This little gem began in 2012  for a class project when I was a journalism student in college – Stacy Spaulding’s digital publishing class to be exact. The project was simple: pick a subject area you like and blog about it all semester long. The point of the project was to teach us how to establish an internet presence by branding ourselves through content, media, keywording, hash tagging and creating original posts that all stayed within our specific niche. Our assignments varied by the week; sometimes we would have to reach a certain follower count, obtain a certain number of views, post a Q&A, post a how-to, post a video, etc. The assignments built upon each other so towards the end of the semester we had a pretty spiffy looking blog with a variety of posts.

I got super into mine. Like, really, really, into it. I started it in August of 2012 and by November of that same year I was nominated for a Mobbie Award (Maryland Outstanding Blog) and actually won the category for Best New Blog and came in third for Best Photo Blog. Fast forward two years, I’m still here and on my way to two-hundred followers, almost one-hundred thousand views, almost one-thousand comments and read in almost every country around the globe. I have met so many awesome people through this blog! I love conversing with each and every one of you and I appreciate the feedback and insight more than you’ll ever know. YOU are the one that has brought my blog to where it is today!

It’s crazy how something as small as a school project can turn into something huge. After winning the Mobbie in 2012, a reporter from the Baltimore Sun reached out to me to do an interview and feature piece on my artwork with film photography. I was going to be featured in a full page, full color article in the Sunday paper! Upon wrapping the interview, she asked me if I had any questions and I mentioned that I had been trying to get a photo internship with the BSun for ages. She said she would personally let that be known and the rest is kind of history since I became their photo intern that following fall and went right into a freelance contract when it ended. If you wanted to know how I started shooting for the Sun, there you go.

Why was it originally called 120Pearls? Well, it was going to be a blog on just medium format film, hence the 120. Soon after I started it I realized I wanted to include much more. Now it’s titled Visual Individual, a name that doesn’t really need much explaining.