Here can be expensive. You know, I've told glasses that I teach where you and I can stand right next to each other, photograph the exact same thing, and my $10,000 kit is going to take a better picture than your $1,000 kit. It just is. You know, the lens is better, the glass is crisper, it's yummier, you know, it does that sort of stuff. Hi, welcome back to How Much Can I Make. I'm Ravel Zerri. Today we're stepping into the world behind the lens. My guest is Phil Mansfield, a professional photographer who has spent years turning images into a career. Let's hear what the job is actually like, how photographer get their work, and is there work out there today when everybody is a photographer. So let's hear the details from Phil. Phil, thank you for coming on the show. Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. I wanted to have a photographer for a long time. Let's start with, tell me, how did you first introduce to photography and when? It was probably in my teenage years. I think there was a big surgeons in photography then, all film, not digital, but you know, I had friends who had little dark rooms in their closets. So it was certainly in the air with everyone I was hanging out with. I think that combined with always having a passion for magazines, you know, whether it was National Geographic or House Beautiful, that was part of the desire. So in my teens, I got my first camera, film camera, and I think it was just one lens, and I was just shooting for fun, but not really thinking of it a career, I think. It was more just an enjoying art form. So yeah, it was a, it was street photography. It was, you know, I have, I don't know how many pictures of park benches from Central Park or Riverside I have that have paint peeling and, you know, gentle little flowers coming over them. I think there's a lot of us who shot lots of park benches. Me included. Yeah. When was the first moment you realized it could be a profession? Probably just before 2000. I had spent five years traveling abroad, and that was also another reason why photography kind of just landed in my soul as I was photographing the whole time I was traveling. So when I got from back from traveling, it sort of got this idea, maybe I want to see what I can do with this. So I actually took my stuff to a few stock agencies, and the feedback was great. I mean, they all said your work is wonderful, but you need about another 100,000 more images, you know, than what you're showing to us to actually, you know, to work with the stock agency. But that was, you know, nice encouragement. What did you do in travel photography? I left home after college and that turned into five years living abroad. And while I was living in London, I saw an ad for a tour guide. And it was this tour, you know, agency where they start you on basic tours, a three week European tour. They also had tours out to Southeast Asia, tours to the Middle East, tours to Russian Scandinavia. And so I was kind of in the right place at the right time. So I really went all over the world as a tour guide and particularly focused in Southeast Asia. And so that's kind of where I thought, hmm, I think I might want to try this. How can I maybe make money off of my photography? And then my now wife, who we met back then was absolutely, you know, enamored of my work. And she was certainly a great impetus and me taking, you know, the idea seriously, that I could do this professionally. So that's kind of where it came from. And then I put together sort of the plan. What did being a professional photographer, you know, mean to me? What did I want that to look like? You mostly self taught, right? You're doing very much so. Yeah, very self taught. I took a couple of classes actually after I'd been shooting. My mom worked at Columbia University. And so because she worked there, I could take a couple of classes. You know, even though I'd been shooting and it was what I was doing, I just wanted a deeper dive. But then I'm absolutely a geek. I dive deep into the nuts and bolts of photography, whether it's digital or whether it was film, you know, whether it's about history, you know, so I am constantly, even to this day, always reading, always researching, always looking at new things or old things as it were. So yeah, self taught, but absolutely teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching myself, you know, always, always, always. Did you also do photojournalism? Yes, that's how I actually that's where sort of I started to climb. I was talking earlier about I wanted to have a plan. And so I decided to go the root of photojournalism. And so I was living in the Bronx at that time. And there was a local newspaper called the Riverdale Press, which actually won a Pulitzer Prize, not because of my work. They were still a once a week, you know, black and white newspaper when I first started. And we were shooting film, but they said, Hey, look, we'd love to have you come shoot for us. We pay you $25 a photo if it gets used. So certainly it wasn't incredible money making. But what it did is introduce me in a very safe way to the world of photojournalism, we're understanding deadlines, understanding, you know, how to, you know, we would shoot film, but then it would still get scanned digitally. I learned to lay out I'd be there for all aspects of what was going