Case Study: How @PolanskyPhoto Reuben Polansky used Gondola to secure a job with the NHL
Pro Tip: Keep your Gondola profile updated.
It might just land you your next gig.
That’s exactly what happened for a young Reuben Polansky out of Montreal, CA.
Here’s the story of how he went from freelance photographer to his dream job of working for the NHL.
Where’d you get your start?
“So I’m 18 years old now, but I started when I was around 14. My step dad was an editor back in the day. He went to the Olympics, shot some other fitness competitions. Stuff like that. When I was younger, he gave me a Cannon Q3. At the time my passion was aviation, so I used to take the camera to the airport.
Then my little brother started playing basketball. I started taking pics at his tournaments. Next thing I know, I’m at a HUGE tournament where Lu Dort happened to be. I think that was at age 14? The organizers liked my work, and they asked me to come back every year since.”
Where’d you hear about Gondola?
“I heard about it first from Twitter. I’m not sure when I made the account… Most of my early updates came from working with Montreal Alliance, an elite basketball team here in the city.
It was a cool way to visualize all my work, and I loved the stats being tracked. Even though I wasn’t updating it as much as I liked, it was still super valuable.”
How did the job with the NHL come about?
“July 19th — I checked my promotions tab to see if I had any cool discounts and noticed a message from Gondola. It was from a lady named Nicole and she was looking for someone to help cover the NHL! I had actually known the person doing the job before but hadn’t been able to contact anyone over there to apply. Then Nicole reached out, mentioned she had seen me on Gondola and loved my work. It was like the stars aligned.”
What issues did Gondola help him with?
“As clients become more corporate, they don’t credit as much. They don’t give much love outside of the occasional watermark or tag in caption. So keeping track of that in one place has been huge. I’m excited about producing for the NHL because it will make the analytics tracking much more helpful to quantify how my work is doing. Your profile is a living, visual resume.”
Any ideas for what Gondola should add next?
“Chrome extension that shows who’s post it was when scrolling feed. Like when I see something on Sportscenter, it’d be cool to link it back to Gondola.”
Checkout more of Reuben’s work
Gondola: https://gondola.cc/PolanskyPhoto
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/polansky.photo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PolanskyPhoto
Website: https://reubenpolansky.ca/
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