Tips for Building A Photo Career: A Conversation With Andrew Spear

Andrew Spear is a freelance photographer living in Southeast Ohio.  What’s intriguing is without any sort of internship , Andrew has already established himself in a crowded industry, all while still being a full time student.  At only 21 years old and a month from graduating from the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University, he’s already photographed assignments for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and AARP Bulletin.  He was kind of enough to answer some questions about the work he does and how being a successful photographer is about being close to where the pictures, not the publications are.  Here is part 1 of our interview, check in tomorrow for the second half.

Johnny Simon: Describe how you first picked up assignments all the way out in Southeast Ohio.

Andrew Spear: I started assisting for my friend Matt Eich sometime last year.  Basic stuff, setting up lights. We had a really awesome day shooting an assignment for Newsweek in Indiana and we were very on top of things. We shot six locations in an hour and a half.  So as an assistant it showed that I was reliable and responsible and I was starting to understand how I could make things work.

In June of last year, he went out of town and he passed down an assignment he received from Aurora Select for the AARP Bulletin.  That summer I started working with Aurora Select and later I went to New York City with a portfolio book and shopped it around with 12 photography editors. That helped solidify me in this area and since then I’ve photographed all around the Midwest. It’s mostly been around Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. But where I am located right now, I find that I have to drive out a lot, you know four hours here five hours their, that kind of thing.  But it’s been good.  I’m trying to market myself in this area.  I’ll probably move to Columbus Ohio when I am done with school. I’m hoping I can keep the market that I’ve built.

JS:  How have you balanced doing work for all these clients with still being a student and having to travel all this distance?

AS: It gets difficult at times, but my professors understand. Some of them actually are interested and want to see my work if I miss class because I’m shooting for someone like the New York Times. They want me to bring in copies. So having that kind of support is great. But some professors don’t quite understand so they’re like “its great that you’re getting work, but this still counts as an absence.”

JS: Are those journalism professors?

AS: Non-journalism professors (laughs). I’m fortunate enough to have a pretty relaxed schedule.  I only have class four hours a day twice a week. So it’s nice having all that time open for me to get out to different environments. But if news calls they give me extra time make up my school work.

I covered the recent mine disaster in West Virginia for the New York Times and the following day for Time Magazine. It was just one of those things where I couldn’t schedule when the news was going to happen and then there was class but you know it just happens like that.  But it pushes me as a student because I have to be on top of things all the time.

JS: Describe going to the Montcoal disaster. It used to be that journalists were sent out to different places from these big hub cities but now journalism is far more segmented and writers and photographers are localized. What are some of the advantages of being where you are?

AS: I definitely agree that budgets are shrinking so they are relying on photographers that are located in a good place. Or in areas that aren’t especially accessible because it could involve hours of driving.  I’m able to get to places relatively quick as opposed to someone flying out from a major city. But going back to the budget; freelancing is going to be more and more about being in a good place or being somewhere others aren’t, does that make sense?

JS: Completely. When I was meeting with an editor a year ago I showed them my work and I told them “I’d to move to New York” and they told me ‘You should probably move to Orlando because we could definitely use people in Florida”

AS: I got similar responses. People say “move to Wisconsin, you get work all the time, there’s nobody there”

JS: Exactly.  I’ve met a lot of photographers who want to get to a large city in the hopes of getting work. But what would you say to people who are thinking that, when there are places all over the country and the world that need good, reliable coverage.

AS: I don’t want to say “move to a small town and you’ll get tons of works” (laughs).  I think (at least what I’ve gleaned from editors) that the Midwest is lacking in photographers. The Chicago area for example, I‘ve heard from a couple editors that could always use a couple more people from Chicago. It’s possible that it’s the only major city that is this way. You’re going to have photographers in L.A, San Francisco, Seattle, DC and New York. But the big space in between is lacking in some regards.

But back to the question.  I think the public’s perception is really interesting. When I was in Montcoal,West Virginia, it’s a town very similar to the communities that surround small coal mining towns in Appalachian Ohio [where Ohio University is located]. Some of the first questions that I got were “Oh you’re from New York and you’re already here?” and then someone made a comment like “Oh you guys from New York always think we’re a bunch of dumb hillbillies” and I had to say “No, I’m from a place very similar to this.” You know its kind of interesting that everyone thought I flew in from someplace else.

JS: That’s very interesting, photographers can’t forget how their own background might affect their subjects. Did they feel at ease knowing that you were very close to them as opposed to appearing like “some carpetbagger from the north.” You were more their neighbor than they assumed.

AS: It helped me connect with people. I spent a lot of time talking to old coal miners and current miners through a project that I was working on separately and you know I was able to hop right in and talk about coalmines and the industry and stuff. And its something that is very close to home. I grew up in a pretty small town so… I grew up on a farm, county fair all that stuff. So when somebody assumes I’m, like you said, “a carpet bagger from the north,” I can talk to them over things that we share like small town living. I can talk about farming and I think that gives me more of an advantage of getting closer to people on a more personal level.

Be sure to check in tomorrow for the second half of our interview with Ohio photographer Andrew Spear

Tagged as: agencies, Aurora, Editor's Pick, freelance photographer, Interview, networking, New York City, New York Times, Ohio University, Photography, rural