on. So that was sort of what got me going. And what kind of photojournalism did you do? It wasn't war photography, was it? Well, I never did war photography. Certainly when I was at the Daily News, my beat was the Bronx a lot of the times. And I certainly got called on murder scenes and, you know, terrible things and, and, you know, saw stuff that were experienced stuff that certainly made me uncomfortable and questioned, how do I do my job? How do I take a picture of this moment that is so devastating for whoever's in front of me? I got, you know, a fair bit of that. And certainly I've transitioned away from that stuff. I think the romantic ideal of being a war photographer, that nip that, you know, that got that, you know, out of me seeing, you know, gritty New York City life. They were really tough shoot murders, rapes, things like that, that were tough to insert myself as a photojournalist and as an artist. So I was at this Riverdale Press built at my portfolio, eventually got that into the Daily News. They then said, do I want to shoot for them? And all of these are freelance positions. But, you know, once you kind of get in, if they like your work, they just start sending you out and out and out. And so I was shooting with them for a couple of years, and then sort of said, let me get my portfolio over to the New York Times. And that was one of the best things I ever did. I'll tell you an interesting story. I actually had an intro into the New York Times, and I dropped off my portfolio through the introduction and didn't really hear back from them. So I was sort of feeling despondent. But then six months later, I dropped it off with somebody else totally on my own who I didn't know. And that person called me the next day. He was the main editor of the photo desk. So I lucked out that he introduced me to dining, to arts, to real estate, to house and home when it was still there, to all these different sections, which sort of began to set what my path would be as a photographer, where I do, you know, what I do right now is primarily a lifestyle photographer. But you also do architecture, right? I consider that lifestyle, you know, through the New York Times, they started sending me out, you know, like house and I think it was house and home really shot some very, very interesting properties, which just began to hone my skills and then allowed me to create a portfolio that I could then send to somebody else and say, oh yeah, I do interior, sure, I do architecture. And that worked. Did they get you into food photography as well? Yeah, food photography as well. I shot a lot for dining. And whenever you're shooting for dining, even if it's just a restaurant expose, like a review, you have to shoot interiors. And then on top of that, you have to shoot beauty shots as well. So my initial food photography was all on location, more times than not, you know, beauty shots of restaurant food while they're in service. That kind of got me to my first tiny little cookbook that I did, which was somebody saw my work. And I think it was their kid. And they were pretty wealthy. I think their kid was doing sort of a vanity cookbook. And they said, Hey, why don't you come join us on this? And then I did that. And then someone who was legit, you know, like a chef saw that work and said, Oh, I love your stuff. You know, do you want to do this next project that I'm on? So, you know, everything happened very step by step. And, and, you know, I always talk about this. I think of my photography is as just so step, step, step, step, step, step, there was no sort of sitting in the drugstore being discovered by someone. And oh my God, you've got to, you know, do this. Everything was a little buildup here of a portfolio, a buildup there of a portfolio, a buildup there of experience and, and being, you know, brave enough or, or ballsy enough to get it out there and say, Hey, you know, can I do this for you? All along, you were shooting 35 millimeter or 35. Later in my career, I got into medium format, but that was totally away from, you know, the photojournalism. Almost everybody shoots 35 millimeter. When did you switch to digital? 2004. Exactly 2004. I had been shooting before that for the Daily News, Riverdale Press, and I just started with the New York Times and it just became apparent then more and more they expected their photographers to be able to file their work from the field as opposed to going down to, you know, the headquarters or to some outlet that they had. So the only way to do that was digital. And I had to absolutely swap out all my gear. So it was very expensive to do it. So it was probably going to be 15 to 20,000 dollars. Right, of course. A big transition. I had learned early on that it's cheaper to buy used pro gear than it is to buy sort of brand new amateur. Yes, of course. So I found this person who down in Tennessee, actually, who was selling exactly what I needed, you know, from lenses to bodies to, you know, speed lights. What is a speed light? A small flash. Speed light is the same thing as a strobe. It just generally means that smaller size flash is what you're using. When did you see your first photograph printed? Well, certainly in the papers, you know, black and white for the Riverdale Press. The first time is very excited. And then your next step is when do I get