Latest / Earn Your Leisure / 296. From Photography to Millions: Cam Kirk's Journey from Cameraman to Building a Marketing & Media Empire

Transcript

296. From Photography to Millions: Cam Kirk's Journey from Cameraman to Building a Marketing & Media Empire · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: border and families will be protected.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Thank guys, Welcome back, U y l H. This is
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: going to be an interesting conversation because I don't think
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: that we've ever interviewed somebody who has mastered the art
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: of photography.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: I thought I was afraid. I want to say, I
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: for sure.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: It's one of these things that, especially talking about the
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: content creator economy, I mean, you gotta have a photographer.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: That's important.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: We've had photographers for since we started early Alysia, and
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: everybody has a photographer. Photography is something that goes back
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: ancient times right as far as you know, depicting things
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: and capturing moments. It is something that's very, very important.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: So Cam Kirk is not just a photographer. He's also
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: an entrepreneur. That's why the story is interesting.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: So he's able.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: A lot of people are skilled that one particular thing,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: but they don't know how to actually make it a business,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: build a brand, make money, and have multiple streams of income.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: So celebrity photographer but opened a studio, transition from you know,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: doing hip hop to doing corporate brands as well and
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: doing variety of other things. So her first and foremost,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: thanks for joining us.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Appreciate it, man, Thank you all for having me. Man,
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: this is on my bucket list. So I appreciate that.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: Man. I appreciate that, man.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Nah for real.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: So there's like I said, there's a lot of creatives
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: out there, a lot of people that are photographers or videographers,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: especially now, for like there's more photographers and videographers than
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: ever before than ever, how did you get started and
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: how were you before we even go to the business side.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: How were you able to scale?
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: You've taken pictures of like dog and g Z and
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: you know, like I said, become a celebrity in the
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: photography world. So what was your journey from getting introduced
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: to photography, mastering the craft, and then becoming a celebrity photographer.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, it's a long journey, but I'll give you
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: like a quick synopsis of how it started. Originally from
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: PG County, Maryland. So back in Maryland, my dad's photographers.
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: My dad's been doing photography about thirty plus years. So
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: every apartment house we ever lived in had a photo
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: studio in a basement. But I never was like into it.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: But it was a way that would earn allowance. So
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: my dad said, if you want to get these shoes
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: or you want to do this, you got to come
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: with me on the set or to shoot and assists.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: So my dad put a camera in my hand very
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: very early, but it never was like something I thought about.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: Fast forward to when I moved to Atlanta, attended Morehouse College,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: fell in love with just the culture of Atlanta, the
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: music scene. I honestly just wanted to find a way
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: to be around it and to be you know, connected
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: to it. When I first graduated college, I got a
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: degree in business marketing. So when I graduated college, I
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: was managing a music artist. So I had a camera
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: that my dad told me to get. I had a
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: little camera and I used to use the camera just
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: to photograph our stuff, Like we couldn't afford to pay
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: a photographer videographer. So I would be like, Yo, I'm
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: gonna take your pictures. I'm gonna record our music videos.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: And at that time, I was like the only one
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: doing it in the city.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: It was crazy to talk.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: This is twoenty and eleven. So from working with him,
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: other local artists would just be like, yo, twenty five dollars,
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: fifty dollars, and I was like shit. At that time,
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: rent in Atlanta was dirt cheap. My rent was four
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: hundred dollars, So all I need to do was figure
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: out a way to make four or five hundred, maybe
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: a thousand on that month. I was lit like a
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: stay there. I had to get a real job. So
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: I was just really using my camera like that and
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: it was the easiest thing I ever attempted to do,
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: Like it just just worked so fast. Forward a little
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: bit after that, I was still just doing it as
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: a way to manage my artists, like we're gonna get signed.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: This shit is just something I'm doing for right now.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: And then right after that, twenty twelve, me and my
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: artists had a fallen out and he told me basically
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: like I want to like, you're not lit enough to
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: basically be my manager. That's the quickest way he said it.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, bro, I've been pouring on my energy
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: into you. That's why I'm not out here just for
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: you know, pushing myself. And at that point he just
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: lit a fire under me, and I was like, I'm
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: gonna get lit off this camera, like I'm going to
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: make it. By February, I had shot Schoolboy, q Estelle,
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: and Jezi all on the same weekend, my name was
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: all of a complex magazine. Everything it just like it
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: was like that. A couple months later, I was with
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: Future traveling with him, like everything just went like but extremely.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: What was the step to even like was it one
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: particular thing that kind of catapulted you, or you just
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: was hustling, just going to clubs introducing yourself.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Now, like in Atlanta at that time, it was like
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: a renaissance like of just culture. It was like you
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: walk down the street and Future was a local artist.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: Like all these people are local, right. So now when
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: you look back at my portfolio, you like, man, you're
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: done shot Metro Future, Young Thug, rich On m Kwanigo's.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: But back then they were the person you just walk
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: down the street and see you know what I mean.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: You just had to believe in who they were. So
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: at that time, it wasn't like I was like pushing
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: to be in certain rooms. I just was working with
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: the community that was around me. And it was just
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: like they just ended up turning into the biggest stars
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: in the world, and I was the only one with
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: the camera documenting them. Like I would go to certain
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: concerts in Atlanta, io'ld be the only one in the
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: presspit at that time. Were you doing it for free? Free?
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: For sure? Everything I was doing was the work kind
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: of just found you. The work found me and that
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: I was in the right network of people, and it
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: just it really just took off like I was the
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: only one doing it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: Damn, that's pretty impressient. So that original core herd of people.
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: You said that Future you start to go on tour,
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: so now obviously this is more than just Atlanta. So like,
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: what did that look like? Is it now that I'm
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: doing this work and I'm going to be doing it
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: for the drivation of a time or is he just
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: doing shows and Georgia at the time or.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, at that time, you gotta think like hip hop,
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: especially Atlanta, hip hop wasn't as mainstream accepted as it
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: is now, so when they would do runs, it would
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: be like club shows that live or something like that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: So my first time really moving out out of town
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: what an artist was with first time was really with
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Jeezy for All Star Weekend, but that was like a
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: really quick stint. It didn't really shake into anything. And
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: then after that I got with Future and I went
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: with him to Miami for a trip and we're just
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: in a club, like it's not like touring like where
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: you're getting the atmosphere of tour buses and all that.
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: It's like one off show here, You're right back in
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Atlanta the next day. So I was doing that, and
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: to be honest, like I kind of feled at it
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: with Future because I didn't really know what I was doing.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: So it's a few times on that road I got
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: left in the club, like you just couldn't keep up
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: with the energy. So Future It's manager at the time,
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: Eb avenue Ward was just like, Yo, you need to
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: go work with Young Scooter. Like, y'all, you just stick
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: with him. He's coming up. You hang with Scooter and
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: you can kind of get your stripes. And that's really
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: who changed my life, Young Scooter, like just the time
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: we spent together. But it was kind of just that,
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: like it wasn't like touring it was and glamorous at all.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: It was like one hundred dollars. You get a hundred dollars,
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: you get to go around, record some video and turn
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: it into like a little vlog or something.
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: And are you are you studying the craft at the time?
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: Are you just taking pics and maybe calling Dad like, Hey,
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: what am I supposed to do with this?
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: I'm not studying the craft at all, to be quite honest,
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: but I am studying the career path of the craft.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: So I never really and that's that's one of my
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: biggest regrets early on was like I didn't really take
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: the time to master a camera, but I did learn
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: like who's Shine the Manion? Whose motion family? Who's zach Wood?
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: Like certain icons and what do they? What do they
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: do to be where they at? And where could my
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: career eventually go. But I wasn't really studying the craft,
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: but I studied just how to. Like my first thing
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: was like how do I just make my pictures of
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: my videos clear? Like that was my thing. HD. Everybody's
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: going to lean into AD. I can learn the tricks
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: and the camera tricks and the art style of it later,
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: but if I can learn when I'm in a room,
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: these are the settings to get the best quality video photo.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: I did studied that part, and then over time it
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: just grew and my dad was my worst critic. I
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: hated showing him my work. He destroyed my work every time,
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Like every time it was it was actually like encouraging
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: in a certain and a weird way because it made
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: me like, all right, I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: proved to you. But he was my worst critic for sure,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: and rightfully so a lot of that work I look
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: back now, I'm like, man, if I knew what I
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: knew now in those rooms and those opportunities, I could
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: have really created something magical. And some of the work
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: has still translated, which I'm grateful and thankful of, but
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: some of that work would have been just insane the
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: opportunities I got. So what is some all right?
