Aundre Larrow found out about the Adobe Creative Residency by accident. He was shooting his first New York Fashion Week when he received an email from someone at Adobe who had discovered his photography. After asking around and looking into work created by previous Adobe residents, Larrow was sold. “I’m still not sure why she sent me that email,” Larrow said, “but I’m really happy she did. I didn’t know this existed."

Larrow’s interest in photography began when he was a camera-obsessed kid. After college, he moved to New York for what he planned as a year of self-exploration. His photography career ended up taking off, and Brooklyn has now become his home. Until May, he’ll be part of the Adobe Creative Residency, working on realizing an ambitious portrait project.

Titled stories from here, Larrow’s residency project explores how our sense of place informs who we are as individuals. Larrow has traveled across the country photographing and interviewing people for the project, creating a diverse series of portraits that offer a window on identity in America. Larrow says stories from here was inspired by the results of the 2017 presidential election, and the reactions that it set off across the country. Larrow started to wonder whose stories get to be heard, whose lives are deemed legitimate, and how our geographical location may determine who we listen to, and who we overlook.

Since joining the Adobe Creative Residency, Larrow has signed with photography agency Tinker Street. They happen to also represent Chicago photographer Paul Octavious, who Larrow credits as a major inspiration. "Oh man, if you told me when I was twenty years old living in Chicago, in the summer in a room with no fan and no dresser and no AC, that after meeting Paul Octavious I would later be represented by the same agency as him… I would have laughed in your face.” Things are coming full circle in a way that Larrow never expected.

We asked Larrow to share his experience with the Adobe Creative Residency so far, how he has grown as an artist through the program, and what advice he has for emerging photographers looking to make their way in this wild art world.

Format Magazine: How do the logistics of the Adobe residency work? Are residents still working jobs and gigs?

Aundre Larrow: Adobe pays you like an employee. You have health benefits and a salary; you do expenses like a regular person. Once you start the residency, you don’t have another job. The residency is your job. They always say that they want you to grow three years in one, so they’re trying to push you. They’re not only giving you resources—my project is really travel-based, and they paid for the flights, the Ubers, the food, and places to stay. Then on top of that, I have two internal mentors and two external mentors.

Throughout this year I’ve been really lucky, and awesome and blessed and thankful, that I got to work with Samsung, American Express, and CNN. That happened because people found my work in the middle of the year and reached out. Adobe’s really supportive, so if you get an opportunity that’s big, they’re like, ‘Pause your project and go work on that.’ The goal is that when you finish the residency you should be at another level as a creative. So you don’t have any other job, but depending on what comes up, there are opportunities to work on other things if they help further your career.