Whenever somebody asks me to take down a photo from my site, I know I have a great gallery up. This is what it’s all about: pissing people off. Kinda. I mean, if my photos don’t disturb you, excite you or make you laugh, then we’re both just wasting our time.
I am a lot like you. I wear vintage clothing. I like parties. I take pictures. Unlike many people my age, I’m trying to do all of this for a living. It’s not even been a full year that my site is up and many people in the nightlife scene here in Rome already consider it the definitive party photo site. I shoot everything from Indie Rock bands playing basement parties to DJs spinning in exclusive clubs and stadiums. Lately I also started shooting fashion stuff. I’m lucky enough to have a hot girlfriend, so I can practice with her, I take her portraits and stuff like that and if they turn out good enough I upload them on my website.
I don’t know what motivates other photographers, but what keeps me going is the desire to build a strong brand. I want to inspire people and have an impact on their lifestyle. I want my photos to be something you want to look at, right-click and save them on your desktop. I want my photos to be the reason some new kid buys a camera to carry it around snapping pics.
In the end, you can’t be driven by money all the time. There are other ways to make money, faster and smarter ways that can bring you more money than photography does. If you’re shooting just for money, it’ll become dull like any other job. You might as well apply for McDonald’s then.
A lot of people approach me in clubs asking me how to start and what gears they should buy. Truth be told, I don’t even have a real professional camera. I mean, I bought something cheap because it was the only thing I could afford and then went on eBay and bought a few second-hand lenses. If I could give just one suggestion to all the photographers out there is: content trumps quality. Focus on the content. Everybody today as a cell phone full of apps that take better photos than most actual photographers could ever take. You see all these photos edited with beautiful filters, and they might look cool at first, but in the end they are all the same pictures of somebody’s lunch, or a cat, or the same old boring self-portrait edited with another filter.
Give people something they’ll want to look at. Who cares about the gear you used to shoot it.
Once again, this is what it’s all about: stimulates reactions. If nobody gets angry with you because of your photos, nobody will really love them. If that’s the case, you’re just wasting time.
Links:
Website: www.mopho.it
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mopho.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mopho_official
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