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: So as far as some information, what's some information for
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: content creatives.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: Photographers to know to have better pictures?
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Anything from a cell phone filter to a full fledged camera, Like,
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: what is some things that since you're self taught pretty much,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: what are some things that you learned along your journey
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: to make for better photos?
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: See, people people look at art and photography is pretty subjective, right,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: So like somebody would look at art and say it's
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: an art form. Some people say it's a skill set.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: I'm kind of a believer in both. When I first
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: got into it, I was like, it's an art set,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: it's an art form, Like it ain't know one which
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: way to do it. You could take a picture and
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: it's blurry and that could be somebody's favorite image. There's
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: mistake images like that are some people's favorite images. So
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: my advice to a lot of photographers though now is
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: just study the ends and outs of the craft of it,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: because once you learn the skill of it, you can
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: manipulate it to be whatever it is you want. So
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: there's no right or wrong way. But if you don't
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: know the simple basics of ISO F stop exposure, Like,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: you're going to embarrass yourself when you really get into
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: a real room if you don't know how to do lighting.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: And I was, I was like that, I was embarrassing, So.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: Talk about that, talking about that, All right, let's let's go.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: Let's go one by one lighting. How important is lighting
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: and explain it? Like for somebody that's a novel, it's
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: like that doesn't really even know why lighting is important. Like,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: let's talk about lighting and how that changes everything.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Lighting is the most critical form of photography or videography
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: is the number one starter and Layman's terms. If you're
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: in your room and it's dark outside and you try
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: to take a selfie of yourself, how grainy that picture's
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: going to be, how dark it's going to be, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: then you go and stand in front of a ring
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: light you know if you've seen that, or in your
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: mirror and your bathroom mirror. While people take selfies in
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: the bathroom mirror's the best lighting in the house. It's
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: like that is the most basic night and day. So
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: then that applies to, you know, photography at every scale,
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: whether you're shooting outside. You know, if you ever try
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: to take a picture and the sun's behind you and
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: you notice I can't see myself where I look shadowed out,
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: then you literally turn around and the sun's in front
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: of you. It's like, that's the most critical part of photography.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: It's understanding that I can have a four hundred dollars
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: camera with the right lighting. Amazing. I can get a
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: camera from target right now, disposable film camera with the
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: right lighting, I can make something that looks like one
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: of these album covers on the wall. So lighting is
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: the number one. So what's what's the best light to buy?
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: If you're in a studio, It's hard to say what's
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: the best.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: It's hard to say. It's like what's the best camera.
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: It's hard to say what's the best light to buy.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: I don't think it's that cut and dry. There are
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: certain lights that you should have within your kid. I
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: would say, like, as a photographer, you want to go
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: strobe lighting. In my opinion, there's some photographers that like
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: constant lighting, like what you have in here now. Most
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: videographers obviously are going to have to use constant lighting.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: I'm a strobe light type of person, but using strobe
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: lights is way more challenging. You have to have a
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: skill set for that because if I have a strobe light,
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: I can't actually see what it's going to look like
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: until I take the picture for the most part. But
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: with a constant light, you know you can set the lighting,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: look through your camera and see, okay, it's lit right here.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: The lighting is going to hit them right here. So
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I like strobe lights because you get the better quality.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: Strobe light is it's a it's a flash. It's like
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: a camera flash. It's just it just that. Yeah, it's
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: not it's not on, not on all the time.
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: You're going to put the stroll in it right now?
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: Well, it's strobing will work for the video the video
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: and be in the dark, but definitely they take a photo.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: The strobe is what's gonna It's the most powerful form
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: of the light. So you can get high power flash flash.
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: So they have obviously flash you could just put on
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: top of your camera. Then they have the ones that
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: are big and stand up on c stands and light
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: stands and tripod stands whatever, and you can get busy
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: with it. I'm a I'm a strobe light photographer, but
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: there are some photographers that prefer constant lights. It all
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: just depends. But it's hard to like say exactly like yo,
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: go by this, this and this, and you're gonna be right.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: It's more like it's all in circumstances. There's some photo
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: shoots I've done I used one light. There's some I've
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: used five lights. Like it literally is a style, it's
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: a technique. It's it's really what shape the photograph. The
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: lighting is what creates it and makes it look a
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: certain type of way.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: You talked about the functionalities inside of the actual camera,
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: and so like, our journey is pretty interesting. We start
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: with iPhones and then we move the cameras. I know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: if you get trying to figure out what camera, and
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: Mike was like, Yo, you gotta get this, this camera,
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: this camera has got the gotta have four K. And
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: I'm like, all right, I got that. I found a
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: four K camera and then I started seeing all these
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: buttons and then you just said iso, I'm like, well,
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: I have no idea what that is and so trying
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: to study that and understanding like how that changes the
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: temperature of the room. So explain the importance of ISO
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: because when people see it on their camera, if they've
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: never touched it, ye numbers, it's gonna be like four
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: hundred to two thousand, and it's like what do I do?
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah? So in your camera, there's three settings that's going
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: to control from just basic terms, how much how light
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: or how bright your photo is versus how dark your
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: photo is. There's three settings you can change. It's gonna
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: be your f stop, which many would call that like
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: your apertures. So that's how much light your camera lets
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: into your into the photo. That also determines how much
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: of the photo is going to be in focus. So
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: the lower the number, and most most lenses or some
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: lenses can go as low as one point two and
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: go as high as twenty two. The lower the number
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: is the least amount of focal points you're gonna have,
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: so like the least in focus. So if I'm at
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: a one point two right now, I could probably take
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: a photo of you and your nose might be super sharp,
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: your eyes might be out of focus. It might be
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: a little softer, So some people use that to dictate.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Like you've seen like a dope photo in the skyline
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: and the background looks really blurry, but that person just
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: pops out. That's what you use your F stop to control.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: If I'm doing a group photo and it's a team,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I need to be up to at least F eight
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: and higher because I need as many people as possible
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: in focus. But from lame sense, when you look on
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: your camera, if you start just turning the knob, you
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: would just start to see it get darker or lighter.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: It doesn't necessarily like you wouldn't really know. Same with ISO,
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: so ISO controls how much grain it's going to get
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: into your photo. So now the beautiful thing about technologies
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: is advancing. Most of these cameras can go to a really,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: really really hot ISO and it won't really have much
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: of an effect. So your ISO really starts to like
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: one hundred and go to like sixty four thousand. When
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: you're up to like the higher range, your image starts
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: to have grain and it's not crisp. So now it's
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: like speckles and shit all in your photograph. So that
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: kind of changes the quality. So you use a lower
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: ISO determines the better quality of your photograph, and then
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: you have a shutter speed. Shutter speed determines how fast
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: the photo takes. So if you are shooting someone in
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: motion or moving, you want to higher shutter speed. And
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: that's how you can see someone move their hands, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: they hand might look all blurry, but their faces in
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: focus because they use a low shutter speed and use
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: a high shutter speed. If you're doing sports basketball someone
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: dunking or performing on the stage, you need a higher
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: shutter speed so that nothing looks out of focus. Or
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: you can manipulate it and do a low shutter speed
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: if you want a motion blur, or you want to
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: create like this wild artistic effect on the image of
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: like somebody gliding, or capturing someone's shadow as they move
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: from left to right, you'll lose a low shutter speed.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: But all in all, to the average beginner, when they
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: get to their camera, they can manipulate any one of
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: those three buttons, and what they would see just from
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: face value is the camera the picture getting brighter or darker.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: But these are the three things you're actually manipulating.
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: What about temperature, because I know that that plays a
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: role too.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, temperature plays a room, like when you really get
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: into it, a lot of people control the temperature. But
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: again with technology advancing so well, these cameras, you can
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: just put it on auto or a lot of that
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: stuff you can fix in the background because that's just
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: your color, the color that you're doing. So when you
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: don't like to do a lot of editing, you might
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: go into the camera change your temperature and that just
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: basically controls like whether my skin tone's gonna look blue
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: or what's gonna look orange?
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: All right, So talk about positioning of target when actually
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: taking a photo, because a lot of like it's like
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: a candidates are always good, right, or like some photographers
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: they like to like get like people in the corner
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: pocket on the cell phone. People turn their phones upside
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: down to get hero shots of people, or like if
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: you're standing in front of something, they're like stand further back.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: So it's the depth perception matches up. So, yeah, what's
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: your thought. I know everybody's different, but what's your personal
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: thought on that?
