We were lucky to catch up with Sean Boggs recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sean , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?

You don’t get money for a long time as a photographer or a filmmaker but I made some decisions early on that helped me get passed that and get paid like banker or a doctor. I decided that I would work on stuff that I loved. I love people, so I shoot people. It’s easy to go to work when you love what you do. There’s more to that statement than it seems. To say just that you will be a photographer or filmmaker isn’t enough. I had a time in my career where I would only touch cameras if I had contract. I was a little jaded honestly. I was shooting weddings, portraits and corporate stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy shooting weddings for my friends. After all it’s a lot of people in one place doing something cool but I love shooting wild cultural scenes in far off places. When I decided to show the world exactly what I wanted to do, I began the manifest destiny that I had dreamed about. Last year alone I shot the Olympics in Beijing, wind farms for BP and and a Duracell commercial about kicks ass batteries for headlamps. With the exception of the Olympics which paid poorly, these projects made fantastic money. Before anyone would consider flying me to China, India or any other location I travelled on my own and shot environmental portraits that I show to the world. Essentially, what I’m saying is become what you want to be before you get paid to be it. Just be… Just be yourself professionally, then when it’s time to get up early and go to work. You will be excited about it. No slog, no ball n chain, just your interest manifest in professional skills, experience and abilities. It takes your whole life but the road is much longer than the destination. Better love the road. I made one other important decision, I decided that I didn’t’t need a specific outcome for my efforts. Basically, I put no particular consequences to having done a bunch of work. Sometimes I work hard on things that never make money but, remember it’s the road. Also, in the end the road has led to enough money. I now work one month year to help out cool causes like poverty, cancer, and Hunger. I couldn’t do the before I became what I wanted to be. I’m an environmental portraitist for still advertising and Tv and film allegories. It beats digging holes. Basically, I’m saying go be awesome. You have it in you! : )

Sean , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hola I’m Sean F Boggs, a commercial still photographer and narrative film maker from central Colorado. I have always been a picture maker, since way back to 1983 in middle school where I failed for the first times to make good photographs. That went on most of my life and may just be starting shift a little now. : ) I then studied mass communications at SUNY Oneonta, a kick ass little state school in my hometown of Oneonta NY. I remember needing to get outta there but then visiting decades later and being stricken with how beautiful Oneonta is. After college I sought adventure and found it in Alaska, Oregon, Mexico and then finally Colorado. I always had cameras with me and shot for a hobby, thinking that I would work in TV and Film. I always dreamed of directing movies and tv shows. When play working in Vail Colorado around 1993, I worked for the best mentor on earth. Rex Keep, a great photographer and human being from our area. He taught me how to make pictures and more importantly he taught me what to do with them and their value. As it turns out, they’re really valuable. Around that time , living in Vail, Colorado I was shooting snowboarding for fun when a smaller manufacturer of snowboards asked to buy an image for a brochure. I got $100. A lightbulb lit up above my head. That was super fun and apparently could be rewarding. Since then I’ve been building my small business. I work most days and invest heavily in advertising my little company. End result so far is that I work for some of the biggest companies on earth regularly. My client list includes BP wind farms, Duracell, Ardent Mills The Environmental Defense Fund and dudes like that. After around 25 years of all still work, about 3 years ago I decided to get back into tv and film and started off by helping the Dudes at Grips for Life out in Atlanta to make a feature length movie about salt flats motorcycle racing. that project is still ongoing and is one of the coolest projects I’ve ever been on. Love that crew. Then , I started assisting my friend and mentor in film Walter Mather. This dude is a genius picture maker. The most capable one man crew I’ve seen. He’s like a story telling machine. I was super inspired by my time with Walter and made a quick transition to directing photography myself and have since directed the photography of two shows that you can watch right now on HBO max and Netflix. Next month I head to Waco Texas for three weeks to make a cool new show for Magnolia network that will be available on HBO Max as well. I’ve been extremely lucky, just like most super hard working folks that I have known. If there is a difference between me and other photographer/film makers, it’s that I’m very much a people person, that’s unusual in my industry and is a giant advantage. I genuinely like people and it shows when I work with them. It shows in how the crews work together and eventually the pictures are better because of it. We inspire each other to make the pictures better by being kind and supportive of each other. It rubs off on the talent and everyone involved. The other thing that I have going is a my workhorse like work ethic. I’ll work forever to a make a picture beautiful. It’s working out pretty well and I love the work, travel and especially meeting all these interesting people.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My business has been the best and the worst thing I’ve ever done. Early on I was really hungry and I took on any project that I could get my hands on. That led to me not liking the work at all. I had a period in my career where I wouldn’t touch a camera unless I was being paid to do it. Early on I was also not making enough money to live so I worked in other areas. I did a bunch of construction work, bartended and then became a firefighter and EMT, all while still making pictures and building little local company that was reasonably successful but not wildly so. I eventually went pro as a FF and medic and did 13 years between the two. During that time for the first time we had enough money to live. I used that status to do something super important in my career path that made it so much cooler and rewarding. I invested in a high end ad agency to help me create a marketing plan. (Allegory Studios) Their first step changed everything. They put me through an interview about who I am and …. What would I be professionally, if I could be whatever I wanted. I said” I want to travel the world, meet and shoot the most interesting people on earth.” I realized then that it was possible to shoot whatever I wanted and make a living at least. We then made a program that took me around the world a couple times so far and has me working for the ones that I always wanted to work for. We started only showing pictures of what I wanted to be shooting for money. Deep cultural environmental portraits in wild places. It led to me working with Outside Mag, National Geographic and just a ton of other guys that I thought were the highest levels. Last February I shot the Olympics in Beijing China. It was surreal and just an amazing experience. I call it dreaming out loud and a manifest destiny program that we deliberately drive in the direction of my interests. End result, I walk early work late and love it almost all the time. It’s not a job or a business. It’s me and some cameras. I hate when people say don’t be offended it’s just business. My business is a giant part of my life and the only thing more important is love. I have a philosophy that I like to share, my happiness is the result of accomplishment and the giving of love.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The living of life worth living is the most rewarding part of being an artist. The manifest destiny of becoming what you want to be, It’s like the world rewards to the ones who won’t settle for less. Dream out loud, say what you want to be out loud to friends and colleagues and family. It’s only talking shit, if you don’t make it true. For example, my current path plan is to make 1 or 2 more tv shows, then a Hollywood Movie, then get a masters and in the end to teach at some college. I might be full of it but I doubt it based on the past. I’m going to do these things to some extent because I believe in myself a great deal. To be a maker, to always be making something out of thin air. To be entering new and difficult areas where it’s so easy to learn something new keeps me young, (for an old guy). That’s the great value of being an artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.seanfboggs.com
• Instagram: seanfboggs
• Facebook: Sean f boggs
• Linkedin: Sean F Boggs
• Youtube: seanfboggs

Image Credits
Sean w Yeti Photo cred: Roz Zevacat Others are selfies and stuff