How I Got a Photo Book Publishing Deal
It was the first week of December in 2009, the dean of The Creative School at Ryerson University asked me to be one of the speakers during the following year’s graduate seminars, to talk about how I got my dream job. Well, there was a tiny problem; I didn’t have one, but I said yes anyways. So, in the next six months, all I needed was to get my dream job.
A year before, I completed my graduate studies, won a national award for my thesis project, and was featured on the Top 30 Under 30 List. Right after that, I got hired as a junior creative director at one of the top media production companies in Toronto, to work on a global transmedia campaign that launched during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which won multiple Webby awards, a Gemini award, and was shortlisted for Cannes and SXSW awards. It was a pretty big deal, especially to my professors and my uni friends, it did look like a dream job to them, but it wasn’t my dream job.
My dream job was pretty simple: travel the world, photograph diverse cultures, and get a photo book publishing deal that gets featured in The New York Times. Very specific, very clear, but also very hard to achieve.
The first thing I did was go to Barnes & Nobel to look up publishers of all the photo books that fell into the categories of travel, culture, and humanitarian work. I then called every single one of them and then sent out my written proposals. By the end of the month, I heard back from 29 out of the 38 publishers I had written to, they all said no. The other nine publishers never replied. So, after that I got in touch with the photographers of those books, and most of them recommended that I get an agent. When I approached the agents, they said I didn’t have big enough body of work to be considered a successful photographer who could be represented by their agency. “Everyone wants to get published,” one of the agents laughed, “but it’s not that easy kiddo.” And that was the end of that.
There has to be a way, I thought. I took out a piece of paper and wrote down the names of all the people I knew who worked in media, tourism, and international NGOs. I then contacted everyone on that list and asked if they could help. Most of them had no idea, but then one of my high school friends who worked for Reuters at the time got me in touch with a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, who agreed to look at my work and gave me the perfect advice. “First, go out and shoot the kind of story you want to get commissioned for. Next, publish that online as your portfolio. And then, share it with everyone you know,” he said. “How is that going to get me a book publishing deal?” I said. “There are thousands of people just like you, who dream about their dream job, but that’s all they do. How bad do you want this?” He said.
I wanted to shoot a project about children’s rights, so I started researching online. Then one day, out of the blue I got a message from a friend from uni who worked for the Red Cross and was stationed in Tel Aviv. I told him about my idea, and he invited me to visit. I had two weeks off for Christmas, so I booked my flight and headed to Israel. My friend picked me up at the airport and we drove straight to Jerusalem. It was Christmas eve and my friend said that it would be a great night to see the visual contrast between the Christians, the Muslims, and the Jews. “You’ll love photographing the people there,” he said. And he was right. The moment we arrived in the old city, I fell in love.
We drove across Israel for a week, and I photographed the diverse cultures across the country, from orthodox Jews, to nomadic Bedouins in the north, to the hyper-modern society in Tel Aviv. I was in heaven. This is what I wanted to do with my life. But I was still craving to shoot the story. “You’ll have to cross the border and go to Palestine,” my friend said, “that’s where the story is.” The problem was that I didn’t have that much time left. How will I find what I’m looking for? I thought, and waited for an epiphany, but there were no insights that came to my mind.
“Let’s go meet some people,” my friend said, and took me to a house party in Tel Aviv, which was organized by the son of a UN diplomat. “Don’t share too much details, people have hidden agendas,” my friend said before we entered the house. The first thing I noticed was grass and blow everywhere. I guess this is what happens in the diplomatic enclave, I thought. First, I met an American financial analyst who loved talking about Japanese girls in school uniforms, then a Dutch coder who knew everything about herbal tea, just when I was about to give up, I locked eyes with this girl from across the room. She walked up to me, played with her lustrous brunette tresses, and passed me a joint, “you look lost,” she said in her British accent. How does she know? I thought, and took the joint from her. When I told her that I wanted to shoot a story about children’s rights, her eyes lit up. “I’m a music teacher,” she said, “I work with children at the Balata Refugee Camp.” I couldn’t believe it. She gave me her number and the instructions on how to cross the border.
The next day, I went to Palestine, spent a few days photographing children in the refugee camp, and listened to their stories. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.
When I got back to Toronto, I put together an online portfolio of all the stories I shot in Israel and Palestine, and shared it with all my friends and colleagues, and asked them to forward it to everyone they knew. For the next five months or so, nothing happened, and then one day I got an email from an ad agency in Kuwait:
“Hey Afzal, we just saw your portfolio and we loved it. For next year, we have a photography book project with an American publisher, and we’re looking for the right photographer for this assignment. Let us know when you’re available to have a quick chat.”
The following year, in the summer of 2011, I set out to chronicle the separation wall in Palestine. After two years, the book got published, got great reviews, and was nominated for a few awards.
It’s pretty close to what I had imagined, I thought. The book got featured in the news for a while and then things got quiet. I guess I’ll have to find a new project that’s good enough for The New York Times, I thought.
One year later, at the end of October 2014, I got a phone call from the same Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who had given me the advice to shoot my first story.
“Afzal, I’m so proud of you, you really did it,” he said.
“Oh, you saw the book,” I said.
“You’re in The New York Times,” he said.
He must be high, I thought, “it’s not possible,” I said.
“Go online and check it out, you really made it,” he said.
I grabbed my laptop, and there it was, my photo book was featured in The New York Times. At that moment, I didn’t feel my legs, it was like I was in one of those movies when they have an explosion, but instead of the sound of the explosion, you hear silence, like my eardrums were all pierced. It was surreal. My dream was not a dream anymore.
You must be wondering what happened during the graduate seminar where I was invited to speak. Well, a few weeks before the event, the media production company I was working for laid off everyone due to the recession. So, in hindsight, I guess it was blessing in disguise.