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I think once you like you've mastered those those
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: early ones y'all asked me about, like ISO F stop
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: shutter and all that, that's when the fun can happen
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: after that, right, And that's when you get into compositions
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: and how you like to frame up your subject or
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: things of that nature. I'm always a believer in like
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: leading eyes and like where the viewer goes. So sometimes
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: if I take a photograph and if I do off center,
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: you know, my artists, whoever I'm shooting to the right,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: I like to ensure that they're always it's very basic,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: but they're looking in the direction of the empty space.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: It's like you're guiding your viewer to see them and
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: then be able to see empty space. You will never
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: basically have me turn to the left right here if
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: the end of the frame is right here, because then
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: I just go off the picture and I'm not looking
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: at whatever it's left. So sometimes you can frame someone
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: to the right, have them look the other way so
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: that you can like show off a mural or something else.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: It just adds, like it takes the viewer on the
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: journey when they're looking through the photograph. But a lot
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: of that stuff starts to get into like the art
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: form or you know, like you mentioned people turning their
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: camera upside down and doing all that stuff. They call
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: it like leading lines. They definitely do help with the
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: raw like feeling that you get from a photos. Sometimes
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: it's things that you can't describe or you can't just
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: see it. That's where the skill set and the art
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: form kind of comes into play. But composition is definitely
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: very important when you're trying to tell a story.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: Do you feel not pressure? But when you look at
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: the space overall, when you look at everybody has the phone.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: The technology is incredible. Oh yeah, I like to call
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: myself an iPhone photography. I'll be honest. I'll be honest.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: But when you see pictures, do you automatically identify like
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: this is somebody who really does it or this is
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: somebody that has skills on their phone.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: Oh? Super, you can see it, like you can tell.
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: But what the pressure comes in at? As technology advances,
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: the picture quality you can get on the iPhone now
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: is the same that you can get on the same camera.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: I spent five six thousand dollars found if you have
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: the right lighting right, the right lighting and the right scenario,
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: you can get the same quality. And the megapixels, which
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: is like the image size that you create from a
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: certain camera are almost identical. Now you're hearing. Like when
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: you see iPhone ads or Google as, they don't even
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: promote the phone. They're promoting the picture quality, Like everything's
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: about it being a camera. And you know, even Apple
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: has those billboards where it's shot on the iPhone. They're
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: showing you you can take your iPhone and turn it
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: into the biggest scale, which is a billboard. So with
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: just the world and the way that we consume media,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: it's all digital now. You really don't need these big
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: cameras shooting five K, six KAK because once you put
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: it on YouTube or wherever, it's shrinking it down already
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: you're compressing regardless. So it's kind of even in the
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: playing field. So with technology advancing, I don't feel the
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: pressure from other people loving the art form because I
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: just think that makes people appreciate what I do more
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: and respect it more if they feel like they're part
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: of it. But the pressure comes in with technology. It's like,
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: as technology keeps advancing, will people need me anymore or
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: will they even care about the quality? You know, to
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: a certain degree, I think that that's what's really changing
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: and making it tricky for photographers. And I saw in
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: your interview you called a content creators and a new
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: starving artist, And I agree with that, Like, I think
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: that's what it is now, Like the value of what
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: we do is changing because content is being consumed so
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: fast and so regularly that people take it for granted.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: And it's being generated right when you think about I
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: can take the picture or I could just have artificial
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: intelligence to create the.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: Picture super the exact same photo. So wow.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: So as far as like, okay, you turning your skill
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: set to a business right and really having structure, as
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: far as okay, this is how much I'm a charge
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: in my services, this is how I'm gonna market myself.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna make content for myself as opposed to just
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: making content for other people, so people can actually know
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: who I am, so I can build momentum. When did
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: when did that kick in?
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: So my career, I started following artists. So as I
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: mentioned a lot of the artists I work with the beginning,
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: I was with them at the beginning of their career.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: So I saw what Future did to become a household name,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: and I saw what young Scooter did, and then I
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: saw what Mike what made it? What the Future do?
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: They did? Like just in terms of their run, just
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: from interviews, taking photoshoots of themselves like electronic press, kids
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: making appearances, getting styled, dressing a certain way, the presentation
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: of who they are and who they were. I saw
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: that formula from the music industry like I was there.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I was a part of it. I helped with it.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: I saw them invest in content, invest in these webisodes
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: that we were doing, putting ads on the front of
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: their websites, like I started to see it. So how
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: it really worked for me. I saw with the music
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: artist side first, and like I said, I work with Future,
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: I work with Young Scooter for the longest, and I
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: worked with Gucci. When Scooter and Gucci got locked up
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: at the exact same time, I had a reset what
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: I was doing and I started in working more with producers.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I came back and started working with Metro Booming, did
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: a lot of work with Mike Will made it. I'm
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: at Metro in the dorm room at Morehouse, So I'm
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: working with Metro like at the beginning of his career.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: But I'm learning things that I saw with Future and
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Scooter and how they were able to do certain things
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: earlier on in their career and blow up. So now
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: feeding those certain things to Metro and seeing can it
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: work from a producer standpoint, like somebody that's not traditionally
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: in front of the lens, someone that's kind of behind
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: the scenes. Hey, bro, don't you know you own fifty
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: percent of that record, just like Future, So why don't
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: we go to the radio station and talk to them
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: about the record? And you own it too, you know,
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: why don't we shoot the music video for it? You know,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: while we waiting on Future to tell you that that's
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: going to be his next single, and as world, we
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: could just get together and say, hey, Future, cam's here,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: we got the camera, turn the song on, we're gonna
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: shoot the video. And that was like a formula that
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: me and Metro started where it was like he produced
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: the record, I shoot the video. And we kind of
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: came up that way, but it was propelling both of
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: our careers. Getting his songs from just being B track
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: c tracks on mixtapes and actually making the music videos,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: which pushed those records to be bigger. My portfolio started
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: to build, His awareness started to build because we started
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: putting them in the videos, like you're going to be
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: in it too, and then people started to see it,
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: so I got to see now with work from an
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: artist to a producer, like the same formula. We were
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: going to radio stations, he was doing interviews with Fader,
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: all these same stuff. I saw Scooter and Future do.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: So when I work with Metro and he started blowing up,
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: he ended up DJing, getting on tour. I was with
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: him on the Rodeo tour and all that. When I
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: came off the Rodeo tour, you know, fast warding Live.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: When I came off of that, I was like, will
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: it work for a photographer, Like you know that's twenty fifteen,
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: I'm like, can I do that? I watched him do it.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: I watched these artists do it. Can I do that?
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: And if you've been following me from that time, that
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: is the formula I'm on. I'm on the music industries
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: formula for how to blow and artists up. That is
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: the cam Kirk brand formula. And that's how I've been
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: able to stay in the game as long as I have.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: And that's also how I've been able to turn what's
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: just a typical photographer into a business because they look
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: at me as an entity the same way they look
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: at a Metro or Future or whoever. So that's really
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: how it started for me and how it worked for me.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: I saw it and then I just started applying it
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: to myself. So I do interviews. I've had a bunch
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: of interviews with like double XL the source, like the
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: same publications that's talking about the rappers they talk about me.
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: I've been in those same places. I treat my art
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: galleries like concerts. They're like shows. I do it the
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: same way we have fun, you have DJs. It's not traditional.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: I brand myself. I started putting my face on billboards,
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: my own money, same way, and artists to do it
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: like I do a lot of the same things. I
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: have cameramen following me. I do vlogs of my photo shoots.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: It's a cameraman shooting, the cameraman shooting. It's like those
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: same things we're doing. And I was doing the twenty
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: fifteen that nobody was doing, and it was a formula
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: that works. And now to this day it's to me
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: the formula for success, and whatever field you're in, we're
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: seeing it now. I mean I saw doctors be having
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: vlogs and cameramen of themselves, like everybody is branding themselves
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: as a brand and as in front of the camera.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's a formula that I saw
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: in the music industry early on. It just applied to
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: photography created history, So I like to think.
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: So yeah, I mean it's tough sometimes as you're in it,
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: it's tough to realize what you're doing when you're talking
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: about these artists like of course today like we know future. Yeah,
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: obviously we've seen what Metro's doing. I mean he's headline
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: of shows, and so you're part of that history as well.
