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

Nicholas, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Who doesn’t love a good risk?
Especially with graffiti art photography in South Central L.A., risk is everywhere! Working within this risky activity can be great practice for success personally and professionally. Accepting risk is the fun part of looking for opportunities because it helps give shape to finding out what’s needed in the world.
Feeling the need to take professional risks can be an internal reminder to shake up things. If a risk feels as though it’s building towards something, even if people don’t approve, the risk should probably be continued.
For example, I built a lane in graffiti art photography with my own media when other lanes didn’t afford the same opportunities. If my creative output was going to see the light of day, I would need to take risks to get ahead. Few if any Hollywood creatives are hanging in the alleys of South Central, and not many graffiti writers are on Hollywood red carpets.
The risk paid off in people taking notice of my new creative talent outside of the entertainment industry.
Taking risks professionally can be easier for self-employed people or business owners. Tasks and schedules can be moved around, a mindset that creates new possibilities and the freedom to do new things like heading to South Central L.A. to take photos in dark alleys.
Companies haven’t lined up to write big checks for graffiti artists the way they do for musicians like Megan Thee Stallion or Pharrell Williams. The natural drift to covering this area as a journalist equals a lot of growth in unrealized opportunity: risk-taking.
My job is to help fill in that space without being a graffiti groupie. I’m proudest that I bring a different dimension to hip-hop coverage that hasn’t been saturated by other media.
The next stop is to monetize communities that could benefit from additional investment. Even if I wasn’t appointed to represent anything or anyone, I look for stories like graffiti art photography in which I can be seen and heard as a voice of meaning.

Nicholas, 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?

My specialty is photographing graffiti art in South Central L.A., which is one of the best places in the U.S. to find this kind of art. Intricate graffiti art lines the walls everywhere you look, a sort of Mecca for West Coast graffiti.
I fell into the world of L.A. graffiti art photography accidentally. One late weeknight in 2016, I found myself taking photos of graffiti-art spreads in an alley off Bay St. in an industrial part of downtown. When I didn’t have much compelling social media at the time — celebrity photos from my day job as an entertainment journalist — I built a community of strangers based on street photos I took with my phone. It felt like one of the more satisfying ways to express my creativity.
After a year taking photos, I began looking for new ways of taking photos to up my photography game in this field. My photos, featuring artists from around L.A., were featured in a Los Angeles magazine advertorial and later in three feature stories I wrote for LA Weekly.
I looked for angles and the right light; I sought lesser photographed pieces, which required creativity and many hours of exploring the city. I made many friends throughout the graffiti art community in L.A. and beyond. These were developments that were missing from my time in other areas of journalism.
I take photos in a mostly non-commercial style, with respect to keeping graffiti in the streets and avoiding conflicts with artists upset about the use of their work. My observation is that graffiti art is like the scene in “The Goonies” where Sean Astin says not to take One Eyed Willy’s treasure. Graffiti art, like valuable jewels, is not meant to be stolen from its home, or everything collapses.
I shoot graffiti art for profit only if there is a sharing agreement with the artist. Regardless of how cool a photo is, the artist still owns the commercial copyright for what I’m shooting. Banksy famously said, “Copyright is for losers.” I play by the rules to avoid alienating artists who work hard to paint the images I’m photographing, even if the photo is mine.
For money, I shoot events and parties, where I capture candid classic moments. Each photo I use a story to tell the details of the party, written in background, lighting and people. The hundreds of Hollywood parties I covered as a journalist inspired my visual style. I bring these principles to my photography for hire ([email protected]).
My main philosophy as a photographer is to get unusual, poignant photos no one thinks to get. If other people take out their phones to shoot pictures, that’s the shot I don’t want.
The storytelling and environment interplay extends beyond graffiti art to other subjects, too.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Non-creatives are usually very smart people and often don’t need help understanding the larger struggle and journey of artists. They are focused on a different part of the creative process that doesn’t need to be an obstacle — the choice of commercial interests over artistic interests. As a creative, I am thankful for their foresight and support.
What non-creatives might miss about graffiti art specifically is that there is no apparent commercial benefit from painting or photographing it. Graffiti art photography hasn’t been monetized like other parts of hip-hop, like the multi-billion dollar global market for hip-hop music. Much of the graffiti art community, in L.A. and other cities, works for itself, sustaining supplies and generations of development outside commercial pressures. I liken it to social groups engaged in intermural activities related to community building, with each group (crew) promoting its association in the group. It’s a stark contrast to me-driven hip-hop musicians who act as high-powered capitalist sharks.
Big business hasn’t cracked the code on how to monetize graffiti art. That’s probably for the best.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The goal driving my creative journey is to become a prominent storyteller in a specialty all my own; a journalist who draws much-needed mainstream scrutiny to a different part of the community. Investing in the diversity of my strengths and work experiences, I reorient my career focus to include the scope of different types of stories to tell. Photographing graffiti art expands my skills beyond writing and reporting to be a better journalist. Growing this specialty in multiple, diverse ways into the future is the goal, while I work to build partnerships with others.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicholas.e.white/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasewhite/

Image Credits

All photos are mine.

Artist credits:

1) K4P Productions (@k4pcrew)
2) Sort (@s_loksangeles)
3) Jutes (@_jutezycollins_)
4) Zom (@zz0mbzz)
5) Diem (@diem_nsb_wai)
6) Clown (@clown2076)