Social Climber

HOW ALI JARDINE TOOK HER IPHONE IMAGES TO THE MARKETPLACE.

- Barry Tanenbaum

LONGER STORY SHORT: With a high-flying imagination and no shortage of necessary technical skills, Ali Jardine turned a creative hobby into a creative business by networking the new-fashioned way—with Instagram, Snapchat, Flickr, Facebook, and probably some other social sites she didn’t have time to list or mention.

Jardine is a painter, but with her family moving around a lot, and with two young kids…well, as she says, “Often there was not a lot of space to paint, or not enough energy.” She’d photographed from the film days, had a point-and-shoot digital camera with which she took pictures— “landscapes, the kids”—but when the first iPhone came along, everything changed. “I had it with me all the time and could make photos while waiting for the kids to get out of school, or dance classes, or whatever.”

The phone’s camera was cool, but it was the apps that provided the possibilities. Prior to the phone and its apps, she took pictures; creating photos didn’t start until she got the phone.