to the be on the cover of a section? And then when do I get to be on the cover of the newspaper? And then the other question, because you're never satisfied is when am I above the fold on the first page of the newspaper? You know, so you look for all those moments. And, you know, I was lucky that I got, you know, I got all of those things. Oh, you did. They're paying by the picture. They pay by the shoot, the the times and both the daily news would pay by the shoot. So what do they pay for a shoot? And is it different for different kinds of photography? No, for a freelancer, you got the same thing. In fact, there was, you know, that was a bit of because they kept their day rate or their assignment rate the same. I want to say almost the entire time I was there, which was about a decade. And I believe it's only been the last within the last five years that they've upped their day rates for photographers. But they pay in the hundreds or the thousands? Hundreds, not hundreds. Oh, I think, uh, yeah, no, it's hundreds, not thousands. If you shoot for the magazine, that's different, though. When you're shooting for the sections in the daily, that's, you know, a very standardized rate. But also to that point, a lot of the photographers who shoot for the magazine, say, are coming at it through agents. And do they get royalties also? That's another bad part about New York Times is New York Times is what's called a work for higher contracts. Oh, okay. And when I started back in the early 2000s, there was a huge uproar right then because they were kind of doing rights grabs from the photographer. So certainly, you know, there was anxiety in me about knowing that, well, I don't want to call myself, you know, they weren't so much firing people. What they were is giving photographers a document that they had to sign. You had to give them the film or just the prints? They would just take the pictures. They would scan it in and then it would be in their system. So do you have the rights to use those pictures again for you, for yourself? Yes, we both technically own them. I have certainly never gotten my wrist slapped for using any content that I shot for them. And indeed, once in a while, I do get a very small, you know, reuse fee for something that they've used. I don't know how it fits in. It must be automated, but they'll send me a PDF of how it was just used again. You know, I can't lie. I certainly knew that I was giving up certain rights and was falling on the side of it was more important for me to keep working. Right, of course. But they give you credit and each every time. Always credit. Always credit. That is huge. Always credit. I mean, as a photographer, that's the one thing you ask for. How much time do you spend on marketing or shooting or editing? What is the ratio? I don't spend as much time on marketing because heaven helped me. I don't want to jinx myself. I'm doing pretty good. Okay. Which doesn't mean that I'm not always networking and aware of work that's out there. But quite often at this state, in my career, I get a lot of work that comes to me. In the beginning, sure, marketing was a lot. You know, it was so hard in the beginning because you had to have an actual physical portfolio that was horrifically expensive. And, you know, and really successful photographers would have three or four or five of them. You know, keep in mind, I was doing primarily photojournalism that I did do a fair bit of weddings back then. I think one of the ways I was supporting my work, I started doing weddings on the side and corporate events as well. I think every photographer starts with wedding or permits. You get good skills from them. You do get good skills. The weddings were successful. I started shooting for a wedding factory. But weddings are also exhausting. I don't do weddings anymore because they're phenomenally stressful. It is the most important moment. Right. This family's life, one of their most important. Right. And it's just you're, you're working from, you know, often eight in the morning till 12 at night. And, and, you know, even if you're charging a lot, you're physically spent, you're emotionally spent by the end of it. But you learn a lot. You learn people skills. You learn when things go wrong more than almost any other kind of, you know, photo professional. What goes behind the scene? Let's say you go to shoot architecture. What goes behind the scene with the preparation? Could you tell me a little bit about that? Sure. You know, let's assume that I'm working for a client. Okay. That's, we've seen my work and we're back and forth. We've agreed upon that you want to hire me. Okay. We're at, we're at that point. We maybe don't quite know, you know, the full scope of the assignment. So now we're going to have deeper discussions about the expectations of the assignment. So certainly we talk about how many days, how many hours, you know, the actual shoot is going to take. We then have other conversations about how is the content going to be used. So for instance, you know, are you imagining this is, you know, going to a go across multiple platforms? You know, is it going to be social media? You are you also going to do ad campaigns and magazines? Are you going to do billboards? You then also discuss how long do you want to be able to use this content? Is this just a