When in Oklahoma

Welcome to the thrilling conclusion to this tepid saga!  This is just one chapter in the story of my own business, going from part-time Williams-Sonoma chef to colorist and beyond.  Thanks for following along.

I have this theory that Oklahoma is actually like a fly trap for creative people.  Seriously, when the only thing to do as a teenager is drive around and stare at flat land, it’s pretty good motivation to make something more interesting. I have a distinct memory of being sixteen, spending an entire spring break driving around Southern Oklahoma aimlessly and feeling like every inch of those plains was filled with possibility. The Flaming Lips, The Starlight Mints, Will Rogers: there are a boatload of talented people who have called Oklahoma home.  Oklahomies, you know.

In Oklahoma, I had a shoot with Braid Creative to look forward to.  I was delighted when earlier in the fall I got an email from Kathleen about my small business video essays.  I had connected with her earlier because she’s awesome, the internet makes the world a smaller place, and funny enough - she lives in my old ‘hood. She thought a small business essay was a kick-ass idea and she and Tara were a kick-ass fit for one.  Meanwhile their approach to small business coaching was something my tiny, sputtering enterprise could really do well with. I showed up to Braid Creative and was there for maybe five minutes before I knew we were all going to get gold.

Braid Is In It. from Rory Gordon on Vimeo.

My video essay illustrated what made their growing company appealing in an irreverent, researched way.  It was pretty magic to hand in a project that rocked not because of the gear, but because I finally found a client that wanted my perspective and liked the product I most wanted to make.  At the same time, the creative roadmap I got from Tara and Kathleen kind of changed my life. They gave me words for what I have to offer: a simple loud statement to replace the staggering silence I’d previously stumbled over when describing my business.



Now, the roadmap sits on my desktop.  I kind of think of it as a treasure map though, because my spirit animal is an angry pirate.

The best part of the roadmap was seeing my own words echoed back to me, but confirmed and made stronger by a second and third party.  The sisters Braid are more like a second, third, fourth and fifth party.  Their relationship to creative vision is exponential.

I could see I wasn’t just grasping at straws. I looked at our findings and I did have a product people wanted.  I just had to find the right market.  Which was maybe not primarily brides: it was other business owners.  

This was a huge challenge for me to accept, because so many of the photographers I admire are indeed wedding photographers.  And A Practical Wedding practically launched my business, so I felt extremely torn about no longer pursuing wedding photography.

Don’t get me wrong, I have my classic favorite shooters too, but the thing about these wedding industry rogue-agents?  They have such genuine content on their blogs and websites, both their photos and words attract customers as kick-ass as they are. I wanted some of that constantly unfolding narrative. I could see it developing in front of me day after day, thanks to the webernets.

As a young creative professional I am constantly consuming other media, trying to find a balance between looking for inspiration and making something that’s distinctly my own.  The greatest asset the roadmap from Braid provided me was that: a clear picture of what I’m great at.

Because I saw what my niche was, I could find inspiration from anywhere, from anything, at any time, and keep a grip on my different perspective. Anytime I get a little jealous, it pays in scores to have what I really want written down.  I look at the map again and decide if I’m actually envious of something that would help my path.  Usually the answer is no.

I came home from Oklahoma feeling calmer and cleaner, ready to put my business back together in a way that made sense. Ready to invest in the right channels.

We whipped through the plains again, rolled down the windows when we could, filled up when it was cheapest, and were sent off with a lot of snacks packed with love and blue cheese dip. It was much better than the dollar-menu-induced intestinal distress endured on the previous trip.

James got three calls for jobs while we were gone, and when we came back, I was working at the Dailies lab more than ever.  I chose to go in and train with color correction software, even when there wasn’t money attached.  I went from developing my business as Rory Gordon Photo: A Lady That Shoots Businesses and Weddings and Please Hire Me Please…
to Rory Gordon Photo: Portraits of Businesses.

The story gets less dramatic after this point.  I continued to go work at Williams-Sonoma, the lab, and run my business for a while. But most of all, I made a choice.  I’m a professional videographer and colorist, and that’s where I should choose to concentrate my efforts.  I chose to be more concerned with being an imaging professional than paying bills, and it happened.  Slowly, and with hesitation, but it happened. I worked really hard at the lab, and one day I was so tired I just knew I couldn’t do everything anymore. I put in my notice at Williams-Sonoma and that was that.

