{local markets} :: kanpai

hi there, my friends, how are you doing? i am having one of those weeks… very busy weeks, in which i start to consider a break from some things, in order to catch up on the others, know what i mean? asides from that, everything in this house seems to be going against me, as several things have been falling apart (hey house, what is wrong with you, anyway?!). but let’s move on, because i need to believe that this will be a happy day! tomorrow will be a national holiday here in portugal, so it is a good thing! but when we freelance, we do not have holidays, nor weekends, right? i think i heard that somewhere! well, today we shall have someone that i actually know, i think that this is a first! i met this girl on my first {craft fair}, though i already knew her work. but meeting other photographers and blog readers is always such a nice thing! so, sara is here with us… because she owns a business. a photography business called {kanpai}.

hello there, how are you sara? so, what can you tell us about yourself? hello claudia, i’m feeling great, thank you! i’m Sara, a professional procrastinator and daydreamer. i was born and lived in lisbon, but also in oslo, tokyo and now london! i love to travel, meet new people, eat at picnics, look at the clouds, listening to music, go to libraries and movie-theaters, collect all kinds of paper and try to turn them into origami, and in between all these i managed to complete a degree in architecture. i’m also trying to save the world one lamp at the time. i recently move to london to study and emerge myself in a new culture and excitement!

how did your photography business start? when i was younger i thought  i was terrible at photography. none of my pictures, taken with those horrible point and shoot film cameras, was great and despite all my artistic intentions i though photography was a dead end for me. and then i had the incredible opportunity of living in japan for almost a year. that experience blew my mind, japan is so incredibly exciting and, for the creative self, an endless source of inspiration. i took thousands of pictures and uploaded some to a blog, which i named {from tokyo with love} and people started complimenting my photos. this was incredibly odd for me, but something sparkled. some years later i returned to japan and started a daily photo project called {mirrorcities} with a friend. this project was very well received and we even had an exhibition at {museu do oriente}. by then i was already taking my camera everyday and everywhere. at some point last year i threw my fears out the window and opened an {online shop}!

do you do anything else besides that or is it possible for you to make a living out of your business? i do tons of everything “elses”. i’m very restless and i’m constantly thinking and starting new projects (now finishing them or making them profitable is a whole different story). but, to answer your question, i don’t make a living out of my tiny photographic business (i had a day job in a company). i try to use any profit i can make to buy film for my analog cameras and develop it or save it for a new lens.

where do you seek for inspiration? pretty much everywhere, but travelling gives me great inspiration. cities , buildings and street life are very inspiring to me too. i love to wander and i feel i can never get bored in a city. i also love capturing details.

what do you do to promote your business? what has been helpful? i’m actually quite terrible on self promotion. i have an etsy shop, a {facebook fan page} and a (much neglected) personal {blog} where you can usually find some updates . i also overload my friends with e-mails! before moving to london, i used to participate in some craft fairs. although it’s quite exhausting, i’ve felt it to be the best way to promote my work. people like to see the prints and talk to the author (me!), discuss and share experiences. i absolutely love this interaction with customers. i would love to find similar fairs here in london.

what advice would you give for those small business owners/design-makers in portugal? if it makes you happy, do it.forget all your fears and put yourself out there!

i find sara’s work so refreshing and it almost feels like we can travel through her images. sometimes people might think that, being a photographer asides with blogging, i would have problems in promoting other photographers, but we need to feel at ease with others in our field of business, and most of all, we need to respect others for their work… and then, i also believe in working together! i was a bit away from sara on the craft fair, as they try to avoid similar kinds of businesses close to each other (which makes sense!) but her work is different, because we are different persons… but it is curious and so interesting, that while i read all her answers, i felt so related with so many of her points-of-view! and she has done one thing that makes me feel terribly jealous… she has lived in four different countries so far! and that is a dream for me! so, let’s finish this for today! you can visit her {blog} + {facebook} and {etsy shop}!

images: sara godinho for kanpai (click on each image for further details)