Follow Your Passion Project

Personal

Sep 24

Over the past few months I had been working on a project that started like many do, with a thought. The general thought was to connect with local business owners and take a picture of them. Over time, it evolved into something more. Something that would become a gallery exhibition of local female business owners, celebrating their contribution to the community and inspiring others in the audience to follow their passion in life.

I loved taking in the process of getting this project up and running. Learning something completely new and overcoming hurdles that presented themselves along the way. From the beginning I knew I wanted to do black and white portraits of each individual. As well I knew that I wanted to print them big! 40” x 60 “ big! That was the first challenge, sourcing prints that huge! In the end with the cost involved, I decided I’d invest in myself and purchase a printer capable of printing that large.

The Canon Pro-4000 printer. The machine I would use to bring this gallery to life!

After that, it was a matter of recruiting local business women and entrepreneurs to come sit for me. I think I got lucky there, because with the help of my friend Anna Hatton, I filled up my list of people to photograph within a couple of days! I think, photographing as it was the part I’m most familiar with was of course the easiest.

Next hurdle was to figure out a venue that could showcase the many large prints planned for display. The idea was to have 20 images! I’m glad I didn’t push for a full 20, I ended at 15, because I wouldn’t have been able to fit it at the venue I was able to get into. That was in the beautiful Greens on Tenth venue. Many thanks go out to Ann Endsley for providing such an amazing space to showcase the images!

Last of all, I decided that rather than have a gallery exhibition, to create an event out of it. One with both gallery and speaking engagement involved. That meant I had to speak! The most I’ve ever spoke in front of was probably 20 people. I was hoping to having 100+ people at the event :). Suffice to say, I figured out what I wanted to say and on August 26th, made it happen!

Again it was great to see a project go from concept to completion! I learned so much from the process and definitely plan to do bring other projects to light. Here is the gallery of the amazing women that were photographed for the project. I’m so inspired by all of them, women who went out and pursued their passions and in doing so brought to life businesses that fuel them and make our local community all the better with their presence.