We were lucky to catch up with Paulius Musteikis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Paulius, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My photography career started as a hobby. Because of my connections with the food service industry (I was working in banquets and waiting tables at the time), I got sucked into food photography. After some of my work got published in local magazines, I started transitioning into editorial magazine food photography. I never really was into food photography, it just kind of happened. And I guess art directors liked my work. That went on for a few years. One winter I was documenting an event where a few local chefs slaughtered three lambs in South Dakota. Maybe a year after that, I got a call from my good buddy, whose parents’ owned the farm that hosted the event. Apparently, his mom had passed away unexpectedly, and he was checking whether I had a good picture of her, so they could use it at the funeral. Revisiting that shoot, I realized I had tons of images of textures, the surrounding farm, and dead sheep. But very few people in them. His mom was nowhere to be found.
I realized that, at that point in my life, I really didn’t care about food photography anymore. I wanted to photograph as many people as I could, while I could. So here I am. 7 years later. Photographing people only.

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

When it comes to people photography, I am known for honesty and rawness. I guess that honesty shows up in the pictures because clients call them “very real looking”. I attribute that to my straightforward approach to photographing them. My clients want to look strong, confident, and real, rather than beautiful, happy, and overly processed. Throughout my portrait photography career, I’ve photographed a wide spectrum of people: artists, nurses, homeless people, police officers, computer hackers, blue-collar workers, and politicians. I treat them all with equal respect and I do my best to photograph all of them to the best of my ability.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

Several years ago, I had this pretty unromantic instance where I got in trouble with the tax people, putting financial strain on my family. Basically, it all happened due to bad advice from my then business accountant. I had a bunch of money in one government tax account that I couldn’t withdraw quickly. And I learned that I owe even more back taxes to another government tax institution. Long story short, I got slapped with a heavy fine. Those were some lean days for my business and my family. But as my partner put it, “Who cares. It’s just f*cking money. Nobody got cancer”.

The moral of the story is this: as a business owner, know your finances in and out, have a financial buffer for at least 6 months, and most importantly, have a good accountant.

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

So, for any project that I’m working on, big or small, I give it the best I have that day. And maybe even a bit more. I heard this said before, about your dream and how it relates to what you do now. If you’re currently photographing Little League games, but your dream is to shoot for a national sports magazine, you have to approach this little kiddy baseball coverage exactly the same way you’d approach a shoot for an acclaimed sports magazine. If you don’t, you never will make it to your dream.

What this looks like during my photoshoots is that I often try to feel out subjects to find a soft spot or some point of connection. Could be something they’re passionate about, a hobby they have, a pet they own, etc. Once I have that spot, I keep up a conversation around it throughout the shoot to help them relax.

Also, I am very casual with people during photo shoots. I’ll give people nicknames if I feel like it. I guess it’s another thing that helps them to relax. And it all must be paying off. There’s a lot of returning clients I work with.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.pauliusmusteikis.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musteikispaulius/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulius-musteikis/

Image Credits
my personal portrait by Christian A. Grover