We didn’t miraculously have more money.  I didn’t have any more connections.  I just rerouted my energy. I brought back some of that magic from the plains.  Feeling like I had choice and options again made me the brokest rich woman in the world.

Outside my office, 2012

If I could tell anyone who was in my shoes from 2011 anything, it’s this: if you find the right path to focus your energy, things will get easier.  And when it happens, please give yourself a treat because finding a path is a huge accomplishment, in and of itself.  Go out for lunch, develop a light soda addiction, start a soft pretzel slush fund.  Even if you discover you’ve got three months left at a day-job, just the knowledge that each step is finite will give you something to go on.

So I leapt.  I began to realize my future might actually include professional imaging science.  And that brings me up pretty much to where I am today.

I remember when I got hired in my first production office I said to my good friend MJ, “This job is going to change everything.” She laughed and said, “This is your first job.  Any job would change everything.”

View from inside my first production office, 2010.

That’s still true.  Any job I take is important, because now I choose to take it with conviction and clarity of mind.  Any job I take gives me another choice, which makes me a little richer.

And anything could change with the next choice.

Thanks for listening.

Home on the Range, Sort of

Been through the Desert in a PT Cruiser with a Name

Here’s part three of my epic employment musical chairs.  Next, we take a detour.

It certainly wasn’t currently in the budget, but I knew we had to get home and visit my family.  It had been six months since I’d seen them and we’d, you know, gotten married since then. It was time. And also, I had a shoot there. So duh, of course we’ll drive for two days on fumes and adrenaline.

I did not have evidence or faith before we set off to go to Oklahoma we could actually pay for February’s rent when we returned.  

I was so worried sick about money, I made us leave at 2am in the morning, thinking we could make the 24 hour drive without stopping the night and paying for a hotel. In fact, when we stopped at a fast food joint around 9am that morning to take a nap, I was so tired I left the headlights on.  This killed the battery in James’ PT Cruiser, Lily, and was Sign Number One I needed to chill the fart out and slow down.  Fortunately, I’ve been a AAA member for six years now, because I am the most boring 20 something on Earth.  The friendly tow-guy steered us clear from the rip-off border-town mechanics.  Then I got roadside Indian food and we pressed on.

The drive started fine.  James hates going through New Mexico where it’s flat and straight as the eye can see, but I love it.  I’m a very nervous person by nature, and for some reason the only two places that really bring me peace are in the heart of a big city and in the middle of the desert.  My logic in both places is: why worry when you are such a small thing in such a big place?



I drove until we got to Texas, and James took over. We were about an hour away from Oklahoma. And then there was a cop car behind us.

The speed limit was 70, and James was going exactly 73 miles per hour, thanks to cruise control.  The cop car stayed behind us.  So he bumped it down to 71 miles per hour. And then he bumped it down to 69 miles per hour.  And then the cop car started driving in our blind spot.  We got down to 61 before he finally pulled us over.

I was busy playing solitaire on my phone and wasn’t worried too much.  “What has he got on us?” I told a shaking James.  When James nervously finally got the window to roll down, we saw a Texan cop to put the Duke to shame.  Giant ten gallon hat, visible firearm.  And cranky.

He told us we were going a little fast, and then had James step out of the car.  I immediately started composing a pithy tweet hinting at my feelings for Texas, but was interrupted by the cop, once again knocking at my door.

“Ma’am,” said the Texan cop, “Your husband has given us permission to search your vehicle.”

I didn’t argue, though I tried to throw my Okie accent back on and politely ask what we’d done wrong. His exact words were, “When folks look as nervous as you two do, it’s often times a lot worse than speeding: criminal behavior.”

I stepped out of the car and noticed a second cop had pulled over.  No one else was around for miles.

And poor James was being cornered by the second cop.  And then I started laughing, because I realized they thought we were drug traffickers.  In a  PT Cruiser.  The cop’s eyes drifted down to my hip pocket: my cellphone.  He told me to leave it in the car.  It was still a funny situation, but a little frightening that somewhere in Texas there is a cop that probably still thinks I’m a drug dealer.  