single social media post? Or is this something that you're going to have in your catalog for decades? So that all begins to come into the conversation because then you begin to base your usage fee upon that. When you're a photographer, you kind of have two different aspects that you charge. One is your creative fee, not two, but you have three. Let me put it that way. You have creative fee, you have usage fees, and then you have expenses. And expenses can be assistance or travel or extra kit you have to buy for or renting of spaces. All that stuff comes into it. So you begin to hammer out those, you know, and eventually that ends up in a legal document. How do you know how to price it? It's to you know, when you you start, it is kind of terrifying and it almost seems like it's this secret sauce. I think nowadays people are more honest. There's more websites that you can go to. So there's researching, you know, finding out what is our photographers making out there, little bit of selling yourself, a little bit of understanding your market. So for instance, if I'm shooting for a mom-and-pop burger joint, I'm not going to charge them the same thing if McDonald's is hiring me. Right. So yeah, you do research, you ask, and the information's out there, and you start to get more and more comfortable with what you're charging. And you know, I always talk about the elevator pitch, which is that, you know, you walk into this elevator with the person who you've always wanted to work with and how do you present yourself. And sometimes, you know, the person in the elevator will immediately hit back with money. Well, give me a ballpark. What is this gonna, you know, gonna cost? And so if your elevator pitch is all, oh shucks, oh gosh, I don't know, you know, you got to kind of be locked in even when you're speaking money to be able to say something like, well, right now the parameters are too loose. I can't really give you a good idea of what it's going to cost until we talk. How are you going to use the images? How long do you want to use the images? How many images are you expecting to use? You know, are you want the images exclusively? Can I reuse the images for other clients? You know, all of these things come into the discussion. Did price come down because now it's digital? You don't have to develop? You don't have lab fees? You don't have all of that? For me, no, it's the opposite. My prices have, you know, I think part of it is just my experience, because I've gotten more experience. If anything, digital is more post processing. So that's one of the things I talk about with newer photographers is we love to not think about post processing and we tend to give that away. So, for instance, let's say some new photographer is working with a client says, oh, I'll do this whole thing. It's only a half day shoot. You know, and I'll do this whole thing for $500 for you. And I'll give you all the rights you can do with it that what you want. And then you work on the images. And even after you've shot them, there's initial post processing and maybe you didn't realize some of the dishes were dirty. So you have to do some cleanup. So that's two, three hours that you've just put in and then you send them to your client and they have some other iterations, they'd like you to try some other edits. And all of a sudden you've just done 10 hours of post processing that you didn't work into your budget. Almost everybody is a photographer now, they got a camera in their pocket, all camera, all phones cameras are amazing today. Does it take jobs away from you? It hasn't. No, I will say the only job it might take away from me that I don't particularly have an urge to do is someone who's decided to go into social media content, you know, creative content. And there's lots of jobs like that out there now if you want to be a photographer where they want you to be a social media creator, a content creator. And that's phenomenally difficult work. And a lot of it is done on the phone. Why is it difficult? Because you were expected to be on that phone constantly. I knew somebody who did it and not exaggerating. She was somebody's like a celebrity's personal content creator. And she was up in the morning at 7am checking her phone working and going to bed at 11am checking her phone and working. So it's very fast, very fluid. You're expected to be very comfortable with every single, you know, all the different platforms that are out there know the technicalities of what is the best sizing for Instagram versus this versus that. All of that has to be in you. And you're just constantly on, you're constantly looking for it. I think a lot of people who are excited by that don't understand how much work it is to do content creation. So is this the biggest opportunity for somebody who is starting today as a photographer? No, I mean, I'm surprised how much photography work there is out there right now. Really? Yeah, because there's a lot of places that are looking also for e-commerce sites, often looking for somebody to, you know, you'll see a lot of times you go on to Indeed, put in photographer, you'll see a heck of a lot of jobs come up. One of the, like I said, the more common ones is e-commerce. But remember, a lot of times on e-commerce, what you're probably doing is sitting in a white seamless studio with a