At the shop this week, I worked on a little task where I was pulling names, principals, and email addresses of interior design firms in the metro area. A modern yellow pages search, if you will. Started with our location and worked out. Click on a website, copy, click “about,” write down the name of the founder/owner/first person, click on “contact us,” and then copy email. Some of them only have contact forms and you have to be tricky and find the tiny print at the footer, or even better, click on their facebook link and then in the “about” section there, there would often be an email. I’m good. Once I got to over 90 firms, I was starting to see lots of repeats and more building and construction type “design” firms, I decided that was enough. [GOD, why do I have to describe EVERYTHING?]

It was an interesting look into what all the hip design firms are doing for websites. 85% of them looked vaguely similar: White, neutral grey/beige/taupe or black background. Elegant serif font for a logo with smaller sans serif or script for a flourish. Every single picture looked like it came from the same stock catalogue. I’m sure they didn’t; but damn some of them were copy and paste when it came to “style.” The 15% who didn’t look just like the rest? Maybe a little bolder – black and white instead of a mix of neutrals – clean, Scandinavian, modern. Or maybe a smidge cutesy – usually an older white woman who’d been in business since 1992. Flowers or a pineapple or a house in the logo. All that to say? Why do people insist on doing “what everyone else is doing?” It’s almost like a lot of these designers went to the same seminar that told them how to set up a business website, what info to put on it, what look it should have, what not to do, etc. I started looking too late in the game at the way bottom to see if a web designer was listed. Definitely saw a couple repeat companies there too. How many design websites have they just regurgitated the same template for another client with a few tweaks and passed it off as new and unique? Are they letting AI spit out their copy because it sure did all read the same. Or are designers trying to all fit into the same box?

I guess I’ve always been a square peg. I don’t understand the desire to fit in. Well, I do understand it because I’ve been there (insert middle school flashbacks here), but as an artist? In a creative field? Don’t you want to stand out from the crowd? Some where in my 30s I stopped trying to fit in. As a parent it was delightful to find other square pegs in our community that didn’t fit the mold of “stay at home mom.” Some were dads, many had part time work, some job shared, others worked weekend shifts so they could do kid stuff during the week. I know very few actual stay at home mom’s that don’t have some part time something going on. Even those few are often amazing PTA volunteers and such b/c they recognize the privilege they have.

It took me till my 40s to start applying that to my photography. After decades of imposter syndrome about *waves hands broadly* everything, I realized what I have to offer my clients can’t be packaged up nicely like the other photogs pretty curated sites. I actually had to leave a couple of photographer facebook groups when I was building the website because the absolute audacity of some of these people. Some of them actually blog about every shoot. Are you kidding me? I’m shooting 6-8 a weekend in fall – and you want me to blog about how we cavorted in the tall grasses and played in the leaves to capture your personalities and the love your family had for each other? Ha. I know how most of you come in hot just hoping for one decent shot before someone has a meltdown or tries to eat dirt. Nowadays I’d be suspicious of a photographer blogging their shoots knowing they could likely type some prompts into ai and be done with it in a second. Not going to happen here. I didn’t spend four years earning a liberal arts degree to let any computer do my writing for me. This is 100% my voice. Spelling errors and run on sentances and all.