We were lucky to catch up with Mike Amarico recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mike, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I started out when I was 11 or 12 with skateboarding, taught me heaps when it came to camera work, and editing, I had a shitty little camera, it was called a “Flip Ultra HD Camera” If you search if you’ll laugh so hard haha, and editing in iMovie, so i really started out with video work, until I got in photographing my mates skateboarding, a few months later, which I found a lot more fun, probably because it was easier than taking video, and with editing photos you can really get into a flow, set some nice lighting, play some tunes, and just chill, whereas editing video makes me want to snap my laptop in half most of the time haha

To speed up the process you just have to fail more, shoot more, experience more, the more times you go out, the more you learn, just like any craft… I wish I spent less time on my phone tho, could be using that time to shoot or do legit anything else, social media is really killing the game in a way, it’s a double-edged sword really.

not just with photography or anything creative wise but a skill in life in general that is a must to learn, but especially when you run your own business, is problem-solving. If something isn’t working out, you can’t just slack off like a normal job haha you have to figure it out yourself. I worked at a car dealership for a few years before I went solo with my work and I’ll never forget the boss yelling at me, not because I came to him with a problem, but because I came to him with a problem with no solution… or at least any ideas on a solution “DONT F**KING COME TO ME WITHOUT A F**KING SOLUTION” haha good times.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

lot to list off here I think so, I’ll try my best haha

Well, g’day I’m Mike otherwise known as @northborders I’m a Photographer/YouTuber from Melbourne, Australia. I secretly hate to call myself a YouTuber because it unfortunately gets put into the “influencer” category, when someone calls me an influencer it genuinely sends a shockwave of cringe through my body hahaha but it is what it is

I try my best to teach people about photography and editing in a light-hearted way that’s entertaining and easy to watch but still try to show my journey of where I’m heading as a photographer, I don’t know everything, there is still so much I want to learn with my work, so I try my best to always show my process of that, sometimes thing don’t work out the way I want which I also try to show in my videos, I try to make my videos as RAW and authentic as possible, some people may not like my personality or my methods, especially in the photography world, some people can be so fragile haha, but if you’re not getting any hate, that means new people aren’t seeing your work.

I started @northborders with that name because back when I got into photography (2015-2016) it was cool to have an anonymous account that posted dope photos to Instagram, kind of like the graffiti world, where your tag would be a second persona, and people would know you by that. hard to imagine nowadays, seems like if you don’t make a reel about yourself or your life Instagram will not push your work haha

I was a shitty kid, I got in trouble a lot, and I hung out with bad people, my dad is really smart so I’m pretty sure I got his brain, because when I apply myself to something I know I can do it, but when I was a teenager if something didn’t interest me, it wasn’t going to happen, no matter what anyone said with whatever consequence there was.

I failed school and got moved to an “art school’ when I was 16, art school was the best time of my life, I came from an all-boys school, super religious, strict uniform and all that, so moving to a co-ed (girls f*ck yeah), free dress, do /be whatever/whoever you want school was honestly mind-boggling to me, but honestly one of the best experiences I learned so early on, the school/teachers didn’t care if you didn’t do any work, or rock up in general, it was a government school, they weren’t paid to care, they were paid to rock up and teach to whoever was there haha.

But that really set me up in a different mind-set, I realized quickly that this art school was what uni or the real world was going to be like coming from a super strict school to a super chill school, taught me that the only person that can make a difference to your life is yourself, no one is going to spoon feed you thought life. the world doesn’t care about your excuses.

I shot every night during that art school, I was so fixated on taking photos, and pushing myself creatively that it was all I wanted to do, and still is. I shot every night and slept at my desk at school, editing when I woke up at lunchtime or last period, going home, getting my gear, waiting for my parents to go to sleep, sneaking out and shooting until all hours of the night. I was addicted to it, something about being out alone at night, was calming to me.