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: From a technical side, right, you're taking photos, but you're
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: also creating video music videos from an editing standpoint at
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: this time, because you're say in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: this is like videos are starting to come on to YouTube. Yeah,
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: what are you using at that point to really get
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: the best product out?
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: So again, I'm learning on the fly, So I used
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: early on, I was using final cut Bro, and I
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: was just freestyling or figuring out things I used to
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: like not like again, I'm not technically trained, so I
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: would just study. So once I knew I wanted to
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: do it, I would study. So I would go and
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: watch a music video that I liked especially if I
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: found one that was like a similar tempo to the
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: song I just shot. And I mean probably get in
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: trouble for this, but I used to just take the video,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: download it, throw it in final cut, layer my clips
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: on top, and cut at the exact same format, like
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: you know, like after three seconds they changed the camera angle.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: I would study it, like how many different camera angles
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: do they have and they's scene, how many different shots,
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: how many different locations. And I just started to get
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: really like technical from there and just learn how to
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: flip it to whatever it is I'm doing, until I
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: was able to develop a style or a niche, and
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: I would just add a little something on it that
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: made it feel like me figure out how I want
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: to end every video so it's consistent, or it's branded,
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: or where my logo pops up. So but it started
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: just freestyling, like taking chances. I didn't have a rule
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: book because you got to keep in mind also I
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: started photography twenty eleven, twenty twelve. That's the start of Instagram.
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: That's the start of all these platforms where content is
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: just being given away, so that the rule book that
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: Jonathan Mannon followed does not exist anymore. Like that process
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: of you know, you sell everything or every picture you
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: take costs money and everything is this you don't just
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: give this away for free. The viral videos or just
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: home videos like that was all brand new. So we're
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: developing our own blueprint for how to do it.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: So as far as okay, so you do that, you
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: get in recognition as far as you know, becoming a
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: well known photographer in the culture. So now are people
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: reaching out to you or are you still like kind
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: of reaching out to artists to kind of book yourself
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: to do photo shoots and different things like that.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I've never reached out to an artist ever, Like I
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: think the only one time I did that I was
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: really already established, and that was when I first heard
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: a little baby and I was like this, he's next,
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: Like I already know he's next, and I want to
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: shoot him. That's when I first saw my dog's video
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: and I reached out to Pete like this guy, I
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: have to work with this guy. Like But besides that,
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: I never reached out to artists. But Atlanta is is
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: one degree of separation from everybody. So, as I mentioned,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: when I really really got my start work with young
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: Scooter being around young Scooter. I'm every day meeting Gucci man.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: I met Gucci through Scooter, Then through Gucci, I met Doff,
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: I met young Thug, I met like honorable c. Note
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: like I'm meeting everybody in the same sphere of things.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: So once you get known for one thing, and I
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: was the only one doing it for real like at
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: that time. So once you become cool enough for Gucci
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: to have you around, you're definitely cool enough to come
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: work with me, you know what I mean, or do
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: this for that. And there was a lot of people
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: at that time that were around that again became icons
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: and legends later, like the you for being around? How
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: much was you charging? Zero dollars for the most part,
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: But when you started charging money, how much was you
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: charging when I started charging. When I really started charging money,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: I went from anywhere from like one hundred and fifty
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: dollars probably scaled up to two fifty, started scaling up
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: to five hundred for a shoot or photo shoot, video shoot.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: It just depends. In Atlanta, It's all about relationships. So
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: I was in a I was honestly in a weird
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: situation where some situations I couldn't charge because the relationship
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: meant more than the petty amount of cash. So there's
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: certain situations where I'm getting phone calls at the same day,
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: like when I shot Migo's Freaking No More video, Coach
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: k called me at twelve noon and said, meet us
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: at Magic at three pm. We need you to shoot
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: the video for a Migo's Freak No More. There's no
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: room to all right, let's take the time. Hold on,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: hold on, hold on? What's the budget? Like, you know,
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: it's no time. It's like, can you be here? All right?
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna gather at wherever I can and I'm gonna
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: meet you there. You know what I mean. At that point,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: you're shooting the video and it's like they're not talking
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: to you about no money, you know, for real. And
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: that's like the good and the bad about Atlanta. Atlanta
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: don't really do business the way that other states and
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: cities would do business. But those relationships have changed my
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: life and carried me a long way. And my formula
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: at that time was always the relationship with the artist
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: is more important than the dollar that the artists can
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: give me, because I know our work together and the
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: impact of our work will attract someone with the real money.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: To be able to pay me.
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: What was the piece or the video that when people
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: reference you, they're like, yo, he did that, y'all See
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: which video was it?
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: In video terms, it was young Thug the language be
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: Language just when him in Metro flipped Drake's language song.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: That was a video that like, Okay, he's dope. And
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: then the second video I did that was actually didn't
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: even think it would be that crazy was It was
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: like a vlog video I did of Travis Scott in
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: Metro working on a song called Skyfall, and that video
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: was just me capturing the making of the record in
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: the studio. And at that time, even stell Travis is
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: like one of the most hype artists in the world,
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: so his fans just geek out over any type of
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: content of them. So I did a making of that
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: video making of that song right before he dropped, as
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: before Rodeo, and he put it out. That has been
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: a video that people stop me on the street and
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: talk about and it's weird. It's like that video my
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: first Nike job. They referenced that video is why they
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: hired me for the job, and I'm like that that
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: video was just me and my little camera like it
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: wasn't much, but it was those early videos that really
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: like put my name on the map. But it didn't
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: really change for me money wise. It was just like
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: cult fame or like cultural fame or like stuff like that.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: The money didn't really change or the real opportunities didn't
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: really come until I started working were with the corporate
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: brands and sponsor and things like that to really like
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: push the work that we're doing. So how did that
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: transition happen from hip hop to corporate? That transition? Honestly,
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: I rode a wave where Atlanta became the hot spot,
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: you know, from everybody, So everybody wanted a little piece
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: of Atlanta and everybody wanted a piece of Southern music
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: and trap music. So my early jobs that were like
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: for brands like a Puma or Nike all that, a
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: lot of it came from me being the go to
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: guy for the artists that they now were featuring in
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: their brands. So a lot of that work was like,
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: if we want to document a part of hip hop
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: culture in this commercial world, let's get somebody truly from
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: the culture to do it. So when I was up
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: until like twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, although I was like
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: a local go to guy for like camera work. Even
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: the artists didn't really respect me in a way where
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: they were giving me their photo shoot budgets or they
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: were giving me their album cover looks. They were kind
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: of calling me like the homeboy, like YO, pull up,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: take some photos I'm feeling fresh today, or capture video today.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: It wasn't never like I was dealing with managers or
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: labels and hiring me. So after twenty fifteen, well my
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: name was buzzing, but my bank account was on zero.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: I was like, I got to figure out a way
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: to how do I make money and how do I
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: get bigger opportunities and bigger looks from the artists I'm
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: working with. So that's when I came up with this
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: idea called Day four exhibit. And the Day four exhibit
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: is me basically working with artists and putting them on
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: billboards with my own dollars. So on twenty sixteen, I
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: was like, what could I say to these artists that
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: allowed them to take me serious enough to show up dress.
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: Ernest? What's up? You ever walk into a all business
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: and everything just works, like the checkout is fast, the
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: receipts are digital tipping is a breeze and you're out
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: the door before the line even builds. Odds are they're
• 36:11
  Speaker 5: using Square. We love supporting businesses that run on Square
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: because it just feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop,
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: a vendor at a pop up market, or even one
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: of our merch partners, Square makes it easy for them
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: to take payments, manage inventory, and run their business with confidence,
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: all from one simple system. If you're a business owner
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: or even just thinking about launching something soon, Square is
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: hands down one of the best tools out there to
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: help you start, run, and grow. It's not just about payments,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: it's about giving you time back so you can focus
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: on what matters most ready. To see how Square can
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: transform your business, visit Square dot com backslash, go backslash
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: eyl to learn more that Square dot com backslash, go
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: backslash eyl. Don't wait, don't hesitate. Let Square can handle
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: the back end so you can keep pushing your vision forward.
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: A lot of people think podcasts about work are boring,
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: and sure they definitely can be, but understanding a professionals
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: routine shows us how they achieve their success little by little,
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: day after day. It's like banking with P and C Bank.
