with Shooters
Yogi ; Shot by Dayo Kosoko (@thearthype) for #Shooting with Shooters
Whether your craft is tattooing, painting, yoga, bartending or any other "Martial Art", there will always be a community that talks and spreads words amongst each other. And as I have recently discovered, Photography is no different. We all move in the same circles, often trade (or take as some refer to it) clientele and subjects, see similar sights and unfortunately, get treated as interchangeable by the general public. With so many people having access to cameras, we all can be presumed to both be and do the same things as one another, even though those of us within the community understand that presumption is not reality. It is our job as the professionals in the craft to not only act as professionals while on set but to also demand the respect of other trades by establishing ourselves as the professionals of the craft through building credibility along the way.
Part of being in a community means that information and connections should be shared. Helping another with a location, breaking into a new demographic or finding new clients should not mean that you lose anything. With as much work is out here for the taking, we can all coexist with each other. I have heard countless examples of a photographer putting down another individual in order to secure a client or refusing to share locations out of fear of elevating others beyond ourselves. No matter how great the individual, no person has ever won alone. In the same breath, no person loses alone. As humans it is our duty to socially elevate one another, as living beings it is our duty to push the human race forward & as photographers it is our duty to continually connect, build with & learn from each other in order to evolve the craft.
Much thanks to Alexander (@Alexander_Jah) for recommending me to Dayo to be featured on this podcast. This is a principle of working within a community of people, we show love not to receive it back but out of genuine appreciation. Dayo reached out to me in January with the concept and offer to be featured by Shooting with Shooters (@ShootingWithShooters) , a podcast run by Dayo & his partner Bryon Summers (@BryonSummers). After a few runarounds and missed messages, I finally linked with Dayo to get the walk-around shooting portion knocked out. From H St to Union Market and back became the path that we just freestyled for the day. Along the way through good conversation, a lingering topic was that of both community & engagement, thus part of my inspiration for the last Storytellers which can be viewed here. The way we all grow is through connecting with others. Growing your brand, growing your following, growing your clientele base & even growing on a personal level, it all starts with creating connections with those around us. It is an important key that often gets overlooked and as a creative, we must master the sub-art of collaboration.
Check out their podcast and be sure to LIKE, COMMENT & SHARE this post if you enjoyed the content.