Last Thursday, W+K Portland opened its gallery doors for an exhibition by our own Tatum Shaw, a copywriter. We spoke to Tatum about the photographs of his family in Georgia, why being terrified probably means you’re making great art, and how the agency helped set him on his artistic path. Read our interview below, and come check out Tatum’s photography in the W+K Portland foyer until the end of this month.

Q: How did you first get into photography? How have your interests evolved?

A: I’ve taken tons of pictures since college. I’d always have a camera on me at parties, but I never really considered it making good photographs until I was in advertising school in Atlanta. I had an art direction class and learned about composition and that really led me to look at things in a whole new way. From there it was just me latching on to photographers I liked and trying to craft my work to get better.
 

Q: What is your W+K show about? What inspired you, and what moved you to create the pieces?

A: The show is called Etowah and it’s named after a river that runs through my hometown of Cartersville, Ga. I’ve always taken pictures of home when I’ve gone to visit over holidays or breaks, and after a couple of years I started to notice they were beginning to come together as a body of work that I liked, and so it just went on from there.

I was originally going to have this show feature some of my other photography, random shots I’ve taken over the years. But some friends suggested I show the ones of my hometown. Which was kind of terrifying because I consider those to be my most personal ones so it’s really scary to put them out there like this. But then I figured that since it was scaring me so much, it was probably a good idea.
 

Q: How has the W+K community supported your work?

A: I wouldn’t even have pursued photography had it not been for the inspiration, advice, and encouragement of the people in this place. Everyone has been so incredibly supportive over the years and are really great about offering me opportunities whenever they’ve come up.

I’m pretty lucky. This place is full of creative cheerleaders. And the resources for the show in here are just incredible. Peter Lindman is amazing and was nice enough to help me with the scanning, retouching and printing. Ademar helped put my name in for the show and his crew did a great job with the setup. And other coworkers have been nice enough to reblog my constant barrage of invites.
 

See more of Tatum Shaw’s work at tatumshaw.com. Etowah is on display in the W+K Portland foyer until the last week of January.