# Turning Art into a Business Photographer to Business Entity

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 4 Aug 2026, 7:06.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/14417e67-60a2-4dd3-b841-b49a00011a95/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

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## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: So as far as like, okay, you turning your skill
[0:03] Speaker 1: set to a business right and really having structure, as
[0:06] Speaker 1: far as okay, this is how much I'm gonna charge
[0:08] Speaker 1: in my services, this is how I'm gonna market myself.
[0:11] Speaker 1: I'm gonna make content for myself as opposed to just
[0:15] Speaker 1: making content for other people, so people can actually know
[0:17] Speaker 1: who I am so I can build momentum. Did when
[0:19] Speaker 1: did that kick in?
[0:21] Speaker 2: So my career, I started following artists. So as I
[0:26] Speaker 2: mentioned a lot of the artists I work with the beginning,
[0:27] Speaker 2: I was with them at the beginning of their career.
[0:30] Speaker 2: So I saw what Future did to become a household name,
[0:33] Speaker 2: and I saw what Young Scooter did, and then I
[0:36] Speaker 2: saw what Mike Will made it, what the Future do.
[0:39] Speaker 2: They did, like just in terms of the run, just
[0:41] Speaker 2: from interviews, taking photoshoots themselves, like electronic press, kids making appearances,
[0:48] Speaker 2: getting styled, dressing a certain way, the presentation of who
[0:51] Speaker 2: they are and who they were. I saw that formula
[0:55] Speaker 2: from the music industry like I was there. I was
[0:57] Speaker 2: a part of it, I helped with it. I saw
[0:59] Speaker 2: them invest in content, invest in these webisodes that we
[1:03] Speaker 2: were doing, putting ads on the front of their webisodes,
[1:05] Speaker 2: Like I started to see it, so how it really
[1:08] Speaker 2: worked for me? I saw with the music artist side first,
[1:11] Speaker 2: and like I said, I work with Future, I work
[1:13] Speaker 2: with Young Scooter for the longest, and I worked with Gucci.
[1:16] Speaker 2: When Scooter and Gucci got locked up at the exact
[1:19] Speaker 2: same time, I had a reset what I was doing
[1:22] Speaker 2: and I started in working more with producers. I came
[1:25] Speaker 2: back and started working with Metro Booming, did a lot
[1:27] Speaker 2: of work with Mike Will made it. I met Metro
[1:29] Speaker 2: in the dorm room at Morehouse. So I'm working with
[1:33] Speaker 2: Metro like at the beginning of his career. But I'm
[1:36] Speaker 2: learning things that I saw with Future and Scooter and
[1:39] Speaker 2: how they were able to do certain things earlier on
[1:41] Speaker 2: in their career and blow up. So now feeding nose
[1:45] Speaker 2: satame things to Metro and seeing can it work from
[1:48] Speaker 2: a producer standpoint, like somebody that's not traditionally in front
[1:52] Speaker 2: of the lens, someone that's kind of behind the scenes. Hey, bro,
[1:55] Speaker 2: don't you know you own fifty percent of that record,
[1:58] Speaker 2: just like Future. So we go to the radio station
[2:01] Speaker 2: and talk to him about the record, and you own
[2:03] Speaker 2: it too, you know, why don't we shoot the music
[2:06] Speaker 2: video for it, you know, while we waiting on the
[2:08] Speaker 2: Future to tell you that that's going to be his
[2:10] Speaker 2: next single, and as world, we could just get together
[2:13] Speaker 2: and say, hey, Future cam's here, we got the camera,
[2:16] Speaker 2: turn the song on, we're gonna shoot the video. And
[2:19] Speaker 2: that was like a formula that me and Metro started
[2:21] Speaker 2: where it was like he produced the record, I shoot
[2:23] Speaker 2: the video, and we kind of came up that way,
[2:25] Speaker 2: but it was propelling both of our careers. Getting his
[2:28] Speaker 2: songs from just being B track c tracks on mixtapes
[2:32] Speaker 2: and actually making the music videos, which pushed those records
[2:35] Speaker 2: to be bigger. My portfolio started to build. His awareness
[2:39] Speaker 2: started to build because we started putting them into videos
[2:41] Speaker 2: like You're going to be in it too, and then
[2:43] Speaker 2: people started to see it. So I got to see,
[2:46] Speaker 2: now with work from an artist to a producer, like
[2:49] Speaker 2: the same formula. We were going to radio stations, he
[2:51] Speaker 2: was doing interviews with Fader, all these same stuff I
[2:54] Speaker 2: saw Scooter and Future do. So when I work with
[2:57] Speaker 2: Metro and he started blowing up. He ended up DJing,
[3:00] Speaker 2: getting on tour house with him on the Rodeo tour
[3:02] Speaker 2: and all that. When I came off the Rodeo tour,
[3:05] Speaker 2: you know, fast forward a little. When I came off
[3:07] Speaker 2: of that, I was like, will it work for a
[3:09] Speaker 2: photographer like you know, that's twenty fifteen. I'm like, can
[3:13] Speaker 2: I do that? I watch him do it, I watch
[3:16] Speaker 2: these artists do it. Can I do that? And if
[3:19] Speaker 2: you've been following me from that time, that is the
[3:21] Speaker 2: formula I'm on. I'm on the music industry's formula for
