So Joey Lawrence has been burning up my photography feeds lately. He’s fresh off a photojournalism trip to India. He’s shooting album and magazine covers from coast to coast, often with some slickly improvised light setups. He has agents in New York and London. He’s seventeen years old.
In an interview with Strobist, he gives the School 2.0 crowd a quote to hang their hats on:
Strobist: All over the world, digital cameras and cheap computers are opening up the process to millions of young, hyper-creative photogs. If you could talk to a roomful of a thousand 14-year-old shooters who want to reach a high level of shooting, what would you tell them?
JoeyL: I get e-mails from a lot of people even younger than me and it’s always nice to see that because I used to do the same thing to cool photographers I found. My best advice would be to use the internet as a tool and post as much stuff as possible for feedback. But don’t become discouraged — try to develop something fresh and new. I have tons of really really old horrible pictures that are still around the internet but it’s important to start somewhere, it doesn’t bother me.
[emphasis added]
Seventeen years old. Christian Long usually brings you these wunderkinds, but he’s out of the office right now so you’ve got me.
7 Comments
Chris Lehmann
October 22, 2007 - 2:35 am -Glad someone is. :)
(And I have a sneaking suspicious we’ll see Christian reinvent himself in the blog world in the coming months…)
dan
October 22, 2007 - 8:02 am -*girlish squeal*
Christian Long
October 24, 2007 - 6:34 pm -Dan —
What? What? You mean I actually missed one of dem wunderkinds? Guess the ol’ radar must be getting a tad rusty as I spend my free time playing in the garden with my 13 month old rather than at the keyboard.
Thanks for the lead on this brilliant photographic ace. Good to have one’s breath taken in such a visual way.
Curious. Aren’t you finding it even more amazing that being “just seventeen” is becoming less and less of a “oh, my” moment these days?
And yet — a slight wonder — how many of these same kids are drowning in traditional worksheet avalanches back at their old school desk while staring out a virtual window on the rest of their day/evening that offers them zero limits and legitimate real-world feedback/opportunity?
Cheers from the caffeine-free side of the conversation. Keep up the good work, Dan. You’re making me pleased I still — on occasion — take a peek at “all this crazy blogging business”.
Christian
dan
October 24, 2007 - 10:00 pm -That kid of yours had better be pretty cool, that’s all I’m saying …
Christian Long
October 25, 2007 - 4:18 pm -In lieu of his yet being a member of your math class or a future digital video intern at the Meyer Squared Concept Studio, we’re doing the best we can to raise him right in the meantime.
I’m thinking that sometime in the summer of ’11 he’ll be ready to wear the laminated “solo kid plane traveler” card around his neck as he makes his way out to California to spend his first weekend bummin’ around with “Uncle Dan-Dan”.
Let me know if he’ll need to do any sort of homework between now and then to be fully ready for the one-on-one Meyer Experience.
dan
October 25, 2007 - 5:00 pm -I’ll get a syllabus together.