Turning Art into a Business Photographer to Business Entity

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Earners, what's up? Look, building wealth isn't just about making money. It's about knowing where your money is working for you. That's why we partnered with Empower. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. Their free Empower personal dashboard gives you a complete view of your financial life in one place. Track your net worth, monitor your budget, analyze your investments, set retirement goals, and more. You've worked hard for your money. Now make sure it's working hard for you. Download the Empower personal dashboard or visit Empower.com.

0:37Not an Empower client paid or sponsored. When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country, every dollar matters. We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options. So why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check Lyft before booking a ride. Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather, and what's happening in the city. If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner, or catching up with your friends on a Friday night, taking a few seconds to check lift could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience. Save money. Check lift. Today's episode is brought to you by ChatGPT for Business.

1:14As a listener of this podcast, you're looking for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions, and turn scattered context into work they can use. ChatGPT for Business can help. Chat GPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in Chat GPT. This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker. Join over 10 million business and enterprise users worldwide already using Chat GPT for Work. Download the Chat GPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more. They don't realize smart people use smartphones, huh?

1:52seeing through bs they thought was gonna slide download text now because it cuts out clownery you can literally activate it from your couch nationwide 5g with the same towers the other companies use pay what you want or not at all you're in control show these ridiculous carriers we ain't paying for stupid because we're way too smart to pay dumb free app-based talk and text via the text now app requires wi-fi or data connection data plan sold separately 5g where available so as far as like okay you turning your skill set to a business right and really having structure as far as like okay this is how much i'm gonna charge my services this is how i'm gonna market myself i'm gonna make content for myself as opposed to just making content for other people so people can actually know who i am so i can build momentum yeah when did when did that kick in so my career i started following artists so as i mentioned a lot of the artists i work with at beginning i was with them at the beginning of their career so i saw what future did to become a household name and i saw what young scooter did and then i saw what mike will made it what did future do they did like just in terms of their run just from from interviews taking photo shoots of themselves like electronic press kits making appearances getting style dressing a certain way the presentation of who they are and who they were um i saw that formula from the music industry Like I was there I was a part of it.

3:17I helped with it I saw them invest in content invest in these webisodes that we were doing putting ads on the front of their webisodes Like I started to see it. So how it really worked for me is I saw it with a music artist side first And like I said, I work with future I work with young scooter for the longest and I work with Gucci when scooter and Gucci got locked up at the exact same time I had a reset what I was doing and I started in working more with producers I came back and started working with Metro Boomin did a lot of work with Mike Will made it I met Metro in the dorm room at Morehouse so I'm working with Metro like at the beginning of his career but I'm learning things that I saw with Future and Scooter and how they were able to do certain things early on in their career and blow up so now feeding those same things to Metro and saying can it work from a producer standpoint like somebody that's not traditionally in front of the lens, someone that's kind of behind the scenes.

4:14Hey bro, don't you know you own 50 % of that record just like Future? So why don't we go to the radio station and talk to them about the record? And you own it too. Why don't we shoot the music video for it? Why are we waiting on Future to tell you that that's going to be his next single? In this world, we could just get together and say, hey Future, Cam's here. We got the camera, turn the song on, we're going to shoot a video. And that was like a formula that me and Metro started where it was like he produced the record i shoot the video and we kind of came up that way but it was propelling both of our careers getting his songs from just being b tracks c tracks on mixtapes and actually making the music videos which pushed those records to be bigger my portfolio started to build his awareness started to build because we started putting them into videos like you're going to be in it too and then people started to see it so i got to see now it work from an artist to a producer like the same formula we were going to radio stations he was doing interviews with fader all the same stuff I saw a scooter and future do so when I work with Metro and he started blowing up he ended up DJing getting on tour I was with him on the rodeo tour and all that when I came off the rodeo tour you know fast forward a little when I came off of that I was like will it work for a photographer like you know that's 2015 I'm like can I do that I I watch him do it.