They searched and searched our car, and I could see in their eyes irritation when they realized the vehicle was full of road trip comforts, packed to the gills with blankets and snacks and a bunch of books I would dutifully ignore once home. Then they got very serious.  They pulled a long, narrow box from my car and tore into it like toddlers on Christmas morning. James and I looked at each other and started laughing, knowing they found an empty plastic bag inside; it was the packaging from my monopod.  

I stared out at the biggest sky in the country and wondered how I’d gotten myself into this ridiculous situation.

Insert pretentious cliche bag in the wind photo.

They eventually let us go and we drove on, stopping once again for a cup of coffee to calm our nerves.  

I almost made James turn around, thinking it was a sign of a bad vacation to come.  Going home is always loaded with fears of being judged.  When your family doesn’t see you for six months? Weight gained, the width of your smile compared to last time, all these things are more obvious.  

But James patted my leg and looked at me without ever needing to say, “You’re nuts.  We’re three hours away. No one is going to judge you for getting pulled over by a crazy Texan.” But he said it anyway, because that’s how he rolls.

And before I knew it we rolled into my dad’s driveway.

Next on Tuesday, Part 4: Home on the Range, Sort Of.

The Parable of Google Calendar

When last I left off, I decided to take both a day job and a night job at the same time.  

My workplace parking lots.  Guess which one is my day job?

And also run a business, by the way, which thanks to a sponsored post on A Practical Wedding and some good word from shooting a (very large) small business event, was starting to look up.

I was so excited to have more than one job, I almost puked from the epic victory dance.  And then I slowly made myself sick.

December of 2011 was probably the most physically challenging month of my life. I don’t say that in an I’m-stomping-my-foot-I’m-a-college-grad-this-isn’t-fair way, I’m just honestly not sure how I squeezed everything in.

I was sleeping about 2-4 hours a night.  I had such a busy month I wrote every single shift and meeting down in my Google calendar, so that the email notices Google sent me would wake me up from naps and I’d make it to all my appointments.  Otherwise, I’d have to set my alarm 2-3 different times a day.  To illustrate, here’s December 8th:

11:30pm-7am - Night shift as a dailies operator.
12pm-7pm - Shift and prep for that week’s Sunday class at Williams-Sonoma.
8pm - Client consultation for photography assignment.
11pm-5am - Night shift as a dailies operator.

I know.  This one of the more stressful days, but it wasn’t off par for the entire month.  I had a conversation with a friend of mine that went something like this:

“Man, I’m so tired.”
“You should sleep in three hour increments if you can.  I read that’s how long your REM cycles are. That’d be good.”
“That’s a good idea.  That’s about how much time I have.”
“Wait, I’m sorry.  That’s not good.  That’s terrible.”

Hello gorgeous bed.  You were not full of enough drool…because I didn’t use you enough. Get it?

So December was ugly.  And then in my business, I was flanked by moments of incredible confidence and doubt so strong it knocked all the air out of my lungs.

I was having a really hard time finding the right subject matter. I had meeting after meeting without having contracts signed.  I put hours into getting client inspiration ready and still just couldn’t manage to book.  On the other hand, I invented small business photo essays, and found a surprising amount of support for a type of shooting that was essentially just me telling stories I found fascinating: stories about a business in action. But I was so hungry for work I would take an entire day to put together samples tailored to every person who thought about hiring me. I never stopped trying to make my style and my voice appealling to every person that glanced around my tiny corner of the web.  It wasn’t the most business-savvy workflow.

So many estimates. So. Many.

And then there were the fucking holidays.  Pardon the language, but I’m fairly certain even in the best of circumstances, the added pressure of the most favoritest time of the year beefs up emotions and sets everyone up for expectations that only are filled in Hollywood backlots. For 50 million dollars, before advertising.

Working at Williams-Sonoma could get really lonely too.  I would watch the happy families buying the Big Family Present that cost more than a week of my wages, and it would make me so sad.  Eating (a brought from home) lunch in a mall and remembering your office is the mall is just hard sometimes.

