We recently connected with Steve Brazill and have shared our conversation below.

Steve, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’ve love to hear an interesting investment story – what was one of the best or worst investments you’ve made? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

The way I got started in photography, or more accurately got hooked on it, was because I bought gear that was a huge mistake, but taught me a ton.

I found photography for the same reasons a lot of adults do, because I wanted to photograph my son. He was a drummer in his High School Marching Band, which meant performing at half time during the school’s football games. I went into a photography store and told the person behind the counter what my goal was and he brought out some options for me.

First, I needed to pick the camera, and he handed me both an entry level Nikon and an entry level Canon to play with. The only reason I shoot Canon today is because that camera, an old Canon XTi, felt more comfortable in my hand.

Next up was picking a lens, and this is where my mistake came in… The rep put two zoom lenses in front of me, a 70-200 f/2.8 and a 70-300 f/3.5 – 5.6, and he pushed the 70-200 closer as though he was saying that was the one I needed. The problem was that I knew I was going to be far away from the action, way up in the stands, so I thought “300 is a lot more than 200”. The lenses were also different colors, with the 70-200 being white and the 70-300 being black. I told him that the camera body was black, so buying the black lens seemed to make more sense, because they would match.

(Pro tip: don’t buy camera gear based on a color mismatch)

The one purchase changed everything for me. If you’re reading this and not into photography let me explain, a smaller aperture number means a bigger opening in the lens, which means more light coming through. The 70-200 was a fixed aperture of 2.8, while the 70-300 was a variable aperture. Zoomed out to 70mm the aperture could be 3.5, which lets a good amount of light into the lens, but as I zoomed the aperture would change on its own, going to 5.6 at 300mm. Being new to photography, I didn’t understand what every time I zoomed in my photos became under exposed. Just the act of zooming closed was closing the aperture down, but way back then I didn’t understand it, or know how to compensate for it.

That was the worst mistake I have ever made in buying gear, but in the end it’s what got me hooked. I studied everything I could find to learn how exposure works, so I could zoom and quickly compensate for the exposure change, and still get the shot. As an old school I.T. person this actually fun to me. This was what makes being a geek a blast. I immediately fell in love with low light action photography, and learned how to adjust my camera settings without thinking about it.

That love of adjust quickly to the scene around me, and the gear in my hand led to me being a music photographer, and there’s no going back.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Photography was a fluke for me. I have been in radio for over 40 years, and I am still on the air at 96.7 KCAL FM in Southern California. While doing radio, my main job was as an independent I.T. consultant. I basically helped small and medium sized business with their networks and tech, and to some extent I still do that, but much less. This is all to say that I have been around both music and tech my entire adult life.

I of course grew up taking picture, like everyone did in the film days, but as I mentioned earlier my real introduction to photography was when I wanted to photograph my son in marching band. That whole experience was addicting. It allowed be combined my love of music with the tech side of photography – and had I know photography was geeky I would have started this road long before this time.

Back in the early days of my radio career we used to regularly get back stage for a Meet & Greet with the artists. Today, that is something most bands sell as part of a VIP package, but back then it was purely an industry thing.

Sometime around 2008 I asked my Program Director at KCAL if we could get into shows with a camera, and he suggested I email someone and ask. I reminded him that as DJs we didn’t have business cards, those were only for office staff, like salespeople. He emailed me the station logo and told me to make my own.

During my I.T. career I had also done a lot of graphic design for my clients, so I card designed the next day, and they were printed by the end of that week, and I applied to photograph my first concert.

Two weeks later I was in the photo pit for Heart and Def Leppard!

To be clear, that is really unusual. Most people start in small clubs, and here I was in a major amphitheater photographing two A list bands. The fact that I am what some might call “traditional media” helps a lot, or at least usually it does.

A few years into doing this I applied to photograph The Who, but was declined. The response was “You’re radio, why do you need photos”?