Now, at art school, yes they didn’t care if you didn’t do any work, but it just meant you’d fail anyway haha, So I’m 17 now, a few months away from finishing high school, and probably going to fail every subject, no way any university was going to let me in, I remember the carreras advisor told me to get off my “high horse” when I told her I didn’t see my self working at McDonald’s, she told me I’ll never get a real job and be a failure for life If I can’t even pass high school… about a few weeks after that conversation, I walked into a car dealership that opened up near my house, I walked in, and shot some photos, I’ve grown up loving cars, especially the JDM scene thanks to the area I grew up in, back in the day, if you wanted a dope car and didn’t have much money you’d buy JDM, euro, and muscle are too expensive in Australia, in the late 90’s and 00’s Australia had barley any import laws, and people were going crazy importing cars and flipping them for cheap, can’t believe R32’s GTR’s were going for 15-20K AUD!!! 😭

Anyway, so I walk into this dealer, the GM comes up to me and notices how respectful I’m being towards the cars, and enjoying myself taking pictures, this guy was a straight shooter, but clearly was a heavy smoker so he said to me in thickest and raspy Aussie accent I’ve ever heard, “I see you’re being respectful, how about I give you a tour” now this dealership was high end by the way, sure it was used car dealer but it was used SUPERCARS haha so you had Lambos, Ferraris, Rolls-Royce etc just lying around the joint, making an AMG look like a peasant car haha

The GM took me for a tour, downstairs to the restricted area, there’s a f**king BUGATTI VEYRON just chilling in the corner, my little 17 head was about to explode haha.

At the end of the tour he straight up just asked me if I wanted a job here taking photos, and running the socials because he needed someone to do it. I said yes immediately, dropped out of school and started working there full time haha, I felt like walking into my Carreras Advisors office with my d*ck in my hand haha

I worked at the dealership full-time shooting cars, meeting all kinds of people, and learning skills so fast, nothing teaches you about business faster than working in a fast-growing business, in 1 year this business went from 30 employees to 200, I loved working there, every day was different, so I decided to start my YouTube channel in march 2018, I actually can’t remember why I started YouTube other than the fact I just found it fun to make some videos about photography, I chose not to make many videos about the dealership I worked at because it felt kind of lame to boast about the job I was at because I already felt super lucky and grateful to have such an awesome job at such a young age, so I made videos about the photoshoots I went on, until I met a guy called @hayden_pedersen, who was also making photography videos in Melbourne, my other mate Liam @7th.era was too, we all started hanging out together, taking photos making videos, we all got on like a house on fire, since we were all making videos, and all in eachothers videos, we cross pollinated all of our channels, and we started to grow… FAST!

in Feb 2019, I quit my job at the dealership, they offered me 100k salary to stay actually, but I left anyway to pursue YouTube, in the hopes that YouTube would allow me to travel the world and shoot, which is all I really wanted to do.

Started posting once a week and haven’t stopped since then haha.

I’ve been doing YouTube for almost 6 years now, and I’ve learned soooo much, however, I still feel like I’m only getting started, I can’t wait for 2024 and the years to come, I love my job and I’m super grateful to have built a following in the best community in the world, like think about it, photography is actually the best hobby ever, there is pretty much no downside to it apart from spending all your money on gear… always… haha

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Not necessarily a book, however back in 2018 when I started my YouTube journey I bought an online course called “Jump-Cut” It was $1,200USD and made by an ex youtuber called Kong Pham, it had about 50 hours of content in there, teaching you everything from how to start your youtube channel, how to grow, what makes great content, the psychology behind making engaging videos, thumbnails, making money as a creator etc… EVERYTHING and I studied it like it was my bible.

That was honestly the best $1,200 I’ve ever spent in my life, because everything I learned in that course I still apply to this day on my channel, you can check out Kong Pham and his brand CreatorDao for future stuff he’ll be posting, his mindset when it comes to making content is incredible, but you could also apply this to so many other businesses.

Some interesting stats he shared about a recent creator program that Kong made is this:

“3836 people registered for the program where they get free lessons on how to go viral from experts who have been doing it for 10+ years.

🔹3836 people registered for the program
🔹996 (26%) watched week 1’s lesson
🔹279 (7%) watched week 4’s lesson
🔹152 (4%) watched week 8’s lesson

So what does this tell us? Let me put it another way.

🏳️ Within 8 weeks, 96% of aspiring creators gave up.”

Those who love it will get there, if you love something you will find a way to make it work,

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

no shortcuts to life, no shortcuts to making money either, put in the work like everyone else, the only people making money off NFTs, crypto, and all that stuff are the people who religiously study it every day, pic a craft, find your groove and build on it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://northborders.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northborders/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northborderco/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJKUqZzNqhy-2aecEQX62qA

Image Credits
@northborders