We recently connected with Sarah Sharp and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?

Before I started POPPN, I worked for a few different modeling agencies as a booking agent. From being behind the scenes, I not only learned about how the modeling industry worked , but what agents looked for. This became invaluable to me now as a magazine editor because I can now implement those tactics when creative directing a shoot or art directing our layouts for each issue release. Having an agent can be valuable to models, photographers, artists, and creatives because they have the inside scoop on available jobs that other people don’t have access to. This can open a lot of doors and get you your dream job as a creative.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

My name is Sarah Sharp. I am the founder of POPPN Magazine, a magazine for Gen Z and Millennial photographers, artists, and creatives. I started this magazine because in the past, photography magazines were generally technical based and not creative based. I wanted to give photographers a place to congregate as peers and showcase our work for the pleasure of photography rather than the BUSINESS of photography. There weren’t a lot of magazines geared toward a younger demographic of photographers and creatives and one that was also not stuffy and had more of a relaxed feel.

I’m most proud of the fact that I created a space that is of value to photographers like me and that it has been impactful in other photographer’s lives. In fact, POPPN has become a place where photographers, models, and creative groups get their work published for the first time and this is very exciting and humbling for me.

In the future, I hope that POPPN is a thought leader in the photography space and that more of the younger generation discovers us and finds a sense of belonging here. We want POPPN to be a community where creatives can not only showcase their work no matter what their level of experience is, but also find jobs, make friends, learn about the industry and more.

We are just getting started!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

PAY PHOTOGRAPHERS & ARTISTS THEIR WORTH!!! Over the years, in the photography industry specifically, the art of photography has been watered down due to the advancement of cell phones. I think that it is imperative that society recognizes photography as an art form, rather than just a novelty. We can fix this by continuing to educate society about the amount of work and expertise that goes into this art form and other art forms.

Photographers are not just pricing their work out of nowhere. They price it at a reasonable rate that not only includes their level of expertise, but the time going into each and every image they create. This can sometimes be extremely time consuming and labor intensive.

Please remember that art & photography are respectable career paths for many and we need society to place more value on this art form each and every day.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

We started as a completely different business and audience and it has evolved ever since! Our target audience started as female photographers based in the Portland, OR area. We had an event called The POP Awards which was a photography awards show honoring outstanding female photographers in the Portland area. After the success of that event, we decided to launch a magazine and here we are now! It is now a multicultural, multi gender, and progressive publication & IG feed which we absolutely love.

It started with just one post with zero likes, to now posts that get hundreds of likes and a ton of engagement.

We have always been inspired by a retro aesthetic, so we wanted to include that vibe into our social media feeds.

Our Instagram feed is mostly shared content from other photographers we find on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. We share work that is colorful, in your face, bold, and unexpected.

The key to building up your social media pages is building community FIRST. You need to actually care about the people and things you are posting about. Genuinely comment on your community’s pages and let them know you love them! At the end of the day authenticity goes a long way and your followers will be able to feel it. Once you build your community, start speaking to them in a language that they can understand and vibe to. Just be real and speak to your community as a friend… because they ARE your friend!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.poppnmag.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/poppnmag
• Facebook: Facebook.com/poppnmag

Image Credits
1. Rep yo city – Fuego Gatsby @fuego_gatsby 2. Foodie Issue – Talia Valdez @oftaliashands 3. yellow Poppn header – Rob Allen @robjallen 4. Chester Marc @chestermarc 5. Giovanni Miles @tanabasq