Inspire
Some of the attendees at Inspire London March 2010 - Photo © 2010 Chris Davis www.specularworld.com
On a recent trip to New York, my friend and fellow photographer Lara Jade and I were chatting over coffee and decided to do something about the sometimes exclusive nature of the UK photo industry. Getting established in the industry can be an uphill struggle, made worse by the sometimes terse reaction from other photographers when it comes to learning from those who have made it. Lara has a great thing going in fashion and I’ve built up a decent client base and am travelling all over the world doing what I love. We both get a fair amount of email asking for advice and aren’t always able to answer due to time constraints. It is often much simpler to talk in person and get to know people. Besides, we know so many young creatives that are superbly talented and will surely be the future of the industry.
In other words, we convinced each other that we have achieved something and felt that there was time to give something back. The result was Inspire. The idea is in it’s infancy, an informal concept of getting people together, creating a community and engaging people who share common creative interests to chat to one another. We added something a little more concrete by asking attendees to bring along their portfolios.
Lara was fantastic and took care of all the scheduling and also came up with the name, perfect for what we were trying to achieve.
We had our first event on the 26th of March – the results were nothing short of fantastic.
The turnout was great, the mood was good, the talent on show was outstanding and the weather held out too. We even had an agency come in with a lot of interest show in the photographers that were there.
Some of the feedback:
- Thanks so much for organising friday’s meetup, it hit me how incredibly lucky we are to be part of such an amazing community.
- You hit the nail on the head when you were thinking of a name for the meet.. The one word I would use to describe it is inspiring!
- Inspire meetup yesterday was the best, thank you Felix Kunze and Lara Jade for organizing it! I met so many amazing people.
- Inspire meet up in London was fantastic! Well done to @felixkunze & @LaraJade_ for organising a great day!
We sent out a press release to the UK photo press should get published to publicize this and future events.
What started as 1 day of fun has now turned into a side-project of ours. We will be announcing dates for a New York meetup soon and will be doing meetups in Birmingham and London as soon as schedules allow.
Having seen so many creatives get inspired, get advice and seeing a community build makes the effort we put in totally worth it. We hope to see you at a future event.
For news and updates, be sure to follow @inspiremeetups as well as @felixkunze and @larajade_ on twitter.
Reviewing Portfolios - Photo @ 2010 Sam Butler
Reviewing Portfolios - Photo @ 2010 Sam Butler
(Organizing meetups isn’t the only thing Felix does. Head to the home page, look out for Haiti and other recent work on the blog.
Snapshots from Berlin #2
If you came to the blog looking for Haiti, click here.
I went to Berlin again, this time for a family trip. Here’s some images from my trip:
Reminds me of 1984 somehow
Sony Center
Jewish Memorial Jumper
Gefaengnis is the German for Prison
Friedrichstrasse Train station
If you like this, you may like my previous Berlin photos.
Haiti Preview
I’ve just returned from Haiti on my second trip. I was there working with Help for Orphans International. I spent a lot of time at the Future of Haiti Orphanage which is where most of these images are from.
While I get all the images ready, I thought I’d provide a little preview here; incaptioned images just as a teaser. Keep connected on twitter, facebook or subscribe to the blog feed to keep updated on my images from Haiti and what’s happening with the orphans.
Travel travel travel
The next month will see me in no less than 9 separate locations on earth.
I’m putting aside commercial work and other commitments to embark on a second photographic trip to Haiti. I will be working on several projects, this time in a more structured fashion. I’ll be out there with Help For Orphans International as well as working with some other projects – more on that after the fact. I know that I will definitely be photographing about 100 more orphans in the same style I did on my last trip.
There’s also tie-ins with media and radio.
My trip will start on Monday, 1st of March, I’m headed to New York City. There’s something really cool happening there that I can’t yet talk about, but will reveal in good time.
On Wednesday, 3rd of March I head down to Philadelphia, I’ll attend a Help for Orphans fundraiser.
On Thursday, 4th of March, we’re headed out to Haiti via the Dominican Republic. I’ll be there for about 8 days, at which point I fly to Miami to spend around 24 hours on the 13th of March in the Tampa Bay area and wrapping up edits and loose ends from my Haiti trip. Then it’s an early morning flight to LA on the 14th where I will spend about 72 hours. I’ll speak on a big radio show and podcast about my work in Haiti. I’m leaving LA on the 16th, arriving back in London on the 17th.
Meetups:
For people in New York, if you want to meet up, I want to get coffee or dinner on the 2nd. I’ll be able to tell you all about my exciting news in NY on that day, but only in person. Message me for details and to arrange coming along.
In the Tampa Bay area, I want to do a meetup after another event I’m attending on the 13th of March. It will be late night chats and drinks somewhere. Message me for details!
For LA, my idea is to have a bit of a social on the evening of the 15th. I’ll have recorded my radio segment and will want to hang out, probably in Silverlake somewhere (close friends will already know the venue). Again – message me for details.
After that I’ll be heading back home to London for just over 24 hours and then it’s back to Berlin, this time for some family engagements.
That means I’ll be back in London properly on around the 24th of March, probably feeling a fair amount more tired that I feel right now, but with great stories to tell and many many pictures to show!
Sorry for the ambiguous blog post, the details will flesh themselves out as my trip goes on – My ‘placemarkers’ right now are my 7 booked flights, everything will revolve around those and updates will come daily on my twitter page or you can head over to my Where is Felix page to get location based updates.