Every now and then, a student comes along and you know they are dripping with talent. Emily McCartney was one of those. I remember Emily in her first year as an agricultural communications student at Texas Tech. Sweet, mature, driven, prepared – everything I wanted in a student. And then I saw her photos. She had “it.”
In her first year, she signed up to go to Belize on my study abroad trip. We had so much fun: a group of 14 students (plus Scott) traveling through the tropical country to see bananas, spices, shrimp, Maya ruins, caves, monkeys, rivers, and of course, the beach. Any time we saw something we wanted good photos of, we handed Emily the camera. Even then – on a trip with a group of college students in a place that had plenty of opportunity to go wild – she showed immense maturity and poise, and she was so precious to be around.
As she moved through Texas Tech, at one point, I asked her what she was planning to do after graduation. “Photography,” she said, so sure of herself. A lot of students tell me they really like photography or they might be interested in it as a career, but there are only a few that tell me they want to go into photography and I know they’ll make it. I had no doubt Emily would crush it. Since graduation her career has exponentially grown, yet she is always willing to speak to students, be interviewed for brand new podcast experiments, and she was even on the cover of our department’s magazine, the Agriculturist.
As you’ll hear in the podcast, Emily got her start in the 4-H photography contest. As a 4-H leader and mom, I love hearing success stories like this. The 4-H contest is a relatively inexpensive contest and a great way to get your kiddo plugged into 4-H. Find more here.
A few of the big takeaways in this podcast episode: you don’t have to have all the gear to be a great photographer, use the light that’s there rather than trying to set up a bunch of lights, and straighten crooked horizons, it’s a simple fix with basic editing software. Emily mentioned VSCO as her fave social media platform. I’m ashamed I didn’t know about it before, but as I was looking up the link, I somehow lost 30 minutes. Be prepared to spend hours looking at great photos.
Emily is easy to find:
Website
Facebook
Insta: @roadrunnergallery and @e_mccart
Here’s the link to the episode. I’m still having trouble embedding. But I’m on Spotify and Amazon Music now! (Waiting on Apple Podcasts).
Erica irlbeck 