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

Hi Josh, thanks for joining us today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

Legacy is something that I’ve always been conscious of when it came to myself and my families name. I’ve often thought what people would say long after I’m gone and how they would view the work that I left behind and how I made people feel in the process. The legacy that I’d like to leave behind is that I was able to connect with anyone, make them feel seen and heard, and gave them an outlet to be able to tell their story in hopes it would help someone. I’d also like my legacy to represent my art and the out of the box ways that I was able to capture a moment and present it to the world in a way that was impactful to the people that were a part of it. Overall I just want to be remembered as a good person who would give the shirt off their back to help someone, someone who could always make people laugh, and someone who challenged the people around me. I think that’s what kind of legacy I’ll wanna leave behind.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Oh goodness, where to start…I left college to go overseas to play basketball and ended up tearing my knee after a couple of years and when I came back to the states, I attempted to go back to school but was forced to drop out for family reasons. At that point, my entrepreneurial endeavors began. Who knew that decision would change my life forever. I dabbled as a full-time music artist and cut a couple of albums, launched a couple of clothing brands, and while those things were in full swing, I always had a camera around to document the journey. I began getting approached by people asking if I could things like family portraits and small business marketing content and I thought to myself “Sheesh, there might really be something here.” So I took the leap and went full-time into photo and video, to pursue this new life, new passion, and an ever-growing desire to tell people’s stories. Now, nearly a decade later, I’ve traveled all around the world, met some incredible people with incredible stories, helped businesses flourish, and have absolutely overflowed my cup with joy for the lives that I’m impacting and the voices that I’m showcasing to be heard. For the most part solving problems for my clients is pretty easy for me. It’s a pretty standard concept where my client has a product or service, but most importantly, a story to tell. The audience is their customers and it’s my job to be able to take their jumbled thoughts and direction and put into motion conceptualizing and executing an idea that’s going to hit all of the marks and answer all of the questions for the audience, for the brand.
I think what sets me apart from other creatives in the space in my position is my ability to connect with people and make them feel comfortable in front of the camera in order to get the most authentic and genuine versions of these people. And I’m like really fun to be around lol I think that really feeds into the comfort they feel when I step behind the lens.
What I’m most proud of is a tough question to answer cause I feel like I’m constantly wanting more and have been desensitized to achievements and accolades. But I guess if I have to answer the question then it would have to be the book that I wrote a few years back in regards to mental health in men and the whole toxic masculinity craze that was happening at the time. It was a very personal project for me and I was happy that the people who read it got something from it and their lives improved in some facet because of it.
Couple of things that I’d like people to know about me and my brand is that creatives, as a whole, bust their asses and put in an extreme amount of time behind the scenes for you to be able to post things on social and promote your business. With that comes a price, obviously. So I know I’m not the most expensive person out there but I’m definitely not cheap because of my experience and knowledge in the space and I just want people to be more conscious when it comes to respecting the art form of photography and videography and the people who are aiding in bringing their visions to life.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Oh man I have quite a few of these and I think just being a full time freelancer comes with the resilience built in for a select few that are able to weather the storms of owning a business. My first year going full time I was going out for a few months with a band and taking on filming a feature length documentary for the first time and woof. It was such a f*cking tall task but overall turned out decent considering all of the shit that happened during the time on the road. However, while I was on the road I subleased out my apartment to try and save money, ya know, starving artist over here. I never would’ve guessed that I would be receiving a phone call while I was on the road being told that I was being evicted and that the people in my place turned it into a proper trap house. Think breaking bad type shit. The police were involved, my place was destroyed, all of my stuff was either ruined or stolen and I was at a point where I literally had zero idea what I was going to do when I got back. I had an office inside of a gym at the time and when I got back I had no choice but to sleep in the office, put the remainder of my things into storage, and being essentially homeless, try and figure things out and do my best to keep this dream alive. Well, I lived in that office for 10 months. It was the lowest I had ever been at that time and the closest I’ve ever been to giving up on this life I was trying to create for myself. I was calling my mom every week crying my eyes out and questioning if this is really what I should be doing with my life out of pure frustration at the fact that I just couldn’t seem to get my shit together. I was doing laundry at my friends places, stealing meals out of the fridge that didn’t have names on it, showering at other places and slowly was known as the “Gym Phantom” because I seemingly never left. Well, one day I got a phone call from a friend up in Toronto in regards to some business stuff and it paid enough to get me out of the rut I was in and into an actual apartment. I went up, did what I had to do, got paid, and came back home with a renewed sense of self and motivation to always do what’s needed to survive. Once I moved into the new apartment, you can say the rest is history.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think the thing that helped me build my reputation within my market is my fast turn around times and ability to capture the stories that were presented to me at the time. I’ve always been kind of a nerd and always obsessing over the newest endeavor in my life so when I started photo and video, it was no different. I obsessed over efficiency and how I could turn and burn as many projects as possible as a one man team and I’d have to say that paid off big for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jtwiseguycreations.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/jtwiseguy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtwiseguy/