The longer you do something the more you learn about it, as well as yourself. I’ve been doing this photo / video thing for a bit now. I’ve learned that people will pay you money to click a button, but people will pay you more money to capture someone or something in a way that also fits you. If someone sees a photo and says oh that must be “so and so’s” photo, that’s what people want. They don’t want a basic photo, they want something cool, with an artists’ unique spin on it. The problem as the artist is finding that spin, style, brand and also will people like it? 

That’s the tough part. We can all click a button, but can you take a photo in such a way that people identify it as your work, without seeing your name on it? That’s the struggle. It takes time, I’m still working it out. I’ve been shooting for a long time, but really not long at all. 

In the beginning and still really to this day I’ve been trying to get more models and faces in my portfolio. I don’t want people to come to my website and only see one face. It would look like I was brand new. 

Ironically enough though, my favorite books are photo books of one person shot by one single photographer. For instance I picked up a book on Steve McQueen showcasing photos only shot by William Claxton, or the book on Kate Moss shot only by Mario Testino, and Lady Gaga shot by Terry Richardson. 

As photographers when we work with someone new, we try to get to know them and get comfortable with them as soon as possible so we can grab their personality in a still frame within 2 hours time or less. This is difficult in itself and sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t. I’m finding that I enjoy photographing the same person more and more. The photos I get on the 3rd or 4th time shooting someone feel the most real to me. It’s a real relationship, a real friendship, not something we just manufactured in 10 minutes of meeting each other. I’ve shot with Allie Gonino I think more than anyone else, So yes you can see Allie all over my instagram and website, but I’m growing to be okay with that. We’re friends and we get good images. We get to skip the small talk part and go right into the styling and creating part of the photo shoot.

 Dropping a few images from different shoots below. 

Maybe all of us aren’t meant to photograph 500 people, maybe some of us would rather photograph 5 different people 100 times. Just a thought. 

Matt Shouse

Photographer