photography: a rich man’s game
I honestly feel that photography is a rich man’s game. The phrase was once said to me by one of my former employer’s in the photo industry; I worked briefly here and there in the field but never obtained any sort of success that would be worth mentioning or noting, or let alone give me the credibility to warrant the title “photographer”.
I began photography by accident, and maybe that’s why I was never successful with it, because it wasn’t what I had originally intended to do. Josh Earley once referred to this as cognitive dissonance, a means of not fully accepting defeat; but I do not see it that way, because I accept the fact that I am a failure.
Me circa 2004 or so in Glen Cove, NY.
Rollerblading was a passionate hobby of mine where I would discover both an interest in fashion and photography.
I originally wanted to do fashion design after started a small rollerblading clothing company in high school called “Fuzzy Slippers”, the name took after an unaired character in “Hey Arnold!” as well as my mother adorning a pair of dearfoam slippers every morning while she had her traditional Maxwell House coffee; the ideas were warm to me and I wanted to recreate that somehow. I took a sewing class or two in high school, and upon applying to the Rhode Island School of Design, I put together a haphazard collection of work; photos, drawings, etc, just to fill the expectations of what they were seeking in an applicant. I was a novice in everything I touched, so naturally, I was rejected. And naturally, I was heart broken.
a young me circa 2008 during my sophomore year at C.W. Post. I’d transfer to SVA in 2010 in hopes of taking photo more seriously.
So I applied to a few more SUNY schools, got rejected as well, and felt the pressure from my parents to just settle and apply to a local school, which I did. I applied to CW Post, now LIU Post, originally for English, but at the last minute, I decided to switch to photography; I thought it would be easier, and I was right, in that it was an easier way for me to put myself into a ridiculous about of student loan debt that I wouldn’t be able to pay off with my chosen studies.
Me in college circa 2008 or so. I was heavily influenced and dressed like Jeff Stockwell, a pro rollerblader turned pro photographer. Obviously I would not follow the same route as Jeff.
Photograph by Drew Humphrey
And so my first year of college, I bombed; I almost lost my scholarship that Post had pretty much given to everyone that applied, and after being dumped by my first girlfriend, I decided to take photo more seriously. At the time, I had been shooting low paying weddings and interning for a wedding photographer, but that was shorted lived. “You’re not cut out for this”, was what I was told by the photographer I interned for. Again, I felt I had failed. But I picked myself up; I started shooting every day, and I started working towards to transferring to the School of Visual Arts; a classmate or two had done so prior, and I had heard that if you wanted to make anything of yourself in the game, you needed to be in the city. Having made acquaintances with Josh Earley and Melissa Butler at the time, they influenced my shooting style away from the Flickr-girl shit I had been doing (emulating the likes of Lauren Randolph and Ryan Schude), and start focusing more on editorial work akin to Dan Winters, Chris Buck and Greg Miller. And so I followed suit, eventually transferring to SVA; I began to shoot medium format, and with taking classes from the likes of Clay Patrick McBride and Michael Halsband, I felt more of a gravitation to portrait work. So in the summer of 2011, I felt I needed to do an internship, and I found Ryan Pfluger; he did editorial work and was Tumblr famous, so I thought I could learn from him and develop into my own. After reluctantly meeting me one day in Brooklyn, he took me under his guard and I began my internship in the fall of 2011.
Josh Earley, photographed in 2014 or so. Josh and his wife, Melissa, had a major impact on my development in photography. I often mimicked a lot of their approach and lighting techniques.
Me circa 2011 by Ryan Pfluger. Pfluger taught me about the simplicities of portraiture and lighting but dismissed my work as cerebral.
I would shadow Ryan on some shoots (the highlight being one with Margot Robie, who yes, is a total sweetheart and smokeshow in person), would run errands for him like pick up his film or drop off a book to a photo editor, and on some nights, I’d come to his studio and help him scan film and organize things. And during that time, Ryan taught me a handful of things; he taught me about the simplicities of lighting, how portraiture can be intimate, and also the dynamics of the editorial world. Among those were the topic of pay, which instead of receiving credit for my internship, I would get a $150 payment from Ryan, per month. Thus, it wasn’t surprising though, when I didn’t get paid a few times because of the affects of the financial structure in editorial photography; most photographers are paid a net rather a COD, and in turn, that can cause a wealth of strain for one’s career and overall livelihood. How does one go months without getting paid? And even worse, when you inquire about it, you are usually ignored and potentially never hired again? It was baffling to me.
