We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nate Payne a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Nate, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Much of what I’ve learned as a designer and photographer has come from a blend of education and real-world experience. Education provided the knowledge to establish a skillset and foundation in the creative world while experiencing a variety of different jobs helped expand and fortify my abilities as a creative professional. For the first 10 years of my career, I worked as a graphic designer in various capacities. Each job challenged me and taught me new areas of design and multi-media production. I worked as a tv broadcast graphic designer, industrial print production designer, and freelance graphic artist for various businesses in my community. I was also the lead graphic designer for a wedding magazine. This job eventually pointed me back to the world of photography. I began to assist wedding photoshoots which sparked a desire to elevate my photography and establish myself on a more professional level. Along with wedding photography, I soon stepped into the world of music and event photography. I used my skills as a graphic designer to help bands create tour posters and merchandise and then photographed their shows. It sparked a new passion in my photography that continues to this day.
Knowing what I know now, I’m not sure there was a way I could have sped up the learning process or if I would have wanted to. It feels to me that part of becoming the creative professional you’re meant to be requires time and lessons learned through different scenarios. I believe it helps produce a more dynamic and capable professional who has a proven set of skills and experiences in a variety of situations. If you speed up the process, I’m not sure it would yield the same result as much as walking the path and letting forge you into who you’re supposed to be with all of the ups and downs along the way. In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, “Buy the ticket take, the ride”.
I’ve found that one of the most essential skills when it comes to being a creative professional is persistence. You need to be able to get knocked down over and over not only while you’re learning but also when you’re working in the real world. It takes time to build software skills, design skills, photography skills, an eye for design principals and the right way to conceptualize a project from start to finish. It takes persistence to power through the frustration that can sometimes accompany those growing pains. Humility is also another good skill to have. The ability to take criticism of your work from a wide variety of sources is very important. Humility is one of the things that helps people grow and hone their abilities. It provides the opportunity to view your work through someone else’s eyes and better understand how your work is being perceived by others. Its easy to get frustrated if someone doesn’t immediately see or understand your vison but with a little humility, it can provide a great chance to grow.
One of the worst obstacles I’ve felt has always stood in the way of learning more is overthinking and second guessing myself. Throughout my career, I have sometimes found myself paralyzed by constantly weighing options or approaches towards a particular project. Its often proved to be wasteful and unbeneficial towards the final product. I believe I could have pushed forward with the project and allowed it to shape itself more along the way. I wasted a lot of time trying to predict what a client’s reaction was going to be, which caused me to try and make the first draft perfect which was never going to be the final version. Less overthinking would have allowed more of the process to flow freely and yielded a better opportunity to learn.
Nate, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m a creative professional in Washington DC focused on photography, video production and graphic design. In my current role, I serve as an Official Photographer for the United States House of Representatives. Additionally, I offer freelance photography services for clients in and around the Washington DC area. I also serve as a House photographer for IMP Concert venues including the 9:30 Club, The Anthem, Merriweather Post Pavilion and The Lincoln Theatre. Lastly, I own and operate a website called Pit-Dweller Media providing reviews and photo galleries of performers and local live music events. My interest in art and photography started at a very young age. I can remember always having some type of colored pencils or markers and paper at my disposal. I would try to recreate scenes from my favorite cartoons and draw characters I saw in movies and television. The first time I picked up a camera I was about 10 years old. My mom gave me her old Fujifilm Fujinon f 35mm, sent me outside and said “Go, have fun!” I remember being particularly interested in nature photography. Clouds, bugs, and flowers were all fair game to a kid outside with a camera. I spent the next few years experimenting with the fujinon. I couldn’t really adjust any of the settings on the camera, but it still helped me learn about the importance of lighting and composition. A few years later I received my first SLR film camera, the Canon Rebel 2000. Owning a camera with a telephoto lens changed my whole thought process towards photography by allowing me to craft my images using depth of field. During my senior year of high school, I decided to take an elective course in visual communications focusing on photography. This class changed the course of my life. It was here that I learned about the basic principals of photography and what a graphic designer was along with the potential to make a living as a creative professional. I had never experienced a class that touched on something I had such a great interest in. It combined photography, art and digital design, all things I found fascinating and was eager to learn more about.