There is nothing dishonorable about working an unglamorous job in order to keep a roof over your head.  Nothing.  But it’s easy to let your mind wander when you work in customer service to every customer, every client that might have more creature comforts in their lives.

And the funny thing about money, is that no one has enough of it.  Adults have told me this feeling of barely being able to cover bills never goes away because the bills keep rising. The creature comforts come at a price.  I just hope I’ll find a way to work smarter.

I got my parents discounted presents from Williams-Sonoma, of course.  I was so proud it was a Real Gift.  If I could do it again, I would probably not put myself in the position where I was literally counting in my head as I worked: how many hours do I need to work in order to afford this gift, to afford shipping for so-and-so’s present?  What bill am I deviating money from in order to afford this small indulgence? Something homemade would have been just as nice. Even some slightly stale air-mailed cookies probably would have done the trick.  The truth is, no one asked me to do more than I could handle.  I put myself in that boat with no provocation.

It was definitely not an option to go home for the Holidays.  I worked from December 14th through January 2nd with only Christmas day off.  James was hustling too and we didn’t see each other as much as we wanted. But, it was our first holiday season as a married couple.  

I built a Christmas tree out of cardboard that was an excellent metaphor for our messy lives. It was haphazard, fell over a lot, and was a hilarious fire hazard, but friends showed up to help us through it.  And the reason they loved it and supported it wasn’t because it was pathetic: it was because only me and James, in our classic complicated shenanigans, would make a Christmas tree out of cardboard and legitimately leave it up all holiday season.  They didn’t feel pity for us, they just liked our wacky point of view.  We have, if nothing else, absolutely no capability to disguise our enthusiasm and goofiness.  Which is sometimes the only way to make it through a rough winter.

One way, a palm tree! The other way, a Pine tree! Both ways, cheap!

I was such a mess though, I questioned everyone’s support.  It’s funny: I thought what was missing was money, some mysterious Daddy Warbucks figure to pop up and say, “You’ve worked hard kid.  Here’s your Stamp of Success as an Adult! And here are benefits too!” Really the only thing I was missing was self respect. A bank balance couldn’t give me that internal peace of mind, and neither could respect of a mentor, my friends, or family. I just had it in my head I deserved this miserable schedule, and didn’t deserve to put my efforts into making a career take off when I could barely cover all my bills.



Looking back on it, it was only the mundane human interaction that made the month bearable.  It was the million passive aggressive text messages sent to friends at the tail end of long shifts.  The spare hour I’d spend with someone between jobs.  My oldest friend Helen came to visit us, and we spent Christmas day on the beach with coffee cups full of triple sec mixed with hot chocolate and not a penny to spend on seasonal broo-ha-ha’s.  But who puts decorations on the beach anyway?  Didn’t need ‘em.

It was perfect. And a mess.  And on New Year’s Eve, when I fell asleep at about 12:30am on James’ shoulder, with one friend over, watching cheap TV on the internet, I didn’t have the time or energy to analyze the year or make big promises.  I just knew I had work to do in the morning. And a shift at Williams-Sonoma. It made the few quiet hours of my holiday deep, important, and full of more constructive stillness than the fanciest vacation money could buy.

We had some unavoidable travel coming up though…

Part 3 on Friday, “Been Through the Dessert in a PT Cruiser with a Name.”

A Long Story about a lot of Short Gigs

This is a long story.  I’ve talked a lot about why I love photography, but I’d love to share some of my path to get to make images for a living.  I try and mostly keep this space about what I’m actually working on, and at the moment, there’s not a lot I can discuss in a public forum (but if you want hints, ask real nice).  So this story is what I’m sharing instead: my musical job chairs from the last year.  I hope you can still look me in the eye after.

As a working photographer (and videographer), I’m not above a part time job in the slow season.  Enter, the mall:

It’s kind of taboo to talk about a day job, but this past holiday season when I worked as a store chef for Williams-Sonoma, I enjoyed the break from my tech-head life as a photographer and colorist in training.  I have a really hard time getting out of my head. I read tech specs and manuals for gear I wish I owned in my spare time for Pete’s sake.  