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: It might seem boring to save, plan and make calculated
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: decisions with your bank, but keeping your money boring is
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: what helps you live a more happily fulfilled life. P
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: Boring since eighteen sixty five is a service mark of
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: National Association Member FDIC.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man. A Venezuelan charged with
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fine. Nearly
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported, you will
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Do what's right.
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: Leave now.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: Fresh a right outfit. Give me creative control and let
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: me do my thing and show that I can be creative.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: And I was like, well, if I go to them
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: and say I'm gonna put you on a billboard, especially
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: at this time it's before Spotify billboards, for Apple billboards,
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: YouTube billboards, I knew that they would geek and go
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: crazy about that. So at that time I was like, man,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: if I can do this, then I can one put
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: my work on the big scale like these corporate brands
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: I used to see in their work to show that
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: I can do something billboard ready. But then also I'm
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: gonna get the respect of the artists and make them
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: be like, how the hell did you do that? Like
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: we never been on the billboard. So I started that exhibit.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: I put eight artists on billboards. First artist I put
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: on the billboards Lil YACHTI when he first started out,
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: and he's the first artist that really gave me like
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: creative control to say, do a photo shoot for me?
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: Where do I show up? What kind of colors you
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: want me to wear? What's the concept? And I'm trust you.
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: That photo became it's probably one of my most iconic
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: photos to the date. And that photo changed my life.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: But then when I put him on the billboard, all
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: of the artists I used to work with back in
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: the day came running, Like I remember I ran into
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: Offset and Aaron Richard the KI in the mall and
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: they were pressing me out, like, bro, you know me
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: for so long, bro, while you never put me on
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: a billboard. And I was like, okay, I got y'all.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: The leverage changed. The leverage changed. Now y'all asking me
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: for the billboard? All right, bet we'll show up here,
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: do this and this and this. I'm put you on
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: a billboard. And then it started to work like that,
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: and then now became the go to for bigger photo shoots,
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: which then attracted Nike, Adidas, Airbnb, Sprite to be like,
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: he's the guy that shoots the artists in this scale.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: No, that's a good idea, So but how did they
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: know that you was the one that was putting on
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: the billboard.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: I'll put my name on the billboard. With my name,
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: I did vlog of me going to the billboard. I
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: took the picture with the artists at the billboard. Whoever
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: I put on a billboard like documented the process. And
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: I had strong media connections at that time. Where now
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: double xcel and then we're posting about it, but they
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: were posting about camp Kirk puts up a billboard, YACHTI.
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: And X y Z who was the plug on the
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: billboard itself? Right, you didn't own it, but you have
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: to get rent rented. I'm saying you could rent it,
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: but then after you do it for a certain amount
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: of times, it's like, all right, well you might have
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: to change the price on how I'm doing this because
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: the impact or did it not go that way.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: At that time? Again, you gotta think in Atlanta. You know,
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: y'all got so many billboards in New York. That's a
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: normal thing in Atlanta. A lot of people don't know.
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: It's as simple as the phone number that's on the
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: bottom of the billboard, Like anybody could do it. It
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: was like such a far fetched idea to the artists,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: like these artists oppressed me about billboards. I'm paying seven
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: fifty four, seven hundred and fifty dollars for like they like,
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: get one. I'm like, you just call the number. That's
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: what I did.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: I'll show you tell you.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: Just pull up, do a photo shoot with me. I'm
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: gonna get you on the billboard. And that's how I
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: was flipping it, so they didn't even think to look
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: into it that much. Then when I started doing seven
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: or eight of them, it became more of a normal
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: thing in the music industry. I'm not gonna say I
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: started it or brought it back in the music industry.
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to say that, but I feel as
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: though prior to that, Spotify and Apple were not buying billboards.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: Then it became like a thing because Spotify and Apple
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: used the same formulas to this day, they getting an
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: artist to promote Spotify and Apple over a cheap billboard
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: that they put up on top square.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: So you you essentially put yourself in a different stratus
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: fy than any other photographer because you weren't just looking
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: at it like I'm just taking pictures.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: You're looking at it now.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: I'm actually a media person that's putting an artist on
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: a billboard, and that not only made more artists want
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: to work with you, but now corporate was like, Okay,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: this guy is a media mobile in Atlanta. That's really
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: controlling culture about, you know, putting these iconic people and
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: photos on billboards. So that was your way of kind
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: of them reaching out to you as opposed to be
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: reaching out to them.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: Super That was the way that everybody came reaching out.
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: I remember when I shot Gotti for the first time. Yo,
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: Gotti put up on me and he referenced the billboar.
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: I want to get a billboard in Memphis. All right,
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, it's like, all right, let's do
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: you like that?
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: You like?
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: The gatekeeper for the billboards seem like yeah, I'm like,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: I got you. We're gonna do that. That's easy.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: So we drive to Memphis, find it's three hundred dollars,
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: two hundred dollars, and we throw it up.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: How much was it the court rent those billboards? The
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: cheapest billboard I got was seven hundred and fifty dollars
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: off a month or until somebody buys it. And at
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: that time, people weren't buying billboards. They wasn't thinking about it, so.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: They think they got to call you.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've had billboards there for six months for Barbara,
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: Barbara Cork and she we just interviewed her from Shark
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: Tank and she was like back in back in the
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: days in New York, like not now, but like years ago,
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: like there was a lot of empty space billboards stuff
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: She used to just get billboards and nobody wanted like
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: nine times square, but like from random place and they
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: would just be up until somebody else would take it,
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: and nobody ever took it, and like sometimes they can
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: be like two years, like.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: You just have a billboard up liter super And it
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: was for me, it was leveraging and building a relationship.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: I built it. I put an imprint on certain artists' careers,
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: like a lot of people I put on billboards as
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: the first ever billboard. And I thought about that long term,
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: like if this guy becomes a superstar, he writes a
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: book or does anything, he's going to have to reference
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: that moment how he felt when his first time he
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: saw himself on the billboard. I thought, like that deep
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: with the imprint of the work that I was doing,
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: that photoshoot's going to mean a lot to him. It's
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: not just gonna be a regular photo. That's the photoshoot
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: that and putting me on his billboard.
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: So this is the first Now you're making money. No,
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: still not making money, said seven fifty. You're still doing
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: it for free, the photo shoots to put him on
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: the billboard.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: I'm doing I'm making local money, right, so I'm working
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: with now at that point, the local artists know me.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: And now that I can charge in five hundred, I
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: can charge him a thousand, you know what I mean.
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: But I'm not making no real money until the brand
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: started to come.
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: Who's the first one that bites?
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: First brand? Yeah, first brand that really bid was probably Nike.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: And again this isn't even that long ago, this is
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: twenty seven. That's the first brand that like opened my
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: perspective to like, oh okay, there's some money in this
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: and I'll never forget. I got a phone call from
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: a photographer his name Jesse Lerola. He don't even know
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: the story. He called me when I was in Atlanta
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: and he's a dope photographer of Chicago. But he called
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: me the vent about the industry. So he's seeing me
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: from afar, like man you're killing it in Atlanta. You're
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: like me, like, we're doing this And he called me
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: and he was like, man, these young photographers are just
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: messing the game up cam. They're charging two hundred to
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: photo shoot, five hundred to photo shoot, and you know,
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: we could be out here getting twenty thousand day race,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: thirty thousand dollars day race. They don't know about usage
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: and all that. He's literally talking to me and I'm
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: literally heading upstairs to go do a photo shoot for
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: five hundred dollars, and I remember at that moment it
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: was like what am I I'm bugging, like what don't
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: I know? Like I don't know, Like I didn't know
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: that was a thing. And he kind of changed my
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: thinking quickly. So then the first couple next couple of
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: times on my rate, it's just tripling, like just to
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: see what happened. And then when they started to go through,
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: you're like, oh, you start to learn and photographer, you
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: get paid based off of day rates. So a photographer,
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: you can't just wake up and say I want to
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: huntre racks or fifty racks. They charge you by the
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: day rate, the amount of days it takes you to
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: do the job. And then you get to charge on
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: usage rates. It's the licensing or the agreement you're willing
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: to let somebody use the photos for. That's a whole
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: nother payment. Then you can charge on the equipment. Then
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: you can charge on post production to retouching, editing. You
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: have to like learn how to break down your number
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: so you can justify higher rates. And that's what I
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: had to learn. And then once he unlocked that for me,
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: and I did the shoot with Nike, and Nike is
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: talking to me in these terms. Okay, what's your day rate? Okay?