5:34I watch these artists do it. Can I do that? And if you've been following me from that time, that is the formula I'm on. I'm on a music industry's formula for how to blow an artist up. That is the Cam Kirk brand formula. And that's how I've been able to stay in the game as long as I have. And that's also how I've been able to turn what's just a typical photographer into a business because they look at me as an entity the same way they look at a Metro or a future or whoever. So that's really how it started for me and how it worked for me. I saw it and then I just started applying it to myself So I do interviews.

6:09I've had a bunch of interviews with like double XL to source like the same publications That's talking about the rappers. They talk about me. I've been in those same places. I treat my art galleries like concerts They're like shows. I do it the same way. We have fun. We have DJs. It's not traditional um i brand myself i started putting my face on my own billboards my own money same way an artist to do it like i do a lot of the same things i have cameramen following me i do vlogs of my photo shoots it's a cameraman shooting a cameraman shooting it's like those same things we're doing and i was doing in 2015 and nobody was doing and it was um a formula that works and now to this day it's it's to me the formula for success in whatever field you're in um we're seeing it now i mean i I saw doctors be having vlogs and cameramen of themselves.

6:59Like everybody is branding themselves as a brand and as in front of the camera. And I think that that's a formula that I saw in the music industry early on. It just applied to photography. Greater history. I like to think so. Yeah, I mean, it's tough sometimes as you're in it. It's tough to realize what you're doing. When you're talking about these artists, like, of course, today, like, we know future. Yeah. Obviously, we've seen what Metro's doing. I mean, he's headlining shows. And so you're part of that history as well. from a technical side right you're taking photos but you're also creating video music videos from an editing standpoint at this time because you're saying 2013 2014 this is like videos are starting to come onto youtube yeah what are you using at that point to really get the the best product out so again i'm learning on the fly so i used um early on i was using final cut pro and I was just freestyling or figuring out things.

7:55I used to, again, I'm not technically trained, so I would just study. So once I knew I wanted to do it, I would study. So I would go and watch a music video that I liked, especially if I found one that was a similar tempo to the song I just shot. And I mean, you're probably getting in trouble for this, but I used to just take the video, download it, throw it in Final Cut, layer my clips on top and cut at the exact same format like you know like after three seconds they change the camera angle i would study it like how many different camera angles do they have in this scene how many different shots how many different locations and i just started to get really like technical from there and just learn how to flip it to whatever it is i'm doing um until i was able to develop a style or a niche and i would just add a little something on it that made it feel like me figure out how I want to end every video so it's consistent or it's branded or where my logo pops up so but it started just freestyling like taking chances I didn't have a rule book um because you got to keep in mind also I started photography 2011-2012 that's the start of Instagram that's the start of all these platforms where content is just being given away so the rule book that Jonathan Mannion follow does not exist anymore.

9:09Like that process of, you know, you sell everything or every picture you take costs money and everything is this. You don't just give this away for free to viral videos or just home videos like that was all brand new. So we're developing our own blueprint for how to do it. Before you sign off, you tuned in for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions and turn scattered context into work they can use. ChatGPT for Business can help. ChatGPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in ChatGPT. This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker.

9:49Join over 10 million business and enterprise users worldwide already using ChatGPT for Work. Download the ChatGPT desktop app or contact sales to learn more. Earners, what's up? Look, building wealth isn't just about making money. It's about knowing where your money is working for you. That's why we partnered with Empower. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. Their free Empower Personal Dashboard gives you a complete view of your financial life in one place. Track your net worth, monitor your budget, analyze your investments, set retirement goals, and more.

10:24You've worked hard for your money. Now make sure it's working hard for you. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit Empower.com. not an Empower client paid or sponsored. When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country every dollar matters. We compare flights, prices, hotel rates and restaurant options so why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally I always check lift before booking a ride. Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather and what's happening in the city. If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner or catching up with your friends on a Friday night Taking a few seconds to check lift could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience.

11:04Save money. Check lift. Earners, what's up? Look, when you think about discovering small brands, what store pops in your mind? Well, it should be Walmart. Seriously, Walmart has thousands of small brands, and they're all in one place. Just go online or in-store, discover, and shop. It could not be easier. Every one of these brands has a real story and real people behind it. They're true American success stories. and you can find them all at Walmart. Discover thousands of small brands at walmart.com today. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.