TONL x Chromebook: Emily, Author & Photo Researcher
Meet Emily Freidenrich! Author & Photo Researcher. Hear more about her day in the life as she integrates both the Samsung Chromebook Pro and the Acer Chromebook 15 CB515-1HT.
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Day In the Life...
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of interviews for my book project. So I have been scheduling interviews with those people trying to find good times to sit with them in person or do phone interviews. It really varies depending on the project. A lot of the work I do is image driven and writing. I curate the images for the topics and then write captions and texts to carefully construct a more artful piece. I fit in what I can when I am balancing being an author and a photo researcher, which is my day job. During the week since I have a day job, I often respond to emails at night or on the weekends from my editors or responding to some of the folks that I am featuring in the book.
For my day job at Girl Friday I specialize in image research rights and licensing so I work on all manner of book projects. I am working on two books on kids, flight (airplanes, travel), Marvel...a little bit of everything. I have become a mini expert. I usually have 5-10 projects at a time. I get to work with people all over the world. I try to tell stories and try to show the most interesting things. I love finding the things that have never been seen before because there is such a greta pay off for your audience.
The Challenges....
The most difficult challenge I’ve faced as a professional is whether or not to continue gaining experience and building a portfolio in the job world, or to take the time to pursue an MA and PhD in art history.
I have always been very academic, and at Western Washington University, I earned a double major in art history and cultural anthropology/archaeology, with a focus in museum studies. My first job as a post-grad was in publishing, and I always intended it to be temporary while I applied to grad schools. My plan was to become an art curator, art writer, and eventually to teach art history at the college level. But I was devastated when didn’t get into my dream program (at Berkley); I did get into other programs, but was so crushed that my hard work and plans did not play out as I’d thought. I set about making myself more competitive through a post-graduate certificate in museum studies (at the University of Washington) to help me make the switch to the museum field, and shortly after finishing, I surprised myself. I was offered two jobs: one for a company that works closely with major museums, and another that would keep me in publishing but that would allow me to write my first book. Faced with that choice, my gut told me to stick with publishing, and that maybe full-time curating wasn’t what I wanted anyway. That decision meant that my first book, The Art of Beatrix Potter, published by Chronicle Books in 2016, was my first book as an author!
What's Ahead...
I still work in publishing today, and I’m still managing my inner turmoil over whether (or when) to pursue grad school. But aside from still wanting to teach eventually, the degree is more of a symbol to me now, and not a license to be doing what I really want to do. In other words, I realized that I don’t need the degree to write about art: I’m currently finishing my second book, this one on arts and crafts around the world, which will be released in the fall of 2018! I can’t wait to share more about it publicly in the coming weeks!