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: What's the price for a buyout or licensing? Okay, what's
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: the price for your equipment? Okay? Do you need a
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: photo assistant on set? Okay? Do you need a Digitech?
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: Like they're coming at me with so many things I've
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: never thought about in my work, and then I start
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: to see that number go from you know what I mean,
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: five hundred to twenty thousand dollars for the shoot and
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: now you're like, oh, okay, I didn't know the charge
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: for all of that, and that's kind of how it
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: all changed. And from there, that's when the money started
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: to like kind of come in.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: It's a deeper game. How long is a term? Two? License?
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: Does it all what you negotiate? You know what I'll
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: tell a lot of photographers just look out for that
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: word work for higher. Work for higher means literally you
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: don't own anything that you took. So if you sign
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: any contract and say work for hiring, you're a photographer
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: that they own that photo. They can do whatever they
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: want with it, t shirts, product, sell it, flip it,
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: whatever they want to do with it. You don't own
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: it anymore. So you look out for those terms. But
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: then when you went to contracts, most of the Nike
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: and Nadidas, unless it's something like major, they don't really
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: need it longer than like a year or two when
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: they'll buy like global rights to use it what they
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: call above the line or below the line, above the line,
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: and they can use it like for anything in terms
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: of like on a product or on a billboard or
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of stuff that some of the below the
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: lawn might be social media or Instagram things like it
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: may have different tiers to what they can use it for,
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: but that's where the money is at because that's when
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: you own your content. Then you can start to charge
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: for like licensing and rights and things of that nature.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: So right, well, Cam, But then speaking of Nike, the
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: iconic situation with Jordan's, remember this situation few years ago
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: with the photo of him like when you think his
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: rookie season, and the photographer sued Nike. It was like
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: a twenty year lawsuit and I think he actually ended
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: up losing, but it was a very public situation where
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: he the iconic the thing the Jordan's actually that I'm
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: thinking about it as the Jumpman, the Jumpman symbol. The
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: photographer that took the photo of the Jumpman symbol was
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: trying to sue Nike because he was saying that it
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: was his intellectual.
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: Property that made them choose the logo exactly.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: And like I said, I don't think that he actually
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: won that lawsuit, but it was like a twenty year
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: extensive fighty millions of dollars and da da dah.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: But here's my thing.
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: I respect the photographer, but if I'm paying somebody to
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: take a photo, then I don't.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: I just don't understand. Why is it not my photo? Right?
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: That's fair. I'm not saying that it's right, it's just
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: the way the laws are written that if you don't
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: make me sign a paperwork to grant you those rights
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: just the way the laws are.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: So technically, anybody that takes a photo. If you take
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: a photo of me, right, and I use that photo
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: for set album cover, and that album sells ten million records, right,
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: and then you come back five years later and say, Okay,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: I want twenty percent of these record sales. You can't
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: do that, though, but what can you do? You can't
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: do that per se. So in a situation that if
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: I take a photo of either one of you all
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: and we didn't do no paperwork, and then you exploited
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: the photo and work, I could be subject to certain rights.
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: Right. So the first thing that's gonna happen. My best
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: friend's a lawyer, so he don't already gain me his
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: game because I thought the same way, like a million dollars,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: somebody play with me. Well, the first thing that's the
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: first thing that happens is really like that they're going
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: to say, what are your true damages? Right? So, like
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: how did this did you doing that impact my ability
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: to monetize that photograph? So then they're going to go
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: into my records and say, well, right now, if you
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: take a dope photo, how much money do you make
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: off that photo? So if I have no proof of like, well,
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: every time I take a photo, I'm making a million dollars.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: If I don't have that, if it's like, well, you've
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: never sold your work and art, you've never put out
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: an album cover of yourself that went and made money
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: off of, then they'll go to the president of what
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: you have and then they'll say, all right, you might
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: be old standard rights for photo album cover that whatever,
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: they're gonna go down to what my damages are. And
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: now I can prove that by you doing that, you
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: stopped my ability and I had a clean ability to
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: make money off that image, and you exploited that and
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: stole that from me. I would have to kind of
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: prove how that impacted me in terms of what my
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: numbers would be. But there's nobody in the history, as
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: far as I know, a music industry that's ever gotten
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: percentage of an album sell for an album cover. And
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: then I got to prove that those sales were all
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: based off of my photo, not that you're a dope
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: rapper and you did thirty other things. Let's use a
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: better example.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: Let's use a photo that's put on merch that happens
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: a lot. You see iconic photos of like Supreme with
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: yep dip set right, or you see Mike Tyson, somebody
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: that's used a lot in photos for merch, did Biggie Yep,
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: did the Biggie image. That's a lot on photos. So
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of a lot, a lot of merch has
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: been sold with for iconic photos that were photo shoots
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: that got turned into actual merch. How does that work?
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: So you you have a better chance of winning that
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: one because the person bought that photo based off the
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: visual I mean, brought that T shirt or merch based
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: off the visual of what's on it. So it's harder
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: for a brand or somebody to say they didn't buy
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: it because of this photo. It's like this on the dam,
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean, it's there. It's not like
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: music where I bought it to hear the song. I
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: bought it for that. So you have a better chance
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: of winning those like people have sue like Urban Outfitters
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: and I want to say, H and M so to
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: have gotten suedo for that. I know it's a big
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: tupac case where it's on his photos in the Urban
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: Outfitters shirt and they sued and he won hundreds of
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: thousands of dollars. Photographer, photographer did.
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: The photographer who took Cam's iconic pink pink cell phone,
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: he put that on a T shirt.
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: The dude who actually took the picture sue yep, and
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: he won.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah he will win.
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he had to. So Cam actually well I don't
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: know if he's paid. Yeah, but he deal was actually
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: a judge where he has to pay the photographer using
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: a picture of himself. That's crazy, which is like when
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: you think about it, it's like.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: It's wild, but it's an art form. See, that's the
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: part that people have to respect. It's like if I
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: painted you or if I did like I literally had
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: to do something to make that image. It is a
• 53:14
  Speaker 4: true I think it's a true collaboration. In my opinion,
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: I think it should be fifty to fifty my opinion,
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: that's how I think it should work, because that photo
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: of Cam is nothing. If that was Joe Blow on
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: the street in the same outfit with the same phone
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: to his ear. Cam Ron made that photo what it is.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: So I definitely think that there has to be some
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: type of synergy between a respect between both sides. But
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: it has to be both sides because some artists take
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: advantage of it on this side and they take a
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: photo and they just do whatever they want with it,
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: don't even talk to you about it. It's like, it's
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: got to go both ways. I know Jonathan Mayne was
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: in a big suit against jay Z over that, and
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: they had a really big lawsuit where jay was suing
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: Jonathan because he kept selling his artwork, like selling photos
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: of jay Z for ten thousands of dollars. But Jonathan's like,
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: I own it to who own it? I want to
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: say they settled out of court. I'm not sure who
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: won or what they what the resolution. But you're talking
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: about Jonathan Mayon, who's whole career he shot every single
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: jay Z album. Girl Like there their connection is crazy.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: To ever see them have to go to litigation just
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: proves that there's something wrong with the waiter. The law
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: is set up honestly for both parties, like something needs
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: to be done with it. But in fairness to like
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: the subject matter, subjects that's being shot, you don't own
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: it until you it works.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: So what's this thing I've been seen on social media
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: about people that shoot videos that like, let's say like
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: this video that we're shooting out right, we don't own
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: the video. I've seen like this thing like similar to that.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: You don't own it. That guy that turned that camera
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: owns it. Yeah, what's that about that? It's the same concept.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: Explain that. So it's the same.
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: So it's like I pressed the bone, I left the
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: cameras on, I turned it on.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: Don't do that.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: And d like that like it's that so yeah, So
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: explain that because for content creators to understand, nobody ever
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: thinks about that, right, Like you're shooting a podcast, you're
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: shooting an episode, you're shooting even a rap video, right
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: and you know you got a videographer. You're gonna pay
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: the videographer. So I'm paying you for your services. You
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: set the camera up, but I'm the one that's actually
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: doing it.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: That's the work.
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: It's the same way with photography. Whoever is behind that
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: camera that pushed the button and that composition the photo
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: and created the layout and the set, that person technically
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: owns it. Now, I do think it gets a little tricky.