[3:24] Speaker 2: how to blow an artists up. That is the cam
[3:27] Speaker 2: Kirk brand formula. And that's how I've been able to
[3:31] Speaker 2: stay in the game as long as I have. And
[3:32] Speaker 2: that's also how I've been able to turn what's just
[3:35] Speaker 2: a typical photographer into a business because they look at
[3:38] Speaker 2: me as an entity the same way they look at
[3:40] Speaker 2: a metro or a future or whoever. So that's really
[3:43] Speaker 2: how it started for me and how it worked for me.
[3:45] Speaker 2: I saw it and then I just started applying it
[3:48] Speaker 2: to myself. So I do interviews. I've had a bunch
[3:51] Speaker 2: of interviews with like Double XL the Source, Like the
[3:54] Speaker 2: same publications that's talking about the rappers, they talk about me.
[3:57] Speaker 2: I've been in those same places. I can treat my
[3:59] Speaker 2: art art galleries like concerts, They're like shows. I do
[4:03] Speaker 2: it the same way. We have fun, we have DJs.
[4:06] Speaker 2: It's not traditional. I brand myself. I start putting my
[4:09] Speaker 2: face on billboards, my own money, same way, and artists
[4:13] Speaker 2: to do it like I do a lot of the
[4:14] Speaker 2: same things. I have cameramen following me. I do vlogs
[4:18] Speaker 2: of my photo shoots. It's a cameraman shooting, a cameraman shooting.
[4:21] Speaker 2: It's like those same things we're doing. And I was
[4:23] Speaker 2: doing in twenty fifteen that nobody was doing, and it
[4:26] Speaker 2: was a formula that works. And now to this day
[4:29] Speaker 2: it's to me the formula for success in whatever field
[4:33] Speaker 2: you're in. We're seeing it now. I mean I saw
[4:37] Speaker 2: doctors be having vlogs and cameramen of themselves, like everybody
[4:41] Speaker 2: is branding themselves as a brand and as in front
[4:43] Speaker 2: of the camera. And I think that that's a formula
[4:46] Speaker 2: that I saw in the music industry early on. It
[4:48] Speaker 2: just applied to.
[4:49] Speaker 1: Photography greater history, so I like to think.
[4:53] Speaker 3: So, yeah, I mean it's tough sometimes as you're in it,
[4:55] Speaker 3: it's tough to realize what you're doing. When you're talking
[4:57] Speaker 3: about these artists like of course today like we know
[4:59] Speaker 3: if you yeah, obviously we've seen what Metro's doing. I
[5:02] Speaker 3: mean he's had line of shows, and so you're part
[5:03] Speaker 3: of that history as well. From a technical side, right,
[5:06] Speaker 3: you're taking photos, but you're also creating video music videos
[5:12] Speaker 3: from an editing standpoint at this time, because you're saying
[5:15] Speaker 3: in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, this is like videos are
[5:18] Speaker 3: starting to come on to YouTube. Yeah, what are you
[5:20] Speaker 3: using at that point to really get the best product out?
[5:26] Speaker 2: So again I'm learning on the fly, So I used
[5:29] Speaker 2: early on, I was using Final Cut, bro, and I
[5:32] Speaker 2: was just freestyling or figuring out things I used to
[5:36] Speaker 2: like not like again, I'm not technically trained, so I
[5:39] Speaker 2: would just study. So once I knew I wanted to
[5:42] Speaker 2: do it, I would study. So I would go and
[5:43] Speaker 2: watch a music video that I liked, especially if I
[5:46] Speaker 2: found one that was like a similar tempo to the
[5:49] Speaker 2: song I just shot. And I mean probably get in
[5:52] Speaker 2: trouble for this, but I used to just take the
[5:53] Speaker 2: video downloaded, throw it in Final Cut, layer my clips
[5:58] Speaker 2: on top, and cut at the exact SIME format, like
[6:01] Speaker 2: you know, like after three seconds they changed.
[6:02] Speaker 3: The camera angle.
[6:03] Speaker 2: I would study it, like how many different camera angles
[6:06] Speaker 2: do they have? And it's seen how many different shots,
[6:08] Speaker 2: how many different locations, And I just started to get
[6:11] Speaker 2: really like technical from there and just learn how to
[6:13] Speaker 2: flip it to whatever it is I'm doing, until I
[6:16] Speaker 2: was able to develop a style or a niche, and
[6:19] Speaker 2: I would just add a little something on it that
[6:20] Speaker 2: made it feel like me figure out how I want
[6:23] Speaker 2: to end every video so it's consistent, or it's branded,
[6:25] Speaker 2: or when my logo pops up. So but it started
[6:28] Speaker 2: just freestyling, like taking chances. I didn't have a rule
[6:31] Speaker 2: book because you got to keep in mind also I
[6:35] Speaker 2: started photography twenty eleven, twenty twelve. That's the start of Instagram.
[6:39] Speaker 2: That's the start of all these platforms where content is
[6:42] Speaker 2: just being given away, so that the rule book that
[6:46] Speaker 2: Jonathan Mannon followed does not exist anymore. Like that process
[6:51] Speaker 2: of you know, you sell everything or every picture you
[6:54] Speaker 2: take costs money and everything is this You don't just
[6:57] Speaker 2: give this away for free. The viral video are just
[7:00] Speaker 2: home videos like that was all brand new. So we're
[7:03] Speaker 2: developing our own blueprint for how to do it.

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