Cooking, on the other hand, has always been strongly intuitive for me.  It is fluid, a loosey goosey not-exact science and it makes me feel like a freewheeling artist.  (It is, in fact, profoundly strange I need cooking to make me feel that way, because I am a professional artist who pays her bills with art and everything and owns reference books and goes to museums and writes the admission costs off on her taxes as research. I’m thinking “Really Suzy HomeMaker?  Making Lasagna Bolognese makes you feel like you’re the kind of spontaneous flower blossom you know you’ll never be? Why don’t you go back to the Telecine Internet Group.” But that’s neither here nor there.) 

I was kind of a different person teaching the cooking class.  I was mind-blowingly hip, passionate about cuisine, a little flirtatious, and very modest, obs. I’d find a super expensive spice, throw it in with abandon.  I was a late blooming rebel, but armed with imported Australian pink salt instead of any sort of illicit substance.  I danced with the smells until something edible resulted. I deviated from the curriculum almost entirely.  So, I’m sorry if you came to one of my classes and I made four recipes… none of which were written down anywhere.  I was going through an incredibly subtle suck-it-to-the-corporate-man phase.  




(By the way, I actually loved working for Williams-Sonoma and very well may work there again next holiday season.  Unless they read this blog.  Foot, gun, bam… and then we will eat Ramen.)

And it was great at first.  I started in the fall, appropriately switching back to wearing my business-casual attire that was hiding in the back of my closet.  My previous part time job was stocking handbags at Macy’s at five in the morning, and that made me want to ACTUALLY shoot myself in the foot.  I quit one day when a furious Vietnamese woman made me cry because I moved a metric ton* of perfume bottles to the wrong place. Williams-Sonoma was infinitely better.  They are one of the last corporations that truly cares about quality over quantity of service.  And, it’s also homey and fun to be around cooking stuff all day. Look, olivewood spoons on sale!



Damn that discount.

The bosses at Williams-Sonoma liked me too.  They started scheduling me more and more and talked about putting me in charge of that store’s culinary programs.  I was delighted.  I could imagine a different kind of life where I relied on the steady income from Williams-Sonoma.  I would book my very limited shoots based on my desire for the subject matter, without worrying if I was charging enough to pay my student loans or charging enough period. I could afford to cover my bases.  I wouldn’t have to spend another last ten days of a month knocking on the doors where my outstanding invoices were hiding.

Then there was a curveball.  Earlier that fall, I’d told a friend who worked at a dailies lab to let me know if there were any openings.  I got a call for an interview the same week I handed in my resume for the management position at Williams-Sonoma.  As if that wasn’t enough, I really enjoyed the interview.  And I really liked the boss.  Plus I knew I’d get to work with a friend with school.

Here was the kicker: the staff at the lab knew I was a photographer.  They knew my work was unsteady and I’d take off for a shoot without blinking.  And to top it all off… they wanted me to develop a skill set I had that is so niche-y, I’d never even given a thought to using it in the real world: superior color vision.

It’s true.  I’ve been tested.  Encouraged by my lightbulb engineer father-in-law, I make time to read up on color science.  I could drone on about standard illuminants for hours (oh look, I am. How out of character). Being a colorist is such a strange profession I wouldn’t have known what door to knock on to start with and didn’t give it a second thought.  Then the opportunity was just… there, and who was I to look away?

Of course, business in Hollywood changes as fast as the weather in Oklahoma.  At the time I didn’t even really know I had such an opportunity.  I just knew I was getting closer to where they make the movies, and the movie people were appreciative of my strange obsession with color.  Even now, don’t call me an assistant colorist until you physically see my credit up on screen.

I felt uneasy jumping ship without more confirmation the new job would work out.  And, we were really, really broke.

So I decided to do both jobs, and keep growing the photo business.  The previous winter was the scariest financial thing I’d ever lived through, and in this economy I knew it was foolish to turn down extra income. Extra gig in December? Gimme gimme gimme, I said.  Take it while it lasts, I thought, because this too shall pass. And remember the Alamo, or something like that.

And that’s what coffee is for, I believed.

Part 2, “The Parable of Google Calendar,” coming up next Tuesday.