Today, I focus almost exclusively on Live Music, anything happening at a show, whether it’s on stage, back stage, or in the crowd. While I still photograph for the radio station, years ago I made the move to being a House Photographer, which means I am taking photos for the venue. The promoters or venues I shoot for use my images for social media marketing, or around the venues, like in the concourse of an arena or as fine art in the backstage green room.

What I love about this is that any given picture I take can be used in a vary of ways. On one hand, what I do is photojournalism, and that brings with it some restrictions. In photojournalism you are more limited in the editing of photos, to maintain journalistic integrity, but, that same photo, when used by a band or venue, is now a marketing shot. In that case I may compose to leave more open space for text in an ad.

There are a lot of people doing what I do, more than most people realize. Part of my success has been what I call “One Percenters”, things that I do that are just a little more service than someone else might do. For one example, all of us music photographers have to send our finished shots to the client, and for some that’s a folder of 30-50 photos. I include a contact sheet, a PDF of small thumbnail versions of the shots. That way, months or years later, my client doesn’t need to browse through lots of photos. They can open a PDF and see the images, and then just grab the actual photo they need.

Having been doing this now for a long time, a few years ago I decided to combine my photography, and my love of music, with my broadcasting background. I started my Behind the Shot podcast in 2016, and have the audio only and video versions separately available wherever you get your podcasts. The video is also put up on my Behind the Shoot YouTube channel, where at the time of this writing I am just shy of 22,000 subscribers.

That one thing, starting a photography podcast, has led to me being a guest blogger in the photo space, and guest on numerous other podcasts, and an educator doing photography workshops.

In some sense, the road we take sometimes is even a surprise to us. When I started out in radio I would have never guessed where it would lead me. I forgot to mention it, but the radio gig was a natural gateway to doing a lot of voiceover and emcee work. That led me hosting a few local TV shows for my city’s TV station, including the mayor’s monthly roundup, “Riverside Monthly”, and a show where I interview local bands called “On Stage” when we started and then “In Studio” later. Combine all of that with this being my 14th year emceeing the city’s Summer Concert series, and everything comes around full circle, everything is connected.

Music and Photography, the gateway drug.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Reputation is such a key ingredient to success in this world, and it’s something that doesn’t just happen. Reputation is something to establish, and develop, over time. That said, you lose it in a single email.

I could go on and on about this, but I won’t bore you. I will just say that good communication is much easier than bad communication, and it hurts a lot less.

When some emails you, answer it. Don’t wait until you have time, or think you have time, only to forget and drop the ball. People wonder with every message if they got lost in a spam folder. Take the time to say, if nothing else, “Hi (InsertNameHere), Hope you’re having a great day! I got you message, but I am running around today. I will get back to you as soon as I get free second”.

I mean, obviously use your voice, but reply, build a connection, and make people see that you are responsive. Then when you do go out on a job, be there on time, looking presentable, and be happy to help them in any way they need. I remember when I was DJing weddings, which I did for 18 years, I would help clear the paper plates at a backyard wedding if needed.

Be the person that clients know they can trust to be proferssional, get the job done, and not embarrass them.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I don’t have a huge social following. I believe that part of that I treat my feeds as something I really want to browse through. I want to follow and see people whose work inspires me. That, unfortunately, means that I don’t follow a lot of people.

I see people with 30,000 followers, but they are following 31,000! I just don’t want to have that relationship. If I follow you it’s not because you followed me – and I don’t mean that as an insult. It’s just that I have a mind that needs to be able to browse and see the people I know. If I follow too many then I can’t keep up.

It’s not you, it’s me…. hahaha.

All that said, the following I do have has been all organic. Again, post your work, post things that people might want to see and share. Tag the right people, not everyone on earth.

It all comes back to respect. Respect yourself, and what you want to get from social media, and then respect the people that follow you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stevebrazill.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevebrazill/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveBrazillPhotography/
• Twitter: https://x.com/stevebrazill/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/behindtheshot
• Other: Podcast: https://behindtheshot.tv

Image Credits

Steve Brazill