work (finally) in progress
I finally bit the bullet and hired a designer to pull Profe together. I’ve prepaid $1500 - almost wiped out my savings. That should be enough incentive to get off my ass and finalize the text and marketing plan but it hasn’t been yet.
Today I saw the first layout and it looks amazing! So much better than I could have done. It’s really going to be great. I just hope the resolution holds up for the grainier shots. Oy, why do I always have to be worrying about something with this project??
Update, 08 November 2025: I just realized why.
Working at a top tier design school, I’m often reminded of the fact that I was a creative child who was encouraged to do creative things only as a sideline, a supplement to what really mattered: an education that would get me a steady, corporate job.
From 6th grade through high school my favorite subject was French; I wanted to major in French in college and become an interpreter at the UN. My father told me a job like that would leave me starving to death in the streets of Manhattan, so I should get a degree in Economics instead.
I played flute, brilliantly according to my teacher. But apparently not good enough for my parents to nurture that brilliance. So it too became a pastime only. Same for ballet. I was on toe before I was 13. I didn’t want to be a prima ballerina but there are plenty of other roles I could have been encouraged to pursue. Same for writing. Throughout my life I have written clever stories. I was in my mid 30s before I joined a writer’s workshop through NYU and started working on my first novel. I submitted a draft to a known editor for a paid line edit and critique. I could have easily hunkered down and refined the draft further, and I did begin that work in a session with one of my colleagues from the writer’s workshop. She went on to get a book deal and has been published. My drafts languish on one of my archival hard drives.
And of course there’s photography. When I was a tween my parents bought me my first SLR — a Minolta XG-A. That was a sizable amount of money for my family, presumably an investment in recognition of my talent. There were many, many professional lanes I could have pursued in that field but no, the designated lane for me was economics.
So I got the degree in economics. I hated the subject then and I hate it now. In my version of rebellion, I also took courses in drawing, photography, jazz history, anthropology, and astronomy. I mustered the courage to sign up to be a photographer for The Stanford Daily. I was given a press pass and had one photo published. But I quit because it was just a sideline. The priority was always economics.
Today I have a robust body of work, have received accolades from creative people I respect, even won a photography award. But I don’t promote my own work in any meaningful way. And now I see why. Deep deep down I don’t think my work is good enough to be my main thing because my creative work has NEVER been deemed good enough to be anything other than a sideline. I have relegated my passion to weekends and the 4 weeks out of the year when I travel.
Well, like GI Joe says, “Knowing is half the battle”. Now’s the time for action. Regardless of the fact that I’m a 60 year old Black woman with a degree in economics and enough credit card debt to keep me on the corporate hamster wheel. I am good enough to be a professional photographer.