.There’s something about finding the perfect photograph that every designer understands. As a young art direction intern at Ogilvy, I spent countless hours combing through stock libraries in search of the right image. The challenge? Finding photography that felt authentic rather than overly posed, represented genuine diversity beyond the usual group shots, and hadn’t already appeared in 2,000 other brand campaigns.

When I took the helm at Epicenter, I was determined to find a better way. I worked with internal and external photographers to build a custom image library featuring the entrepreneurs we worked with every day. Think of it as a stock-free stock library: original photography that gave the brand a more authentic, recognizable point of view.

That experience laid the groundwork for my arrival at the University of Memphis during its brand refresh. One of our creative priorities was to build a photography library that better reflected the authenticity, diversity and personality of our University community. I was given the opportunity to take a more hands-on role in developing creative direction for photo shoots, from shaping concepts to guiding the visual execution alongside our photographers. With roughly 10 University shoots under my belt, I'm excited to keep building on that experience and, most importantly, keep making images that feel like Memphis.