Jonathan Attends One Spark

IP has seen no shortage of students attending conferences.  Indeed, inspired by Trey's travels to the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) 2015 Show and Max's visit to the New England Magic Conference (NEMCON), Jonathan recently decided that his turn had come.  Determined to learn about crowdfunding and large-scale artistic projects, he drew up a proposal - entirely on his own initiative - to travel to Jacksonville, FL for One Spark (@BeOneSpark).  He consulted various vendors in search of employment too, securing a volunteer photography position with One Spark itself.

Due to his careful deliberation while securing permissions, Jonathan received the total support of the IP faculty.  For the rest of the story, we invite you to consult Jonathan's own words below:

One Spark is an event for artists, entrepreneurs and innovators in art, education, health &​ science, social good, music, and technology to get their ideas and projects funded by everyday people. It gave me a chance to learn about the projects in each of the categories and what good that each creator had to offer and the difference they are trying to make in the world. I went down to One Spark to photograph the event directly and to get experience in photographing an event. For the time that I was working, I was learning a lot about what the vendors had to go through while working at the event. I also learned that working at an event like this can be a lot of fun and a lot of photography experience.

I didn’t have a specific assignment; I took pictures of vendors, people, and the Food Village on certain streets. The event was spread out over a lot of streets, and I had to do Food Village (a center with restaurants and food trucks). I gave many of my photos to One Spark, which is going to use them for future advertising. I hope that mine are going to be used in the social media and promotional advertising. I was taking pictures for One Spark (with them in mind) and for the fun of it. This isn’t a different venue than others I’ve done before, but there were a lot more people there.

What do you think of One Spark and Jonathan's experience? Please post in the comments section below.

Description of images:  Shots of the One Spark convention.  All photos taken by Jonathan on-site.