Sunday, February 5, 2012 Last Update: 12:33 am EST

What Does Being a PDN 30 Mean? Emiliano Granado Weighs in.

Posted on | March 4, 2010|No Comments<Back

Posted by Rachel Hulin

PDN’s 30 were announced yesterday, and everyone’s all atwitter. Literally. The 30 is still an important and lauded metric, but what does it do for its recipients? I imagine the results vary widely, but I thought we’d check in with an alumnus to see a small slice of the pie.

Emiliano Granado was a 30 a few years back, and he tells us about his experience here:

I was named PDN 30 in 2008. I was 30 years old then. I had been full-time, freelance photographer for 2 1/2 years at that point. I had shot a handful of assignments, but mainly personal work until then.

The immediate effect of being part of the list was a huge spike in web traffic. It allowed me to send out a newsletter, blog update, etc with the news. Eventually, though, the traffic plateaued and came back to a similar levels as before – maybe a bit higher.

The effects throughout the year were a lot more substantial. If I look back at all my invoices for 2007, 90% of them are for assisting. But my invoices for 2008 include Travel + Leisure, Esquire, Ben & Jerry’s, and People en Espanol. You could argue that I was already on the trajectory to land all these assignments, but having PDN name me to their list definitely helped. It’s hard to quantify exactly what it does, but all of a sudden, it was easier to schedule meetings, people responded to my marketing efforts (”hey, nice work. saw you in PDN”), and I also think it helps to reassure Photo Editors and Art Buyers that this young talent is worth taking a chance on.

There was also a boost to my own photographic confidence. As young, emerging photographers, we spend lots of time in our living rooms by ourselves in varying states of pijamas or street clothes. We get feedback from friends, fellow photographers, our mothers, the internet. Whoever will listen. For PDN to say, “yes, we believe in you Emiliano. And we’ll publish our belief in you in this magazine” is really amazing. All of a sudden you’re like “shit, maybe I was right all this time.”

And of course, when you feel good about what you’re doing, you’re only going to keep doing it and doing it better and more enthusiastically.

The other thing I should mention is that lots of younger photographers that I talk to think that after PDN 30 you’re going to get rich and get a rep and never have to work hard at success. How wrong you are my young photographer friend! This thing we’re trying to do (a career as a photographer) is a long-term commitment. I’ve yet to have a real financially comfortable fiscal year. I spend A LOT on personal work. A LOT. Sometimes more than I make. But this is all an investment into making work that I want to make. That I think people will want to see. And eventually hire me for.

See some of Granado’s work below (I love the seamlessness between personal and assignments…. very authentic).