Rasmussen: “[The books are] about
how I can best communicate
my vision and how I look at the world,
and give people the fairest, most
realistic representation of the work
I am going to create for them.”
volume and allow the form of the book to
be influenced by the work inside of it.”
Putting so much time and effort into
creating these books communicates that
Thus far the theory is paying off. On a recent trip to New York City
he approached people he’d sent books to and found it was a lot easier
to get meetings than on previous trips. In his meetings, he felt he al-
ready had “a different relationship” with editors and creatives, and
that people were much more “familiar with me and the work I was
doing,” he says. “It feels like the conversation has already started.”
An editor at The Wall Street Journal told Rasmussen that the first
Wanderlust book was still on his desk five months after he sent it,
and another creative sent Rasmussen a personal note about the book.
The Wanderlust books are “part of a long game,” Rasmussen says.
As a young photographer he doesn’t expect to receive a lot of assign-
ments from top publications whose editors are on his mailing list.
Rather, he views the books as “laying groundwork for a longer rela-
tionship, which is going to be really important for my career.”
The books also give Rasmussen a couple of deadlines per year for
which he must create a small body of work—a great incentive to go
out and create, he says. During his first year freelancing he “got so
caught up with assignment work and marketing that I wasn’t really
creating much,” Rasmussen says. The book series “made me much
more active in creating work and seeing how I want to develop from
one [volume] to the next.”
The people who have received
books from Rasmussen are
much more familiar with
his work, and it has been
easier to get meetings to
show his portfolio, he says.
