Articles by: Hanna Brooks Olsen

There's a never-ending debate among creative professionals centering around one seemingly simple question: Should you work for free?

Both an uncomfortable requisite and a grand adventure, going on tour is part of the life of a musician. But it's not just the entertainers who endure/enjoy the weeks spent away from home in favor of tightly-packed spaces and late, late nights; technicians, mamangers, and yes, even photographers are also along for the ride to make sure the entire thing goes off flawlessly — and it documented all the way.

Life as a freelancer looks different for everyone, and it doesn't look very much like what non-freelancers think it does. No, we don't sit in our pajamas all day, and no, we're not kindly saying we're "freelancing" when what we mean is we're unemployed.

[caption id="attachment_7821" align="alignnone" width="620"] Photo: Sophie Asia via Flickr[/caption] Anyone who's tried to make the leap from hobbyist to professional photographer knows that the business side of things can be murky and hard to navigate. Even one of the most basic, seemingly obvious elements -- which, in other industries, is standardized and pretty easy to research -- of your business plan is strangely shrouded in mystery and even controversy.

In the last, oh, hundred years, education has both changed a ton and also not changed much at all. At least, that's the lesson we're learning from these vintage school photos from the Flickr Commons.

DIY lunch bags aren't exactly an invention of the crafting set; since kids have been trucking off to school, resourceful parents have been wrapping their snacks in pieces of cloth and old paper. But since Jil Sanders had the audacity to slap a $630 price tag on what appeared to be a pretty pedestrian lunch sack a few years ago, crafty moms have been coming up with more and more cute ways to send their little ones to class with handmade style.

[caption id="attachment_7787" align="alignnone" width="620"] Image: Robert S. Donovan via Flickr[/caption]   For all the griping about the end of summer and then dread of a new classroom and a new teacher, back-to-school is also a time of excitement for a lot of kids (and even adults).

Wedding photographers are used to shooting in all kinds of locations, from rustic barns to less-forgiving community halls and event spaces. But sometimes, they get lucky, and they get to shoot a storied old building with gorgeous light, amazing architecture -- and civic workers milling about.

Despite a distinct lack of inclusion by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in their monthly figures, the numbers we do have available don't lie: More workers, both in the U. S.