tabletop that's all white and you're just dropping this product in, taking a picture, taking it out, dropping this product in, taking a picture, where when I'm doing, say, a cookbook, we're happy if we get, say, eight images done a day. Whereas in an e-commerce studio, you're probably expected to put out anywhere from 50 to 150, you know, shots, depending on what it is that they're creating. And AI didn't take those jobs away? Well, we're on the cusp now of, you know, I think AI can start to do that, especially with that e-commerce stuff. Right. So I think, you know, we are at another cusp. You mentioned that 15 years ago. I think that AI, we are certainly in a new wave of nervousness or anxiety, I think, for photographers. But, you know, you still can't beat someone, I think, who's been doing it as long as, say, I have or other photographers with the same experience, because we do know how to talk to a client when something is going wrong. I do know how to read between the lines. What are the best skills that a photographer needs to have? Communication, listening, time management. Time management is huge. Huge, huge, huge, huge, huge. I do think, you know, getting, you know, when I say communication skills, that's not just, ha, ha, ha, aren't we having a good time, though that's part of it. But actually communicating, you know, remember what you first start is, how do we approach a client? These conversations go back and forth many, many times before the actual shoot comes to it. And then even when you're on the shoot, making sure if stuff isn't quite going right, that you're there communicating. You don't suddenly go dark 30 on them. And, you know, don't talk to me. I got to figure out why this cable isn't talking to each other, you know, you've, so that's really, really important. I think knowledge of what's current in trends, understanding where the industry is going, certainly, like, for instance, right now, learning AI and how that fits into workflows that I might want it to. So it's a constant, constant re-energizing of self emotionally, artistically, and technically, you have to keep doing it as well. What is the biggest mistake that beginners make? Thinking work will come to them because they're so good, you know, that I'm just going to put out this arty-farty little post and someone's going to see it and think, oh my God, you're fabulous and arty-farty. You know, I'm going to hire you right now. I think that's one thing. You have to do the work to get work. If you decide you want to do this for a job, then it's a job. You have to make decisions that somehow are going to advance your career. That doesn't necessarily mean it's always money, but it means that if I'm working for free, I am connecting with someone or some group of people that I want to move into that realm or that field, or I know that might lead to something else. So start monetizing yourself internally. If you're shooting something for free, but this person is saying, oh, can we have six or seven meetings before then, that's pushing my free, you know what I mean? So just being aware of your value as a photographer, your time management as a photographer, confidence will come. You got to still like what you do. Hopefully, even if you're in this phase where you're doing work that doesn't necessarily thrill you, you still have moments where you feel creative. You still have moments where you go, ooh, that was fun, or that lighting was so nice. I really love doing that. And when I was earlier, and certainly I have to work harder on this myself, is making sure you're shooting personally. What do you mean shooting personally? For just your heart. Oh, okay. Whether it's going out and shooting landscapes, whether it's going out and doing street atmosphere, street life in the city, whether it's doing studio macro, whatever it is, doing stuff that has nothing to do with making a living, nothing to do with what your client wants. And I'll be honest, I have to crack that whip on myself often. And especially when I was in a staff job where I was shooting nine to five every single day, I didn't want to pick up a camera. I just absolutely didn't want to pick up a camera on the weekends. Part of it was physical, carpal tunnel in the wrists. Part of it was just emotionally, I just wanted to vacate my brain of that kind of stuff. I do believe photographers are artists. I think you can get sidetracked into a profession that takes the art out of it, but all the more reason to then start shooting for yourself. I'm totally believe that that's a muscle. It's always interesting when I'm shooting, like especially interiors and architecture, we're all walking to this space. And I get into a panic because the first 15 minutes, I'm just like, I'm not feeling it. I don't understand what's going on in this space. Nothing is not good. This is not. And then something inside of me goes, bam. And then all of a sudden I go, Oh no, look at how that line is cutting into that line. Look at how this shape relates to that shape. Look at how this color is bouncing off that color. And suddenly I just see things from a creative perspective where it's kind of has to, you know, it's like a lawnmower. You got to pull the cord to get it going. It starts to chime in and then really build. And, you know, and that's important to keep that alive. And, you