I enjoy providing visual solutions for clients, especially in the music industry. I believe music is an incredibly power gift and strive to support it whenever possible. Every project is an opportunity to meet new people, experience a new professional challenge and grow as an individual. I’m proud of my diverse work background, I believe it sets me apart from others and I look forward to continuing to grow my skills as a creative professional in Washington DC.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In 2018, I had been photographing shows for roughly 3 years and wanted to take on a new challenge. I’m a big Grace Potter fan and for years I had heard about a festival she put on in Burlington, Vermont called Grand Point North. The festival was in September, it had a great lineup and I was determined to get onboard the Grand Point North Staff as one of their festival photographers. At that point I had a modest amount of shows under my belt so I wasn’t sure if my portfolio was going to be sufficient enough to get the gig. After some digging around, I figured out who was managing the media for the event and reached out enquiring about a festival photographer position on their staff. I sent my first email in March, six months before the festival. I didn’t hear anything back for almost 2 months. I received a reply thanking me for my interested and suggesting that I reach back out closer to the date of the event. I continued to reach out every two weeks leading up to the festival. Months few off the calendar with the date rapidly approaching and I still hadn’t received a follow up email. Updates about the festival were being released online and it felt like my window of opportunity was closing. June came and went as did July and August. Finally, September arrived and still I had received no word back. I was just about to call it quits but I decided to send one last email. When I opened my inbox a day later there was a reply thanking me for my interest and inviting me to be a photographer at Grand Point North. I couldn’t believe it. After 6 months of emails and daydreaming it was real. I was going to photograph on of my favorite artists and be a part of her festival staff. I attended the festival and captured some of my favorite images in my entire catalog. I made new friends, grew as a photographer and gained a huge confidence boost in my abilities as professional. At the end of the festival, the media manager thanked me for coming and specifically told me that I got the job because of my persistence when it came to my email follow-ups. He said there wasn’t anyone else that wanted the job as much and gave me a chance because I never stopped reaching out. This experience taught me to persevere and keep attempting to meet your goals. Resilience and persistence can go a very long way towards exceeding your own expectations of what you believe you’re capable of.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2018, I became restless with graphic design projects. After roughly 15 years in the field, I felt like the preferred role of a graphic designer was considerably more technical rather than creative. I found that people valued my software skills rather than my creative mind to produce a visual solution. I was too often handed a pre-made design and asked to “make it look pretty” rather than asked to come up with an original design concept to solve a creative problem. While this was an important facet of the job, the idea that the majority of clients and the professional world didn’t seem to understand the actual purpose of a graphic designer became more and more frequent.
Around the same time, my interests in photography and video media were peaking. I believed creating this type of content was more rewarding because people seemed to enjoy the images I was able to produce before any predetermined expectation was given regarding the final product. The direct result was a product of my eye, camera, and environment. The design element was removed and replaced with depth of field, lighting and composition. There was a component to creating these visual materials that no one else could change or influence but still enjoyed and found valuable as a creative product.
I began to hone my photo and video skills more directly. I found workshops and new events that pushed my skills as a photographer. I primarily photographed concerts and live events outside of my fulltime job, always adding to my portfolio. In 2019, I created Pit-Dweller Media, a website featuring my photographs and writeups for various bands and events in and around Washington, DC. I also created a portfolio website to feature my work to prospective clients.
Ultimately, in 2022 after several years of refocusing my efforts towards photography and video production, a recruiter found my portfolio website and reached out referencing my photography experience and suggested that I might be good candidate for capturing images for the House of Representatives. When the recruiter reached out I didn’t believe it was real. I was aware that there are a million scams on LinkedIn and I was certain that this was too good to be true. After doing some research and reviewing the details of the potential job, it was indeed real. Six weeks later, I was an Official Photographer for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Four years ago, I made a career change away from something in my field that wasn’t bringing me joy anymore and started dedicating more time to a different area that was both challenging and rewarding as an artist. If I had stayed stagnant and frustrated, I believe my overall ability as an artist would have suffered. It’s important to be open to the idea of taking a step in a different direction to continue moving forward as a creative professional.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.natepaynephotography.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natepayne_photography/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NatePaynePhotography
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natepayne/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvNkXteqIy0IYqqRJuI1naw
- Other: https://www.pitdwellermedia.com/
Image Credits
Nate Payne