Love for Sale

I don’t like to post images that look like ads. But I am still trying to figure this out, using social media to promote my work, to engage people, to find new clients. I often worry that I’m not doing enough, not reaching out enough. I don’t like self-promotion. But it’s difficult, being your own sales and marketing team. And it’s hard to be subtle and show restraint when your very life depends on the hustle.

I’d like to think that my work speaks for itself, and it does, to a degree. But it’s a whisper. It’s a low voice in a sea of shouts. Slow and steady wins the race, they say. Be patient, they say. It takes years to build a business. Is that what I’m doing? I didn’t think of it like that six years ago when I embarked upon this crazy dream. I just followed the breadcrumbs, and crumbs they were. But I hustled gigs, and people helped spread the word, and I’m still in the game. For now.

My goal has always been to create portraits that you’d stop and look at. I wanted you feel something. I wanted you to feel what *I* felt when I was with that person. This was never about taking pictures for me. This was, and is, about connecting to people. Could I capture, in a photograph, that feeling of inexorable connection that I feel when I’m with someone? I have proved to myself that the answer is yes.

The next question was could I get you to feel it too? It seems that I can. Not always, and not for all people, but I have managed to produce some beautiful images of beautiful people. And by beautiful people I mean people with great souls. Beauty is inside, everyone. I wish more people could trust me on that. If you look with your heart and not your eyes you will see it, feel it, understand it.

And that’s what I try to do. That’s my differential advantage. I don’t photograph people’s faces I photograph their hearts. How do you sell that? Well, you don’t really. I heard the other day, in a talk at Accenture, that the most precious commodity of any business is trust. The trust between the customer and the brand. This will become increasingly important in what they called The Post Digital Era. Well how is trust established and maintained? Through authentic interaction between real human beings. And that’s what I hope to be part of. That’s what I seek to foster. Authenticity. Trust. Love.

How do you sell authenticity, trust, and love?