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: I'm not a lawyer by any means, but I do
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: think it gets a little tricky. If you guys own
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: the camera that they're using. So these cameras come with
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: copyright information built into the camera. So when I buy
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: my camera, the first thing I do out of my cameras,
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: I set my copyright information within the camera that automatically
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: is imprinted on anything captured with this camera. How you
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: do that, It's a setting for your camera. You going
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: there and you just put your name copyright this. So
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: that is one way. So now if it's y'all's cameras
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: and I just hand you my cameras to take a
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: photo of me, it gets it can get kind of
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: tricky to say that. Now I gotta say you did
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: that it's because I bought it. Now, if I'm bringing
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: my own camera, my own lighting, my own to y'all's
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: thing and I shoot it, and if that payment doesn't
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: spell out that this is a work for hire or
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: this is in exchange for that, I technically could say
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: I own it? Now will I win in long like?
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: Because some things are still going to be about like
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: what you know, like did you know that or were
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: you whether you up front that you owned it, and
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: did you do certain things on your end to ensure
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: that there's clarity there? Because if I go along with
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: the idea of letting you all do what y'all want
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: to do with it. I don't believe I can just
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: like undercut you later like, oh, they don't know that
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: they they didn't sign a paper. I'm gonna wait till
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: this blow up. But I don't think you can do
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: that and good faith and still be doing business and
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: then I'm gonna catch them ten years later. I don't.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: I don't think you can do that. And I think
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: you're gonna have a harder time winning that one if
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: in good faith you let them, You led them to
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: believe they owned it and could do whatever they want
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: with it. But it's it's a real thing, and it's
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: it's becoming more real now with more content being created
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: and these these things coming out, like you gotta know
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: what it is.
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And the more that people hear about it, the
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: more they become more aware to it. And wait, I'm
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: gonna try that.
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: Super I mean, I think you should always fight for
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: your your right. It's the same things happened in music industry, right.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: People don't understand the masters and dah da da da,
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: same concept, like whether you're the photographer or the one
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: getting photographs taken of it. You should think about your
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: rights and what you can do with it long time.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: So when you start working with a corporate you was
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: doing just photo shoot, so it was like direct then
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: the whole kind.
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: Both a little bit of both. So I did like
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: Noisy Atlanta, that big series Advice did. I've directed some
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: pieces for Bleacher Report, did a documentary on Cole Anthony
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: when he was at UNC, So I do. I do
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: a little bit of directing as well as photography. But
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: photography was really like I kind of made that pivot
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: to like be photographer first when I just thought about
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: the longevity of a photograph and how a photograph can
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: last a lifetime. But you're not just necessarily going back
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: playing music videos over and over again. Some may but
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: a few, don't you know. But that photograph can be
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: printed on your wall, on a T shirt, on a
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: book cover, on all these different things. So when I
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: realized that, I thought a photograph had a more like
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: lasting power, so I started to want to be more
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: known for photography than videography. So I kind of pivoted.
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: So on most most of my work as photography based,
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: but it can be directing.
• 58:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So me music obviously plays a huge imprint. I mean,
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: that's where it starts for you. Yeah, so talk about
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: collective agency because the way I'm reading about it feels
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: like it's a label in a sense. Right, Yeah, So
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: how did how did you come up? How did you
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: surmise the planet? Sary? Well? Music such a I'm going
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: to tie this into photography now.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: Again, it's the same formula. I'm a photographer with the
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: formula of a music artist. So again I watch metro Star, Butminadi,
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: I watch Future Star, free bands. I watch all the
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: people start labels, and I always thought that that's the
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: next step. When you get a certain level of following
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: on your own brand or your own art form, now
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: you have to turn that into an empire. So my
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: first step was turned into cam Kirk Studios, a physical
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: space that you can go visit from cam Krek Studios.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, that serves Atlanta local community. We're
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: going to open up more locations around the world. But
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: that's that. Now, what's the way that I can make
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: money or grow with the next generation of people that
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: want to be me, you know, that want to look
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: up to me. I always think that's more ways you
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: can monetize a following. A lot of times people only
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: monetize in the way of their fans. They don't always
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: think of ways to monetize in a way of people
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: that believe in you and will pay to be you.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's a formula that a lot
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: of music artists just miss out on, because so many
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: music artists could be having their own recording studio that
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: people record, that people would pay to record that future
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 4: studio if it was open to the public studio, if
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: they go in there and see his plaques on the wall,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: they think they wouldn't be, like I want to record
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: with future records. He could make millions all over the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: world with a studio franchise, you know what I mean,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: Like I think Floyd is doing it now with his
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: boxing gyms. It's like you create something that people can do.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: So for me, my studio was part of that because
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: now people can shoot in the same place that I shoot.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: So where I shot GED's book cover, you can shoot
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: right there, the same place, same equipment. That was one
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: and the next part was my label, Collective Gallery. So
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: that came from marketing propaganda type of thing. That's just
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: truthfully what it is. Propaganda. I could have called it
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: a photography agency, but that's boring. You already heard of
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: that that exists. It's not a photography agency. We're label with,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: just like you see we just like death Row with,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: just like tde with, Just like everything else, we're label
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: And I'm gonna take photographers I believe in sign them, financially,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: invest in them, and help them become the biggest artists
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: that they can be the same way someone has done
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: that for us, or someone has done that for Big Sean,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: someone has done that for every of your favorite rappers.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: And it also was a jab at the industry because
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: when I was coming up and I needed a team
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: of support, I did unconventionally reach out to certain labels, like,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: why don't y'all sign me? Like I don't make music,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: but I'm creating content and value around music industry, Why
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: don't y'all just sign me Like I'm doing brand deals
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: with Nike, I'm doing brand deals with everybody else. Y'all
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: can monetize me the same way if I had an engine,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: And it was too too far of a concept for
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: a lot of labels to understand. So then I was like,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: show you. So in that first year, we signed seven artists,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: seven photographers. I gave every photographer twenty thousand dollars cash
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: to invest in their career, and then we guide them
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: when they got a team. We're gonna point you in
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: the right direction. We're gonna set you up for brand deals.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: We're gonna expand your your capabilities. So, like one of
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: my photographers, name is Screl Davis, he was doing mostly photography.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, you should expand it to video.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: First project I gave him under the labels Cardi B.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: Did the documentary with Cardi B for Up Music Video.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: So it's like, now you're think of yourself as a director,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: not just a photographer. So now that opened up a
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: whole nother revenue stream for him. And then when you're
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: on set, we're gonna give you the same formula. Somebody's
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: gonna be there to take a photo of you on
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: set so you can post this and show the world
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: that you're here. That led to him getting brand deals.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: He done brand deals with Baccarty where he's in front
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 4: of the camera holding a bottle. Baccarty like things like that.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: It's like, that's how we gearing it up. Because you
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: don't want to just make money off photography. You actually
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: can in my paying this day and age, just make
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: money off one way. You got to monetize the whole brand.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: So that's what we do. And it's a little jab
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: at the industry because I think the New Age label
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: should include all forms of creativity and not just music.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: Does the twenty thousand come with a start get as
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: far as equipment.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: You probably wouldn't get signed to my label if you
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: don't have equipment already.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: Like this stuff that you put you look at and
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: say like, all right, that's cool, but this is actually
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: what you should.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we guide them on what the money can be
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: used for. So the first ten thousand is put in
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: your pocket. Just get out of the need to be
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: in service. So a lot of photographer right now just
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: service providers. That's what pays their bills. They don't know
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: how to make enough money to turn down the job
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: or the guide their career in a certain direction. Which
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: is real. It just is what it is. So this
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: is a little cushion money first put in your pocket.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: So now you can start to think more clearly about
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: the decision or the job you're gonna take next, and
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: how does that actually help you tell the story you
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: want to tell for your career, which is like a
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: luxury that I feel like I have now, Like I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: pick up the camera maybe five ten times a year
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: now and it's all like, oh, I want to do that.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: That's dope, that's gonna look good. If I don't want
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: to do it, I don't do it. So the first
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: part of money is just to give them a little cushion.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: The other tenants for marketing investing into a maybe an
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: art show, gallery, a product if they want to sell,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: merge a book or like whatever prints. It's like it
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: guides you in that way, and then we also go
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: and help you get jobs or connect you with brands
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: and say you're going to do this, negotiate on your behalf,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: give you I legal to make sure you're buttoned up
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: and stuff like that, and then you get a percentage
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: of deal. YEA yeah, I get a percentage, just like
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: a label.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: Are there any brands from a technical technical stent point
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 5: that are looking at you. I'm just assuming Panasonic Road
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: some of these brands that you're obviously using. Have you
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: had partnerships in that sense.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: Man, I think I was just talking to somebody about this,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: and I think it's because I kind of snuck in
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: through the back door when it comes to photography, Like
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: I didn't go through the traditional steps that throughout my
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: entire career. If you look up most of my accolades,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: they're all like music or cultural focused, They're not like,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: I've not been getting stamps from Cannon. All my photos
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: have been with Cannon. I've never had a Cannon deal, right, Like,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: I've had one little quick brand partnership deal with Nikon,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: But besides that, that's the only camera company that's ever
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: like reached out and was like, Yo, we want to
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: be a part of your journey. I've only been featured
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: I think in like one or two photo magazines or
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: photo media outlets through everything we're doing. And I think
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: a little part of it was because I think photographing
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: hip hop and rappers specifically wasn't cool or you know
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: whatever until recently. Right so now you're starting to see
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: art shows of photo specific things wrap photos like blow
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: up in like certain galleries or the jay Z Museum.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: That's still very new of them respecting what we did
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: now You can go to Barnes and Nobles and find
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: photo books on the Beatles and rock and roll artists,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: but you don't really find a photo book on hip
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: hop as often. It's starting to happen now, there's a
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: few of them coming out now, but it wasn't like
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: a big thing. So photo agencies didn't rock with me.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: Photo companies haven't rock with me. So we haven't really
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: gotten that type of support. But that's why I'm starting
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: own my own company. So how's the art gallery?
