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Turning Art into a Business Photographer to Business Entity · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So as far as like, okay, you turning your skill
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: set to a business right and really having structure, as
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: far as okay, this is how much I'm gonna charge
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  Speaker 1: in my services, this is how I'm gonna market myself.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make content for myself as opposed to just
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  Speaker 1: making content for other people, so people can actually know
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  Speaker 1: who I am so I can build momentum. Did when
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  Speaker 1: did that kick in?
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  Speaker 2: So my career, I started following artists. So as I
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: mentioned a lot of the artists I work with the beginning,
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  Speaker 2: I was with them at the beginning of their career.
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  Speaker 2: So I saw what Future did to become a household name,
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  Speaker 2: and I saw what Young Scooter did, and then I
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  Speaker 2: saw what Mike Will made it, what the Future do.
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  Speaker 2: They did, like just in terms of the run, just
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  Speaker 2: from interviews, taking photoshoots themselves, like electronic press, kids making appearances,
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  Speaker 2: getting styled, dressing a certain way, the presentation of who
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  Speaker 2: they are and who they were. I saw that formula
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  Speaker 2: from the music industry like I was there. I was
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  Speaker 2: a part of it, I helped with it. I saw
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  Speaker 2: them invest in content, invest in these webisodes that we
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: were doing, putting ads on the front of their webisodes,
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  Speaker 2: Like I started to see it, so how it really
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  Speaker 2: worked for me? I saw with the music artist side first,
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  Speaker 2: and like I said, I work with Future, I work
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: with Young Scooter for the longest, and I worked with Gucci.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: When Scooter and Gucci got locked up at the exact
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  Speaker 2: same time, I had a reset what I was doing
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  Speaker 2: and I started in working more with producers. I came
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: back and started working with Metro Booming, did a lot
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  Speaker 2: of work with Mike Will made it. I met Metro
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  Speaker 2: in the dorm room at Morehouse. So I'm working with
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  Speaker 2: Metro like at the beginning of his career. But I'm
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  Speaker 2: learning things that I saw with Future and Scooter and
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  Speaker 2: how they were able to do certain things earlier on
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  Speaker 2: in their career and blow up. So now feeding nose
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: satame things to Metro and seeing can it work from
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  Speaker 2: a producer standpoint, like somebody that's not traditionally in front
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  Speaker 2: of the lens, someone that's kind of behind the scenes. Hey, bro,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: don't you know you own fifty percent of that record,
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  Speaker 2: just like Future. So we go to the radio station
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  Speaker 2: and talk to him about the record, and you own
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  Speaker 2: it too, you know, why don't we shoot the music
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  Speaker 2: video for it, you know, while we waiting on the
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  Speaker 2: Future to tell you that that's going to be his
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  Speaker 2: next single, and as world, we could just get together
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  Speaker 2: and say, hey, Future cam's here, we got the camera,
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  Speaker 2: turn the song on, we're gonna shoot the video. And
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  Speaker 2: that was like a formula that me and Metro started
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  Speaker 2: where it was like he produced the record, I shoot
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  Speaker 2: the video, and we kind of came up that way,
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  Speaker 2: but it was propelling both of our careers. Getting his
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  Speaker 2: songs from just being B track c tracks on mixtapes
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  Speaker 2: and actually making the music videos, which pushed those records
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  Speaker 2: to be bigger. My portfolio started to build. His awareness
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  Speaker 2: started to build because we started putting them into videos
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  Speaker 2: like You're going to be in it too, and then
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: people started to see it. So I got to see,
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  Speaker 2: now with work from an artist to a producer, like
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  Speaker 2: the same formula. We were going to radio stations, he
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: was doing interviews with Fader, all these same stuff I
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: saw Scooter and Future do. So when I work with
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  Speaker 2: Metro and he started blowing up. He ended up DJing,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: getting on tour house with him on the Rodeo tour
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: and all that. When I came off the Rodeo tour,
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  Speaker 2: you know, fast forward a little. When I came off
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: of that, I was like, will it work for a
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: photographer like you know, that's twenty fifteen. I'm like, can
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I do that? I watch him do it, I watch
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  Speaker 2: these artists do it. Can I do that? And if
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: you've been following me from that time, that is the
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  Speaker 2: formula I'm on. I'm on the music industry's formula for
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  Speaker 2: how to blow an artists up. That is the cam
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  Speaker 2: Kirk brand formula. And that's how I've been able to
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  Speaker 2: stay in the game as long as I have. And
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  Speaker 2: that's also how I've been able to turn what's just
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  Speaker 2: a typical photographer into a business because they look at
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  Speaker 2: me as an entity the same way they look at
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  Speaker 2: a metro or a future or whoever. So that's really
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  Speaker 2: how it started for me and how it worked for me.
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  Speaker 2: I saw it and then I just started applying it
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  Speaker 2: to myself. So I do interviews. I've had a bunch
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  Speaker 2: of interviews with like Double XL the Source, Like the
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  Speaker 2: same publications that's talking about the rappers, they talk about me.
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  Speaker 2: I've been in those same places. I can treat my
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  Speaker 2: art art galleries like concerts, They're like shows. I do
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: it the same way. We have fun, we have DJs.
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  Speaker 2: It's not traditional. I brand myself. I start putting my
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  Speaker 2: face on billboards, my own money, same way, and artists
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  Speaker 2: to do it like I do a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: same things. I have cameramen following me. I do vlogs
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  Speaker 2: of my photo shoots. It's a cameraman shooting, a cameraman shooting.
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  Speaker 2: It's like those same things we're doing. And I was
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  Speaker 2: doing in twenty fifteen that nobody was doing, and it
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  Speaker 2: was a formula that works. And now to this day
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  Speaker 2: it's to me the formula for success in whatever field
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  Speaker 2: you're in. We're seeing it now. I mean I saw
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  Speaker 2: doctors be having vlogs and cameramen of themselves, like everybody
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  Speaker 2: is branding themselves as a brand and as in front
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  Speaker 2: of the camera. And I think that that's a formula
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  Speaker 2: that I saw in the music industry early on. It
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  Speaker 2: just applied to.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Photography greater history, so I like to think.
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  Speaker 3: So, yeah, I mean it's tough sometimes as you're in it,
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  Speaker 3: it's tough to realize what you're doing. When you're talking
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  Speaker 3: about these artists like of course today like we know
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  Speaker 3: if you yeah, obviously we've seen what Metro's doing. I
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: mean he's had line of shows, and so you're part
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  Speaker 3: of that history as well. From a technical side, right,
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  Speaker 3: you're taking photos, but you're also creating video music videos
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  Speaker 3: from an editing standpoint at this time, because you're saying
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  Speaker 3: in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, this is like videos are
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  Speaker 3: starting to come on to YouTube. Yeah, what are you
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  Speaker 3: using at that point to really get the best product out?
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  Speaker 2: So again I'm learning on the fly, So I used
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  Speaker 2: early on, I was using Final Cut, bro, and I
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: was just freestyling or figuring out things I used to
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  Speaker 2: like not like again, I'm not technically trained, so I
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: would just study. So once I knew I wanted to
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  Speaker 2: do it, I would study. So I would go and
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  Speaker 2: watch a music video that I liked, especially if I
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  Speaker 2: found one that was like a similar tempo to the
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  Speaker 2: song I just shot. And I mean probably get in
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  Speaker 2: trouble for this, but I used to just take the
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  Speaker 2: video downloaded, throw it in Final Cut, layer my clips
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  Speaker 2: on top, and cut at the exact SIME format, like
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: you know, like after three seconds they changed.
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  Speaker 3: The camera angle.
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  Speaker 2: I would study it, like how many different camera angles
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  Speaker 2: do they have? And it's seen how many different shots,
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  Speaker 2: how many different locations, And I just started to get
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  Speaker 2: really like technical from there and just learn how to
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  Speaker 2: flip it to whatever it is I'm doing, until I
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  Speaker 2: was able to develop a style or a niche, and
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  Speaker 2: I would just add a little something on it that
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  Speaker 2: made it feel like me figure out how I want
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  Speaker 2: to end every video so it's consistent, or it's branded,
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  Speaker 2: or when my logo pops up. So but it started
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  Speaker 2: just freestyling, like taking chances. I didn't have a rule
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  Speaker 2: book because you got to keep in mind also I
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  Speaker 2: started photography twenty eleven, twenty twelve. That's the start of Instagram.
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  Speaker 2: That's the start of all these platforms where content is
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  Speaker 2: just being given away, so that the rule book that
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  Speaker 2: Jonathan Mannon followed does not exist anymore. Like that process
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  Speaker 2: of you know, you sell everything or every picture you
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  Speaker 2: take costs money and everything is this You don't just
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  Speaker 2: give this away for free. The viral video are just
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  Speaker 2: home videos like that was all brand new. So we're
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  Speaker 2: developing our own blueprint for how to do it.