I was pleased today to learn that Starbuck’s has joined Flickr. I’ve been a big Starbucks fan for a while and have personally consumed thousands of their beverages over the years. It is great to see them join Flickr where they can participate in social media with photographers.
One of the first threads in their new Starbucks group was one questioning their photo policy. I’ve been told not to take photos inside Starbucks several times so I was very interested in this. It turns out that Starbucks has no prohibition on amateur photography in their stores. It was nice to see this clarified today.
I also presented an idea to them that I’ve had for a series of portraits of Starbuck baristas. I’m not sure if they are interested in collaborating on this project with me or not, but I’d love to pursue it formally with them. I think I could do a really cool series of 100 portraits or so of baristas. For the past year or so I’ve been trying to get out on the road about once a month or once every other month to spend intense days shooting new towns and cities. So far this year I’ve been able to visit Chicago, Los Angeles, Reno, Las Vegas, Eureka, Redding, Sacramento and several other towns.
As I do my out of town shoots Starbucks has become incredibly instrumental for me. I almost think of them as sort of a homebase for my shoots out in the field away from home. I was posting why I’m such a fan of Starbucks as a photographer in a group on Flickr and I thought I’d post it here on my blog as well.
I thought I’d do it in the form of a top 10 list. The top 10 reasons why as a photographer I’m a fan of Starbucks.
1. I’m addicted to caffeine and they deliver a powerful punch. I saw an analysis on their coffee a ways back that indicated that they had higher caffeine levels than competitors.
2. When I’m on the road I can count on Starbucks for reliability. Getting a consistent known experience vs. an unknown experience from a local coffee shop is huge. What do I mean by this?
3. Almost every Starbucks has a bathroom. When you are committing to photographing 20 hours straight in a strange city this in invaluable to count on. This is actually the most important reason why I count on them I think.
4. Starbucks offers free wifi through my UVerse account. I can count on the fact that I’ll be able to log on for a brief break from shooting and take care of internet business.
5. Starbucks almost always has available power outlets to recharge my camera batteries, my iPhone, and laptop while I enjoy my beverage. I can also use the down time to offload images off my memory cards and on to my Mac clearing up more space for the next leg of my shoot.
6. Starbucks has comfortable seating. Sometimes you want a soft leather chair. Other times you want a chair and a table. I’ve found almost always that the accomodations at Starbucks are comfortable.
7. They are everywhere. Most everyplace I go to shoot I can simply type Starbucks into my iPhone and usually find one very close.
8. The coffee tastes great.
9. I can always count on a big glass of ice water with lots of ice from them when I order my beverage. This is so much nicer (as I can often get very dehydrated while shooting) than the piddly little water cups that they give you at places like McDonalds.
10. Getting all of the above for the price of $3.25 or so for a grande non-fat latte is a *huge* bargain. Starbucks delivers tremendous value and they do it with consistency that I can count on vs. other coffee houses where I might not get the same experience.
I’ve only just started my Starbuck’s set, but if you’d like to see (I’m sure it will be growing over time) it’s here.
Note, I was not paid in any way for this post, I’m just a fan.