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, how's the gallery the studio doing as far
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: as like how does that work?
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: With some model behind that? So the photo studio is
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: just like a model for recording studios, similar concept, right,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: So if you're a photographer and you need a place
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: to create with white backdrop, whatever colors you need, and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: the equipment, I build a studio that you can just
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: show up and create out of. So at our studio,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: we kind of consider it like a boutique studio, and
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: we kind of consider it also like a coworking studio.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: So inside of our space, we're able to do three
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: photo shoots per hour inside of our space. The way
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: it's set up, so in our space also what I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: did build into it was I knew a lot of photographers,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: like myself, are not technically trained photographers. They're coming in
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: through the back door like me. They get into a
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: photo studio and they get they get overwhelmed, and they
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: get intimidated through the idea of a blank canvas and
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: you got to bring your lights, backdrop, an assistant all that. Like,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: you may not be able to afford that. You might
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: be doing a two hundred dollars photoshoot, you can't afford
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: your own set of lights, your own equipment. So our
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: studio actually within the booking, comes with everything you need.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: It also comes with a photo assistant that literally helps
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: you bring your life, your idea to life. So all
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: you got to do is bring your camera, which is
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: very untraditional when it comes to a photo studio. That
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: really doesn't exist. Most photo studios are big white wall
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: spaces and they'd be like, all right, we'll check on
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: you after your appointment in two hours or three hours,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: and it's up to you to figure it out. We
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: build more of like a community focused studio that holds
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: your hand through the process and trains you on how
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: to use the equipment and get the best out of
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: your work, so within that, that's how we have like
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: such a large community we've done with thirty thousand appointments
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: in seven years. We do about four hundred appointments a
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: month in our space. And if you go to our space,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: it's on the fourth floor of a building across a
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: Magic City and a Greyhound station. But we've been able
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: to turn that into a gym in Atlanta that everything's
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: been created there and we've had Showtime Day Susan Merrow
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: filmed episode with Missy Elliott there. I've had Samuel Jackson
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: shoot a fashion look book there. I've had a lot
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: of her whole being of her career came up there
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: and shot music video in there, jack Hawlow, Little Baby Gun,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: a lot of that first ever stuff was done there.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: It's just been a lot of magic that's created out
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: of that space. But it's really like a community hub
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: and a center for a lot of people to really
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: expand and show their work and photography and content creation.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: You said that you are selective, right, you pick up
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: the kim and maybe five six times a year. What's
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: the type of job at this point in your career
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: that will move you? Is it inside of hip hop
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: or is then outside the realm that excites you, like
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: what would move you?
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: Hip hop always moves me, right, So if it's the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: right artist, is the right look, the right piece of history.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: Like I don't want to just do any photo shoot
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: with a rapper, but if it's the right one, if
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: it means something that kind of moves me. So Like
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: last year, I had two accolades that really like, we're
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: exciting to me. I shot Young Jeezy's book cover for
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: his Adversity for Sale, knowing that my career started ten
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: plus years, you know, traveling this quick little stint with Jeezi.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: That meant a lot to me to come back and
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: be able to shoot probably his most iconic photo today
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: because of what it represents his autobiography. It's gonna last
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: with his career forever. It wasn't about the money. When
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: he hit me about that, that was like, okay, we
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: need to do that. That's necessary. And now it's a
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: New York Times bestseller. That means a lot to me.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: That's dope, and it's an avenue that I haven't done yet.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: I haven't done a lot of book covers. Last year
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 4: I also got to do Vibe magazine thirtieth anniversary issue
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: with Jermaine Duprix. It was also Jermaine Duprice's first ever
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: Vibe magazine cover. That's a story like that's like something
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: that you're like, he's never been on the R and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: B magazine, Like how has Jamain dupre never been on that?
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: Whatever the case may be, that's the story now that
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: gets me up out of bed. I want to do that,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: Like that's special right there. So it's those are and
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: those are not the money looks. Those are like cultural
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: looks that I think are relevant for me to stay
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: camp Kirk, you know what I mean, to stay who
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: I am to the corporate people that want to always
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: connect themselves with cool. So I still have to do
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: certain looks like that with up and coming artists or
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: certain people to still show like that's me, you know
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: what I mean. But then it allows me to go
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: do these corporate jobs and then be like, oh, that's
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: the guy that shoots all the cool kids. So those
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: are the ones that moved me even even the year
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: before that, I shot Big Boy at the Dungeon for Airbnb,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: Like those connections are like wow, like to see that
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: the house that he grew up in, that they made
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: these crazy albums and that he just renovated.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: But they bought Future too.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: They bought Future to all the history. We're here now
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: years later with Airbnb and they're allowing people to rent
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: it out and I get to photograph that moment, like
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: where he's in front of it. Like those are the
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: stories that moved me the most and make me like
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: want to pick up the camera shot making the Stallion's
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: graduation photos for Nike. That's a cultural moment. Everybody knows
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: she was graduating. Nike's attached to it. That's special right there.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: I got one final thing in the space, like I
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 5: enjoyed photography, so like I follow a few people on
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: Radb's obviously incredible what she does with Dell and Beyonce.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: I think Lenny's incredible.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's dope.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: Is that obviously you've created and you've documented history. At
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: any point do you feel like you create your own
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: book of photography?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: Super so? My book is coming twenty years. I'm at
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: a year eleven right now, or really year twelve. I
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: want to do. I want to do one book though,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: so some photographers do volumes or they do multiple I
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: want one just like book, Like he did it, and
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: everything's going to be in there. But I also think
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: my book should come. I want my book to come
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: with like my ideology or the blueprint of how I
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 4: was able to do this in this world, Like we're
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: fighting so many obstacles as a photographer right now. Again,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: we mentioned technology earlier, social media, the influx of just
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: people that just want to do it, and to still
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: be able to turn it into a business and empire.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: You know, I have fifteen plus employees that are all
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: benefiting off of my lifestyle and what I'm able to
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: do with a camera. Like to be able to do
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: all of those things, it's really like exciting to me,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: and I want to be able to share that along
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: with the work because the work is dope. I think
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 4: my work is iconic, but I think when you hear
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: the story behind it, it adds a whole other dimension.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: So I probably want to do something that's like a
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: mixture of like a photo book or maybe it's a
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: company by like a little you know, a book about
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: just a process.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: Well, brother, I appreciate you tell people how they can
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: follow you information on the studio and all that.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: No doubt you can follow me on Instagram It's the
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: Campkirk at the Campkirk on my studio at Campkirk Studios,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: Campkirkstudios dot com. If you ever in Atlanta, you know,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: hit us up. We're open seven days a week, all
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: day and night.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 5: I feel like Todd shaking his head about everything you're saying.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: Ta Tay, you got any questions?
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: I know, Davis, Thank you guys. I appreciate that. Oh
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: good man, Thank you guys. Rocking on to see you
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: next week.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 5: Peace please.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography, and miss These are just
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, Attempted illegal border
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day imprisoned and deported. You will
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump America's laws,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: border and families will be protected.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,