know, it's important to have it, I will say. I've once again been doing this long enough and gotten enough feedback that I think I'm pretty good at photography. You're very good. Your food photography sent me to the refrigerator all the time. I couldn't look at it, especially this one baked goods, the round one. Oh my God, I was salivating all the time. What is the biggest challenge for a working photographer? It can be expensive. You know, if you're going to get pro level gear, you're looking at camera bodies that are, you know, three to 10,000 and pro lenses can go into the thousands. Gear can be expensive. You know, I've told classes that I teach where you and I can stand right next to each other, photograph the exact same thing. And my $10,000 kit is going to take a better picture than your $1,000. That's this, you know, the lens is better. The glass is crisper. It's yummier. You know, it does that sort of stuff. So you do spend money, I would say in this day and age, you do have to be comfortable with post production digitally. You know, I myself know all the Adobe suite. But isn't it easier than having to retouch prints before there was digital? Oh my God, retouching before was a nightmare. Yeah, yeah, absolute nightmare. But then as a new photographer, I tell all my new photographers, whatever you've just done in Photoshop, pull it back 25%. Whatever you've done that is so brilliant, pull it back 25%. You know, because I look at stuff that I worked on in Photoshop when I was first starting and I'm like, oh my God, didn't I see how garish the colors were? Didn't I see like, you know, the texture was just so crunchy and it was going on there. But at the time you're like, whoa, this is great, you know, this is wonderful. And so that's also a skill set you have to develop. But you do get a better eye and you get better skills, you know, in the digital world. Right. What is the biggest reward? You know, I think just sometimes you just look at a photo and go, yeah, that's it. And you know, it is, it is self, you know, I still have moments where I go, that's what I thought, you know, there's the old question is when is a photo, a photograph finished? Is it when you think of the photograph that is done? Or is when it's printed? There's that moment when you have an idea of what you think the photo is going to be. And then you do it in studio or whatever. And it's like, that was it. That's what I was trying to do. And that is so exhilarating. You know, to that point, I remember the first time I had a magazine cover. Oh, I'm not even sure it was the cover, but it was a full page. It was a food for Westchester magazine. And it was the first time I saw an image and I went, oh, that's Martha. Martha Stewart. I did Martha Stewart. You know, when I was so excited, because I just, you know, I was in that, like I said, National Geographic, how it's beautiful. You know, Martha, all that stuff. I loved looking at all that stuff. And I remember that moment of going, I made a shot like Martha, you know, and that was a wonderful, wonderful feeling. So that's, you know, that certainly comes into it. You know, you're always like having your client, you know, happy, you know, that certainly brings satisfaction, getting paid well. You know, but as silly as that sounds, you know, looking someone in the eye, trying to tell him what you charge and not having them go, what? My cousin has a camera. You know, how can you judge so much? But having somebody go, okay, yeah, we can work with that. We understand, you know, what you bring to us. There's satisfaction in that. Do you ever use drone photography? I am a licensed drone photographer. Yeah, I had to get my license and I use drone as part of my kit. For me, a drone is another lens. That's all it is. Yes, it is. Yes, I had to get licensed to do it. And that's a mind boggling test that you have to take. You know, it's the FAA, it's governmental, it's this huge, long, multiple hour long test, you know, that you have to pass or else you can't do it professionally. But then once you get all that done, it's just another lens. It's a lens that I can put on top of its subject. It's a lens that I can send way out, you know, and certainly use on landscape and architecture and things like that. So yes, you do have to not have to, but it's one of the skill sets that I have. Yeah, drone photography. Okay, well, thank you very much. I used to be a photographer before I switched to television. And that was all film then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just at the end of shooting film, I was, I had just, I think, invested in a used Polaroid back that you would put on back at the 5mm film. And I thought, oh, I made it. I bought myself a Polaroid back. I am a professional now. And that's about right when we switched to digital. It was $300 I didn't have to spend, but I certainly had satisfied myself a sense of work. All right. All right. Thanks a million. Oh, it was absolutely my pleasure. Thanks so much for taking it with you. Of course. Glad we got behind the scene look at the profession, the creativity, the hustle, and what it really takes to make a living as a photographer. Thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please like, share and follow the show. I'm Ravel Zerry, and I'll see you next week on How Much Can I Make?
