We recently connected with Brandon Bye and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brandon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

In November 2023, Amazon laid me off. It was the best day of the year. I booked a one-way flight to Buenos Aires and stayed for a month. I took the next nine months off, photographing and figuring out what’s to come. It felt like a crossroads, but I didn’t know just how sharp a turn I would take.

I worked at Amazon as an editor and writer for Alexa for seven years. At first it was cool, writing for a cutting-edge technology at a company writing blank checks. I was insulated from what people talk about when they talk about working at Amazon. My boss was a playwright. My closest co-worker was into fountain pens and high-end paper. I had a band going. Life was simpler then, but as the economy changed, the values of the company changed. Creative people were no longer valued at Amazon — MBAs and SDEs only. My boss got canned, and save for my pen-enthusiast co-worker, I was alone. And then we were both laid off.

In August of 2024, I started earnestly looking for editorial work again. I must have submitted 100 applications for jobs I didn’t want. Boring, lifeless job descriptions all written by AI. My cover letters, filtered through ChatGPT, followed the form. This was not the world I wanted to be part of.

On September 17th I went to an antique gallery in South Seattle to look for a mannequin so I could practice playing with studio lighting. I didn’t find a mannequin there, but on the way out I asked if they were hiring, and they said yes and encouraged me to apply. That night I decided to burn the boats, to not go back to work in the corporate world. I don’t belong there. I’d known that, and the friends who I’ve told about my decision have echoed this knowing. “It’s about time,” one of them said.

So, I’ll work at the antique gallery and build a livelihood in photography. Photography makes sense to me. When I’m photographing, I feel connected to the world and to myself in ways I need to feel connected. It’s come naturally to me. I’m following the instinct here. It’s scary, but I have to do it. This is not a drill.

Brandon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I didn’t know it at the time, but I got into photography as a coping strategy for grief. I lost a best friend and a longterm romantic partner at the same time. The pandemic had lifted, and the camera got me to engage with the world in a deep and intentional way. Photography found me.

My background as a writer influences the way I see the world through the lens. I have a pretty good understanding of how psychologies, motives, and telling details animate narrative. The translation that happens between a moment to a photograph of a moment has to do with these details. A photo is a translation, and technical skills aside, the ability one has decode and read the world is the difference between a good translation and great translation.

I was fortunate to hone my photographic eye for composition and my instinct for distilling action in the streets. Street photography, with all its unpredictability and variance, is my foundation, and it’s a good foundation. In the studio, I find the amount of control I have over setting the stage, with light, texture, props, layers, etc., is immensely enjoyable. I have worked with models, families, chefs, musicians, athletes, business professionals, and other photographers. I am happy to direct and I am happy offer space for collaboration and co-creation. And in my studio, I also provide tea, Diet Coke, good music, and cookies.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

One mission is to be around people I like being around and to take pride in what I do more often than not. Another mission is to express myself honestly. If I can manage that, what a good life.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice

Scam

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