A Year In The Life was a project concepted and executed by Heather Morton - Canada's progressive authority on Art Buying for advertising agencies - which recently wrapped. Taking one West coast photographer and one East coast photographer, over 365 days she mentored them and had them write weekly blog entries about their experiences breaking into the business of commercial photography. Toronto's Jaime Hogge along with Vancouver photographer, Grant Harder, were the two lucky photographers and over the coming days we'll be sharing some of Grant's thoughts on and photos from his Year.
First we shared Heather Morton's INTRO, then we shared THIS first post from Grant, then THIS one, and today we're sharing another...
Words by Grant Harder
I owe a lot to a handful of people in the Vancouver photo industry. These people regard up and coming photographers as an integral part of a healthy community and less as future competition. From the beginning I felt welcome by them and that I was able to ask questions that would get an honest answer. This has been integral to my development. I realize that this may not be everyone’s experience and I’m not going to pretend that all photographers operate with the same amount of candor, because they don’t. Personally I’m much more concerned with who is on the team than who is not. I now am beginning to find myself in situations where I can help others and I feel great about being able to do so. I don’t know everything and never will, but what I do know I am willing to share. I hope I can give back as much as others have given me. Part of the reason for me wanting to take part in HMAb was for just this reason. It’s been hard to gauge how many people the blog was actually reaching but every once in a while I would meet someone or get an email expressing his or her appreciation. That feels good.
There isn’t a lot of room for a ton of photographers to run successful businesses in Vancouver, but I hope there is enough for those that deserve it (which is completely subjective). It’s true that over the span of my career, at some point, I’m going to be competing with mentors, peers and friends. I feel that a strong community can support this, all while maintaining a healthy balance of commerce and philanthropy.
Savannah and Walter, owner/operators of Old Faithful
Tabia, a portrait
Jonas Woost, digital media consultant
The Walrus Magazine, an outtake
