We were lucky to catch up with Clay Cooper recently and have shared our conversation below.
Clay, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Maybe the biggest risk I ever took was following a dream that I had no “certification” for achieved by school or college. It was in the midst of the world & social media shifting so the confidence to just go out and shoot your shot in dm’s or in person at events were very rare to see because the norm was to formally reach out to people with emails with resumes & certificates to prove that you are what you say you are.
I would love to think I was apart of the early movement of just letting your work posted on social media (Instagram) speak for you. Mind you, it was always hit or miss. Maybe the client was too old fashion and then hustle wasn’t respected enough or the opposite would happen and the client could appreciate how bad you wanted the job and/or project and your content on Instagram was enough for them.
In conclusion, I missed a lot. But when it worked out for the first time, it was a concert for Casey veggies. I ended taking photos of him, kehlani, & Syd from “the internet” and that was what initially got the ball rolling for me to reach out to anyone I wanted to if I could grab their attention with my content.
Clay, 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?
I got into the music side industry by accident truthfully, when I first picked up a camera it started in highschool. But in this line of work you’re constantly meeting people and gaining contacts so naturally all things lead to another. The order in which it happened was: highschool >car meets> car shows> mansion parties> music videos> club events> which ultimately lead me to where I am now as a concert/festival photographer. I never knew what lane I wanted to be in I just knew that I loved photography and it became a passion.
I’m primarily a photographer but I dabble in video from time to time but for personal use only. So photography is my main source of service.
I would say what sets me apart from most is I try to stay away from trends so my stuff doesn’t look like every popping photographer out here in LA. I like to creative my own styles so people have a reason to gravitate to me and give me the ability to have full creative control versus them just wanted me to imitate something they saw on another persons page.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
One of my main goals in this life is just to enjoy it all while doing what I love to do. I was never a 9-5 person so this freedom and being your own boss was inevitable for me.
What drives me most is I want to succeed in all this so I can retire my mom and make her proud because I know it was a let down to see me drop out and not do the whole college thing. I want to be able to have something to show for all the risk it took and all the money she lent me in the beginning of it all so she never thinks it was all for nothing.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
So if you’re a person like me that can’t live those 9-5 hours, my best advice would to do what I did. Find a job that labels you as a private contractor that way you can still get paid and provide for yourself but still work and choose your own hours. You’ll have the freedom to free up time so you can go work on your main hustle when need be.
Contact Info:
- Website: Pifconsortium.com
- Instagram: @clayyyy
- Twitter: @clayyyy
Image Credits
@konstantinagianni @mrbigole @peevytoocold @treyhd @itspxrks @t_rich_23