John Harris - About Me

My Professional History

My first professional work was coaching runners. For two years, I worked as an assistant coach on both cross country and track and field teams. During cross country season, I went to 5:30 am practice five days per week, alongside weekly trips to meets, the many being out of town or out of state. During track season, we had over 180 athletes on the roster, making communication, organization, and teamwork between the other coaches paramount.

I began to work as a freelance photographer in the summer of 2023, first being hired to photograph local road races. A few months later, I got hired to photograph Arizona high school cross country and track and field meets by a national media outlet. Through this opportunity, I also was hired to shoot a collegiate meet in Los Angeles in April of 2024. I continue to do freelance work, having photographed for clients like University of Kentucky, FloTrack, Hoka, and On.

In the summer of 2024, I started a media business with a partner covering athletics in Arizona. This was right on the tail of the preeminent media outlet in Arizona closing their operations, which we understood left a gap in the market. In the first nine months, we worked with over 200 athletes and generated over $29,000 in revenue.

Myself photographing a professional T&F meet in Philadelphia

Samples of My Work // view more in my archive

My Resume

Professional Persona Evolution

More Samples

Behavioral Communication Research Findings

My biggest learning from working with this group was the value of scheduling and clear communication. We worked very well together when we regularly discussed dates of meeting and when assignments were due, however after the in-class BCOM presentations finished, we began to message less and meet less frequently. We then decided to plan out every meeting, stage of assignment, and due date on an excel sheet. After this, things became much better and the team worked much more smoothly.

Team Culture Findings

The biggest finding I had was that in order to work smoothly as a team, you had to understand how each person thought and operated. Team culture is not one homogenous thing, but the sum of each person’s style, and that has nuance. When speaking to the group, I felt it was helpful to state something in more than one way, with each being tuned to different people's communication style.

Growth Mindset

I have never been a great presenter, and will say I wasn’t particularly confident in my abilities coming into this semester. I feel because of my willingness to work on my weaknesses and not shy away from hard things, I improved. In the first two presentations, I relied on more script-like tactics to present my section, which I understand to be of lesser quality than speaking at the moment. For the third presentation, I decided to just speak off of my knowledge of the topic and bullet points, and I felt much more confident in my public speaking ability after that.

Identity-Brand-Reputation

This exercise reinforced my understanding that I have a strong control of my brand image. I used social media sparingly for personal use, and have little to no content of my person out there. I mainly use it to promote my photography work, which I found while doing a google search for myself. I will continue this practice of not promoting an image which doesn't line up with my person or my values.

Professional Persona Video

The professional persona video allowed me to reflect more on how I present myself to the professional world. As a creative, I often considered my work to be by far the most important aspect to present, but when reflecting more, I began to understand the value placed on other skills. These include dependability, communication skills, and ability to work in teams, among others. Going forward, I will present these skills more than I have before.