School within the next two weeks. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about or what Caper was, but I was in! I said yes so quickly that she paused for a moment and repeated herself just to make sure I had heard. She then said, “great I’ll need your contract by Monday.”
I left that meeting haven jumped off my first major career cliff not even knowing, and I couldn’t be more grateful! Isn’t it sad to think I might not have jumped if the day before someone would have told me....hey tomorrow is that big day and you either need to jump or turn around.
I met one of the most influential, kind, talented people in my career that day, Devri Ficklin. She saw my talent, trusted me with hers and I jumped, and I’ll never regret it!