Creative: Create With Me, Ann Orman

Hello, my people. This was new, and that’s a good thing. I’ve been doing this Blurb thing for fifteen years, and yet I have never done what you are about to see if you watch this film. It’s not groundbreaking, but it is fun, and entertaining, and I could listen to Ann and her accent all day long. Speaking of Ann, you can meet her here. Talk about a cool person. Light, bright, a doer. Commercial photography, travel photography, and bookmaker. What we strive for, but bathed in that Kiwi spark that we all love so much.

A team, we are. The idea here is to bring you a conversation to introduce Ann and give her and me a chance to talk about photography and books. Then we build. She sent me images, I import then design based on her guidance, but me being me, I have my own plan for her work. If you watch, you will see one of those serendipitous things that happen when two people mired in photography come together. We see things, similar things.

And at the end, a question-and-answer period, which I love doing. You’ve seen my YouTube Q&A films and know how much I love to riff on what comes from the far corners of the world. These events are done live, which might scare some of you, but for me, it’s one of the most interesting ways to work. Several years ago, I sat in a studio in Seattle with a producer and live audience, and the producer said, “Hey man, this is a three-hour, one-take show…you ready?” “Hit me,” I said, and we began.

I love that feeling of walking the live tightrope with nothing underneath you, and the truly odd part is that I don’t like to prepare. But in full disclosure, I should say that when I met Ann several weeks ago, we decided to have several chats outside of the Blurb ecosystem because we had a genuine interest in each other and what we are doing photographically, so when it came time for this event, we were already pals.

Here’s the primary takeaway. Print. When I ask Ann about print, she squirms in her chair. I don’t have to attempt to instill MY fervor about print because she’s already got it. I never, ever ask anyone to promote Blurb. Never. I ask about print, and if they come to Blurb, they come to it, but it has to come as a secondary aspect of the fundamental benefit of print. I credit Blurb and our team for trying these events. I like doing what we feel like doing, which has always been an underlying part of working for this company. The only thing they refuse to do is give me the Blurb blue, front-zip jumpsuit I’ve been asking for for fifteen years. A guy can dream.