What was it like being featured on Instagram?
I came upon the @music account one day and was like wait, Instagram has an account just
devoted to pictures of music?! How do I get involved with this?!
They were doing these hashtag projects every month for a while. They would have different
assignments each month, and a specific hashtag to use on your photos that you wanted to enter. I
pretty much entered each month and put those hashtags all over everything.
One day I got an email from someone at Instagram asking me to tell them a little bit about one of
my Fall Out Boy shots and asking for permission to re-post it on their account. I was like heck
yeah. They ended up posting it on Easter Sunday. I knew they were going to use it at some point
since they had emailed me, but I didn't know when. I got out of church on Easter Sunday and had
hundreds on notifications, and then I knew! I think I got like 100 new followers just from that one
post they did.
It was crazy.
Tell us a little about what's going on with Van's Warped 2017?
I got to attend/photograph Vans Warped Tour this past summer for the first time, and it was
amazing. I had been wanting to go to Warped Tour since I was like, 15. The closest they would
ever come to me in high school was Houston though, and it always fell during the summer when
I had cheer camp or student council camp or sorority rush or something. When I found out it was
coming to New Orleans for the first time in like 10 years or something like that, I knew there was
no way I was going to miss it.
At the time, I was working full time in graphic design for a non-profit theatre in town. I
requested a vacation day off like three months in advance to make sure I could attend. I ended up
finding a publication to apply to shoot on behalf of, and I was so happy when I got approved.
Somehow in the aftermath of all the stuff I posted on social media, 4Fini, the company that puts
on Vans Warped Tour, found my website and approached me asking if I would be open to doing
some freelance/part time graphic design work for their pre-tour marketing. They actually
emailed me the day after I announced to my boss that I wanted to leave my job and pursue my
photography business full time.
After a video interview and some contracts, I was finally able to start work for them in midOctober. Since I am now relying on being a creative entrepreneur full time, it's nice to have a
freelance gig like this to do in addition to my photography business. I have a confidentiality
agreement with them, so I can't say much about what's going to be happening in 2017 or what I
am doing, but I am very excited to be on the team and the tour this summer is going to be
awesome!