Folklore Creative Co. · The camera fund
A lot of what I’ve been able to build over the years has come through the support of the community around me. My goal is to raise $10,000 toward a Fujifilm GFX100 II, and rather than simply asking for donations I’ve put together a number of photography, wedding and creative offerings at special rates. You get something from me, and what you spend helps me invest directly back into the work I’m making.
0.1% of the way there
That support has taken a lot of forms, people hiring me, sharing my work, collaborating with me, supporting new ideas, and helping me take the next step when I’ve been trying to grow into something new.
It has played a big role in the growth of both the Folklore Creative Company and the Folklore Wedding Company, and lately I’ve been feeling especially grateful for where that growth has brought me.As the wedding company has become more financially stable, it has started to give me something I’ve wanted for a long time: more space to make work that isn’t attached to needing to charge someone or generate income.
The last few years have changed how I work. I've been able to spend more of my time on the kind of projects I actually care about, rather than taking whatever job came along to cover the month. That has meant more collaborations with other artists, more opportunities to document people and events in my community, and more freedom to follow projects simply because I think they matter or because I’m curious about them.
Any of them can be bought for somebody else. It never has to be a date on your own calendar: it can be a session for your parents, for a friend who has never had a decent photograph of their family, for someone whose year has been hard. I’ll send you something you can actually hand over, and I’ll work out the date with them, not with you.
Over the last little while, I’ve been fortunate to have more opportunities to simply show up with a camera because something feels worth documenting.
These have become some of the projects I’m most proud of — work built around people, place, collaboration and community, without needing a financial outcome attached to it.
These are the kinds of opportunities I want to be able to say yes to more often. Sometimes that means a larger collaboration or documentary project, and sometimes it simply means showing up, paying attention and making photographs because what is happening feels worth remembering.
Having more stability through the wedding company has given me more freedom to make that choice, and a big part of what excites me about this next camera is how it can help me continue expanding that side of my work.
I’ve recently started working with the GFX medium-format system and have really fallen in love with what it brings to my photography. The GFX100 II would let me take that much further, and it would be my video camera as well, so the photography and the filmmaking would come out of one body instead of two separate kits I have to keep piecing together.
Photography and filmmaking have always been deeply connected in the way I work. They’re two ways I approach the same thing: documenting people, places, stories and moments that I care about. Having a camera that can move comfortably between both gives me one tool I can bring across weddings, documentary work, portraits, collaborations and community projects.
My goal is to raise $10,000 toward the camera.
Rather than simply asking for donations, I’ve put together a number of photography, wedding and creative offerings at special rates. The idea is simple: you get something from me, and what you spend helps me invest directly back into the work I’m making. Everyone who supports the campaign will have their photography or videos made on the new camera. What you spend buys the camera, and then the camera makes your work.
For me, this camera represents a chance to keep strengthening the work that supports my livelihood while also creating more room for work that doesn’t need a financial return attached to it. That balance is a big part of where I want to take things next. It isn't about better gear for its own sake. It's about being able to say yes to the work I care about, and to keep saying yes to it, without having to weigh every project against what it costs me to shoot it.
Every one is real work, booked properly, and priced below what it normally costs. The prices are what they are because you’re getting me a camera, not because the work is smaller.
And whichever one you take, your photography or video will be made on the new camera.
Flip the switch on any card and you’re buying it for someone else. I’ll send you a proper card to hand over, printed or digital, with nothing on it that looks like a receipt. Then they get in touch with me directly and we find a date that suits them.
It is the easiest good present I know of. Most people won’t book a photographer for themselves, and will be very glad somebody did it for them.
01The most accessible way there has ever been to work with me. Families, couples, portraits, a new baby, a dog, a business headshot that does not look like a headshot. If you have been meaning to do this for years and have never quite got around to it, this is the one.
02Wet plate collodion, the 1851 process, made in front of you on the day: three original tintypes that exist exactly once and go home with you. Alongside them a full digital portrait session, so you end up with both the object and the photographs you can actually send to people.
03Room to move. Enough time for the day to actually turn into something rather than being executed. Good for families who want more than a set of portraits, for couples, for anniversaries and elopements, and for anyone who wants a proper body of work rather than a handful of frames.
04A deep dive for a brand, a business or a company. We plan it properly: what the photographs are for, where they are going to live, what your website and your feed and your printed things actually need. Then we shoot it, on location, with the people and the products and the process all in it.
05Only 2Most websites start with a template and then go looking for pictures to fill it. This one starts with a day of photography that is yours and nobody else’s, and then a site built around those photographs on the same platform every Folklore business runs on. You edit it yourself, in plain language, without calling anybody. Normally $2,500; two of them here at $1,000 off.
06Only 2My complete wedding package: photography and film, the whole day, both made by the same person with the same eye. This is the work everything else on this page exists to support, and it is the work the new camera changes most directly. Two of them, at $1,500 off. I do not expect to offer this again.
07If you do not need photographs but you want to be part of this, you can put any amount toward the camera and that is genuinely it. Nothing owed, nothing expected. Your name goes on the list at the bottom of this page unless you would rather it did not.
You fill in a short form and it’s held in your name. I get in touch within a day or so to find a date and to send you an invoice. Nothing is charged on this page, and nothing you buy here is a voucher you have to chase. It’s a booking.
Yes. That’s the whole idea: everyone who supports the campaign has their photography or video made on the GFX100 II. If your date somehow lands before the camera does, I’ll tell you honestly and we’ll either move the date or I’ll shoot it on the medium format body I already have.
Sessions can be booked any time in the coming year. Weddings are subject to the date being open, so ask before you claim one. Gifts don’t expire.
Then I’m short and I’ll find the rest another way. Nothing here is contingent on the total. Every session, website and wedding on this page is real work that I’ll deliver whether the bar fills or not. This isn’t an all-or-nothing campaign, and your money isn’t sitting in escrow.
Yes, and any of them, not just the small ones. Flip the gift switch on the card and tell me who it’s for. You get a card to give them, printed or digital, and I take it from there: they contact me, we find a date, and you don’t have to project-manage anybody’s calendar.
Nothing I send them carries a price, and the card doesn’t mention this page unless you’d like it to.
Salt Spring Island and the Gulf Islands are included. Vancouver Island and the mainland are easy to arrange, and anywhere further is a conversation rather than a no.
It goes to work. And a fair amount of what it makes will be given away, which is most of the point.
Rebuilt from the ground up this summer and moved onto our own platform. It is the busiest thing we run, and the engine that pays for the rest.
Have a look →The parent studioThe Folklore Creative CompanyBrand and web design, photography, video, and tintype. This is the side the new camera serves most directly.
Have a look →SoftwareThe Creatives LedgerA money in, money out app for self-employed creative people. Receipts, invoicing, mileage, and a tax-time export you can actually read.
Have a look →The system behind the workThe client portalWhere clients see their project, their photographs, their contracts and their invoices.
Have a look →If something below feels like a fit, I’d love to make something together.
And if you simply want to share the campaign, that helps too.
Thank you for continuing to support what I’m building.
Sydney
