We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dan M Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think it takes to be successful?

In the photographer industry you have to be an entrepreneur first, which is sometimes lost on those new to photography or content trade. Without the business angle the ideas of marketing and what is actually “profit” is often lost and sets up those without that sense of being an entrepreneur for failure.

Which is why the race to the bottom for pricing among some new to the trade is understandable, but also creates a massive issue on perceived level of service and quality of work. Almost every sector in photography has around 80% of photo businesses fighting over price, and who offers the lowest. You only have to look at real estate, wedding, portrait and headshot genres to see how marketing of a website and some social isn’t enough to give increased pricing and perceived value.

Offering something clients what they want, which is normally value, quality and professionalism is key to being successful. Then you have to figure out profit, and create pricing that reflects the 3 core values I just mentioned.

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.

I was lucky enough to work in a camera store as my first job out of high school which gave me a taste of the life I would later lead. The store let me borrow cameras well out of my financial reach and that really gave me the bug. However it wasn’t until much later that I got to buy a camera which I was happy to use in a professional capacity and started to shoot any genre I could get paid in. Of course that meant weddings and other low paid gigs to cut my teeth on but while the pay was shocking, not to mention my capacity to withstand bridezillas, it was a great way to learn which in a weird way helped me with wildlife and nature which I shoot now. It taught me how to anticipate which is a key skill in wildlife photography.

Once I got into doing more travel / wildlife and nature work I was lucky enough to be connected into partners in Alaska where I started running workshops however I wanted to give back to the companies and partners we worked with and I help to elevate their business. Alaska hurt like crazy during covid and as someone who makes money from the state, I wanted to make sure I could support their businesses in anyway I can, this could include lowering their marketing costs through joint co-marketing efforts. I’m very proud we approach business this was as its really important local businesses and I’m talking mom and pop locations succeed as without them some of these remote locations we visit would not be possible to visit at all. Some have been there for generations and its key to help them as their access to technology is limited. So working with them is not only great for us and their business but its super rewarding for me personally.

The entrepreneur in me is always looking for new ideas to develop and ways to make them work through connecting dots from one business to another.

My other achievements come through my love of writing. I currently contribute to Digital Camera World creating articles for people to argue over or items about my experiences while traveling.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think social media is great but building an audience while important, isn’t going to make anyone a decent ROI for a LONG time, if at all.

Its great to show a portfolio of work online via social however there are pitfalls with copyright and images being stolen and used elsewhere. Its really hard for those starting out and I would not recommend using it as a “defacto” way of building a business.

My social really grew the last 5 years, maybe just before covid I was speaking at a few events and some of my work made it into publications, ironically the socials grew from doing “off-line” marketing however I do not depend on any income from my socials, if you ignore the workshops I run anyway. Some posts were shared by my sponsors and partners which really helped.

If you are wanting to grow, stay on brand, post regularly and use tags to complement your work, not every image has to be a banger but make sure it speaks in someway to your audience, add a story to the image. How you got to be there, what is it about. It’s annoying when people try to be artsy and post some nonsense or one word about the image, don’t be that person.

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

I won’t lie, I made some money on them to the idiots that thought they were cool. I see a value in NFTs for authentication I guess but the bubble has certainly past now hasnt it ? I’m still getting DM’s from bots with no followers on Twitter / X asking if my images are for sale. Yes sure, speak with my agent. Off you go.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://danlee.nyc/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danmleephotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danmleephoto
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danmlee/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/danmleephoto
• Other: https://kodiakphotoworkshop.com/

Image Credits
Jessica Haydhal Richardson, Dan M Lee