We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lewis Carlyle. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lewis below.

Lewis, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Earning a full time living with creative work. Oh boy, you may not like the answer, so here we go. . .

When it comes to photography, there are two types of work:

1) Creative
2) Bread and Butter

1) Creative
Let’s start with creative work. This is what you do on your own. Creative work comes from your imagination. This may consist of a fashion photo shoot where you splash your model with colorful paint in order to capture shiny wet rainbows flying through the air. Meanwhile your model is trying to maintain a convincing smile without getting globs of acrylic in her mouth. If you can pull it off, it looks amazing, and you have an attention-grabbing portfolio piece that will make you stand out from other photographers. Produce 20 different creative ideas, and you have the start of a nice portfolio.

You use your own personal time and money to accomplish creative work—
Because no one is going to pay you for it.

It takes a lot of sweat-equity to stand out from the crowd. After several years and lots of your own personal cash, your creative portfolio might just be ready to attract the attention of a paying customer. But here’s where things get tricky…

2) Bread and Butter

Now that you’ve spent all this time and money being creative, a client wants to hire you. However, the work that you actually get paid for is ANYTHING BUT creative. It’s a family picture. Stand still. Matching shirts. Say cheese. Click. Oh wait, little Johnny blinked. Let’s try that again.

It’s a wedding—but not the beautiful wedding you seen in the movies where everything takes place in a castle in the French countryside. Your client is getting married in a tiny church, and the reception is in the basement, surrounded by walls that are clad in fake wood paneling.

Long-and-ironic-story-short, you work hard to be creative, so that you can get paid to be boring. Photography is not all glamorous photoshoots on tropical beaches. The stuff you make money on is actually quite mundane.

That’s certainly something to consider if you want to try and make a living with a camera.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve been in the photography game for a long time now. I started off shooting portraits and eventually evolved into a landscape photographer. I produce fine art images for galleries, hotels and luxury homes.

In recent years I have started to focus more on video production. These days I do my best to document landscape photography destinations that are wheelchair accessible. There is a big misconception going around that the great outdoors are only for athletes and able-bodied people.

This could not be farther from the truth.

The United States is filled with stellar destinations that are fully accessible to people with disabilities. I’m hoping to spark an educational movement that will get people out of their homes and into the great outdoors. Everyone should be able to enjoy our great nation, regardless of physical stature.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

As I mentioned earlier, I have become rather committed to producing educational videos on wheelchair accessible landscape photography destinations. The United States has a fantastic infrastructure of road-side pull offs, scenic views, parks and trails which can be easily accessed by people with disabilities.

Since the early 1980s, a lot of heavy work has gone into creating an outdoor ecosystem that can be used by everyone. There are miles of trails, ramps and concrete that lead to amazing outdoor experiences. Put simply, the hard part is already done!

Now we just need to educate people on where to go.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I’m not so certain that society OWES creative people much of anything.

We don’t deserve hand outs.
We don’t deserve charity.
We don’t deserve tax payer dollars.
We don’t deserve ANYTHING unless we work hard, make something amazing and EARN admiration.

What’s the best way to preserve and protect nature? Leave her alone!

The First Amendment is already the greatest gift we could ever ask for. Creative individuals have always and will always need to make our own way. There are no free lunches. We provide the initiative, and hopefully society will benefit from we have to offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lewiscarlyle.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQEi1OfFULfgXxk5e1KJy1w

Image Credits
Copyright Lewis Carlyle Photography 2024