I was fortunate to discover Unsplash when it launched in 2013 as a weekly collection of curated photographs. Since then, it has been acquired by Getty Images and now boasts tens of billions of monthly impressions. I’ve used their free image library for over a decade and have downloaded hundreds of photos for various projects.
In 2021, I decided to make my first contributions to the site. I don’t consider myself a photographer, but with my ‘Generalist’ hat on, I’ll happily put my skills to the challenge.
I submitted a few portrait images and didn’t think much else of it.
To date the above picture has been downloaded over 500 times and had almost 80,000 impressions. It’s slightly daunting to think where my portrait is being used and what projects I may be featured in. I’d be keen to find one of my photos in the wild one-day, slim chance I’d imagine. Slim chance, except for…
A few months after posting the photo to Unsplash, I received a notification on Instagram – to my delight, someone had created an illustration from my portrait! An illustrator from Saint-Petersburg in Russia had found my image and just decided to use it.
She also very generously called me a ‘cool guy’.
Cool guy that I found on unsplash as photographer, and then realized that he also is a web designer and beer company owner! Cheers for fellow creative 😊
@kass_create
Not only am I honoured to have been deemed worthy enough to be turned into an illustration, I also adore the style of the piece.
We view the internet as this infinitely large place, and sometimes we forget to make ourselves a part of it. Put yourself out there and you will receive your rewards.
