We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Sikorski a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How has Covid changed your business model?

When covid first hit, I was living in New York, in Manhattan going to college. I ended up leaving the city as our school was shut down for in person classes and moved back home to Connecticut with my family for what I thought would be a short time. We all know how that ended up and I lived there for about a year. Covid took away many job opportunities for me and canceled my graduation. During this time however, I took the time to create some personal work. I also did lots of writing which is a first for me. I was able to really narrow down my portfolio and manifest the types of work I wanted to do. I ended up moving to Miami with a girl I had briefly met through a mutual friend to work with her. We ended up becoming very close friends and my whole business expanded. If it wasn’t for covid, I don’t even know if we would have met.

Kevin, 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 am a photographer and videographer based in Miami, New York and LA. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut and began photographing when I was in high school, I would steal my mom’s DSLR camera and take self portraits in my backyard. This then expanded to photographing my friends and once I graduated high school, I attended Parson’s School of Design in New York majoring in Photography. From here I was able to work with modeling agencies and talent through Instagram shooting different models. Covid hit the year I was graduating college so my post college plans has very much changed. I moved back to Connecticut for a bit, commuting in and out of New York for shoot when it was safe to do so. After a little bit I ended up going to Miami for a work trip. Through a mutual friend. I met a girl, Taylor Schear, who I now live and work with. We met for a short time and a few weeks later she asked me to work with her. She runs a marketing and talent agency which I work for doing all of the content creation and creative direction as well as managing and finding new talent to sign. I also have my brand escaperealife LLC which is my photography business where I do photography for editorial, campaign, and concerts. I also do videography, location scouting, retouching, and creative direction. I like to travel so I bounce back between Miami, New York and now LA.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

When I first met Taylor, I took on the role as her assistant. This has now turned into more of a dual business partnership where we both contribute in different ways. While my main focus has always been my photography business, working with Taylor goes hand in hand with this as I have signed models I’ve shot years ago while in college to our talent agency, and I meet lots of clients who want to use me to photograph them for various campaigns, social media posts, events, concerts, etc.

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There is so much I wish I knew when I first started. Firstly, a lot of the photographers I would look up to and wanted to create work like, have been in the industry for many years developing their style. You don’t just get these big opportunities overnight. It takes time, connections, and money to get further in your career. The more your shoot, the better you will get. You have to be very motivated and personal to make connections of those who you can collaborate with. Making friends with other photographers or creatives in the industry will always be beneficial. The connections you have will always outweigh the talent. It’s a hard thing to understand but if you have no connections, you will not get any work. Timing is everything. Sometimes you will get turned down time and time again but years later will finally get the opportunity you have been seeking. Manifesting always works. I have manifested almost everything I have done in my life, but this also takes time. You can’t just instantly manifest something, it takes hard work and persistence to get to that. And finally, some of my favorite shoots I have done, I have been the one to fund/produce or I break even on it. Those big magazine editorials with celebrity covers, most of those shoots you will be doing for a very low rate or nothing at all. All the budget is mostly going into production. These shoots however make you stand out as an artist and will get you booked for more jobs as people will see what you are capable of and who you have worked with. But some of the jobs that are very simple, say like e-commerce, are the ones where you can make decent money in the day. And one last time, if you are a freelance creative, it is always best to have multiple streams of income, always.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.escaperealife.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/escaperealife/

Image Credits
1. Dakota Martinez for Lewis Magazine 2. ‘Alienation’ featured in Vogue Italia. Personal work a part of my senior thesis 3. Nils Bremer for MMSCENE 4. Owen Lindberg for Ryker Magazine 5. Harry Styles Love on Tour 6. What Happened at Camp Crystal Lake for DSCENE 7. Domestic Love Affair for Kalt Blut Magazine