A portrait I shot of my brother during my junior year at SVA. My work was described as “too cerebral” by mentor at the time, Ryan Pfluger.
And so when my internship with Ryan ended, so did the idea that he had proposed of me coming on as his studio manager. He dismissed my work, telling me it was too cerebral and that I needed to simple it down akin to Molly Matalon’s, a fellow student at SVA that I never really interacted with other than a few times at the equipment rental station, where she’d often not know certain terms or jargon. But she was apart of the 89 plus community, along with a handful of SVA alumni such as Corey Olson, David Brandon Geeting, Bobby Doherty and Caroline Tompkins, all of whom remained in their clique; I was without question an outsider and not making any work worthy of recognition or respect. And that was felt too by the staff; Stephen Frailey, the head of the photo department at SVA, was very dismissive of my work as well; my work was not worthy of a feature in Dear Dave.
Bobby Doherty, pictured left, was an SVA alum and is considered one of the best photographers of his time; I often see him as the modern day Irving Penn. Despite inquiries to commission a portrait from him as well as purchase his book, Bobby does not have interest in working with me.
Although I was upon heading into my senior year, and had some sort of chance I getting into the mentor program, that was cut short by complications with student loans; my father was unwilling to cosign my loans and my mother had maxed hers out, as she co-signed the loans for my two older siblings as well. I eventually moved back home to Connecticut with my mom, living like a loser in her basement while I worked shit job to shit job, aimlessly still pursuing photography. And shit would come here and there; after commissioning me for one of my $25 portrait deals, my photo idol at the time, Chris Buck, had me photograph his daughter, Olive. For $25, I traveled from Connecticut to New York, stayed with Josh and Melissa in Long Island the night before; Josh let me borrow his Mamiya RB67 to shoot the portraits of Olive. And so I trekked into the city, and shot a handful of portraits of her, ones I eventually framed and put in a small showing that I had in Manhattan the year following. During that time too; I found myself back in New York, and eventually, linking up with Chris again to shoot his portrait. I’d also photograph Greg Miller a few weeks later, and the portraits would give me my 15 minutes of fame in the now deceased PDN. And while I thought this would be helpful recognition to get me back into editorial; it meant shit. And I would meet with photo editors too; The New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, Men’s Health, the list goes on. And I would go to these meetings, eager as a pig in shit, that I was finally making my break, only to be left with a, “we’ll be in touch”. Follow up emails didn’t matter, nor did mailers with new work; I was null. Nobody cared. Nobody saw anything worth hiring.
Olive Buck, photographed in 2014. Chris Buck paid me $25 to photograph his daughter; I made the trek from Connecticut to photograph her in his apartment in Chinatown. I did not get paid until I delivered the images a few weeks later, as I shot the majority of the shoot on film; between my travel and film expenses, I in turn paid to photograph Chris’ daughter.
A self portrait I had taken in 2014 for my first print mailer; the idea behind the image was that I had sent photo editors a “Ryan Loewy.com” t-shirt, and uninterested, they donated them to a good will. It was me shooting myself in the foot as I saw it as omen of what my “career” would be.
After working a few months at a e-commerce photo studio in Long Island City, where I was being paid $10 an hour as a subcontractor despite working full time, I thought I was getting traction. I was shooting time for print, shit, I even had Chris at the studio and was able waive the studio fee for him for an editorial he was shooting. During this time was when I was made aware of the theory that photography was a “rich man’s game”, and I started to see that evidently with how I was being paid and treated. My employer told me that the editorial world was gate kept, and speaking out about mistreatment by publications or other trades such as make up artists or stylists can land you in hot water, or even worse, have you blacklisted. But I already felt I wasn’t allowed in; I felt the work I made was conducive with what editors were looking for, and the industry was and still is shifting away from male photographers; nobody wants to hire a guy like me. 6 months in to my job at Slate, the owner fired me because of our disagreements. I later found out that I owed significant back taxes, as I was unaware that he had 1099’d me, and I ended up paying a few thousand to the IRS. I also worked with a handful of photographers during this time, such as Annie Tritt (who tried to net 30 me on a $100 assisting gig and then groveled when they had to pay with their credit card because I refused to accept that), as well as Chris Buck again for his retrospective portrait book; Chris too, wanted to net me, and so I quit midway through the editing process.
A portrait I shot of Chris Buck around 2014-2015; the portrait would gain me recognition in a PDN article, but that would be my 15 minutes of fame in photography.
Greg Miller, photographed in his home by me around 2014 or so.
I resorted to working in the plumbing game for a few years, but in 2020, I got an offer to work with Josh and Melissa at Hirshliefiers. They needed an e-commerce photographer to shoot just product stuffl; no creative. Or at least that was the original agreement. But that all changed one day when the owner’s son’s girlfriend walked in; she had social media for Hirsh and they needed a fun photo of some beanies or socks or something. And so I threw them down on the white canvas we had, shot a few frames and turned them over. Before I knew it, I was shoot full blown creative. And this in turn built animosity between Melissa and I; she was the head photographer and usually did the creative stuff, but she was vocal about how she hated it. I, on the other hand, didn’t. I was warming up to Bobby Doherty’s work; I felt he was like Irving Penn on acid and his images were fun; he once said his photos were like a bad joke with no punch line, and I liked that, I enjoyed the wittiness behind it. And so I shot more and more, and my work got used more and more on their Instagram, but that all came to a halt when I started getting solicited by vendors that were sold at Hirsh, and once Lori and her husband caught wind, they pulled me in their office. “You know, those images belong to us”, they told me sternly. I was baffled; my contract never stated usage terms nor any sort of creative work, in fact, my contract really had no terms at all. The only thing negotiated was pay, which when I was first offered the role, they wanted to pay me roughly $35K a year or so. “How much do you make now?”, Melissa had asked me during the negotiating process back in December of 2020, about a week or so after losing my mom to COVID. “I make about $80K right now; I do run a plumbing company, you know?”. Silence held the phone for a second, followed with a, “Oh.” I paused as well, confused as to why she would be surprised I would making that kind of money running a small plumbing company out of Astoria, NY. We worked on million dollar projects and I retained over 6 years of experience at that time doing plumbing, aside from growing up in a plumbing household. “Well, the lowest I can probably do is $60K”. Another pause, which I knew wasn’t good. “So, you can’t go any lower?” she asked me. “No, Melissa, I honestly can’t, I have bills and student loans just like everyone else, except I don’t have the degree”. A week or two later, Rob, Lori’s son, who was overseeing the media aspect of the company, emailed me and accepted my request of $60K as a salary employee.
One of my first creative still life’s that I shot for Hirshliefiers in 2021.
I’d soon find that I wasn’t salary, and that I was being paid hourly instead. “Well, we thought it would be better for you since you’d be doing overtime”. I was starting to lose my trust in Melissa. “I wish that was discussed with me first,” I replied. And over time, I found myself working more and more, I found I was not paid for certain holidays or sick time, and I was being expected to handle tasks now that I originally wasn’t responsible for. So in July, after a trip to Atlantic City, I decided to quit. It wasn’t worth it to me anymore, and Josh and Melissa weren’t my friends; they were using me to make their jobs easier.
More still lifes for Hirshliefiers; I was not allowed to utilize the images for my own portfolio despite not signing a NDA or embargo contract with the company. I would quit a few months later.
After this, I never worked in photography again. I re-applied to SVA recently, hoping that they would have some sort of interest in me returning, hoping that they had some sort of financial program to get me through my last year, but my inquiries became a game of hot potato, landing back in my lap with a $20k bill that I owed for my last semester; I am not allowed to complete my courses until this bill is paid, and there is no option for financing or assistance to pay it.
Self portrait from 2014
This was what solidified the idea for me that photography is a rich man’s game. You have to have parents that can afford to pay your rent and schooling while you work some bullshit job and wait on net payments, as well as rub elbows with the right people that will open the door for you. I have neither of that, and I probably never will.
