We were lucky to catch up with Robby Mueller recently and have shared our conversation below.

Robby , appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

During my time as a photographer i’ve quickly realized that there are reasons we all gravitate towards certain careers. Mostly dependent on our willingness to understand ourselves and what makes us motivated and intrigued to keep going. With a personality that is open to learning from mistakes and being accomodating to others creative visions I believe that there are times and places for us to allow our individuality to shine but also times for us to understand that collaboration is a necessity for not only my career path, but all career paths. If you don’t learn to lean on anyone else at any given moment, you will likely over work yourself and fall into a dreadful path that ends with a lack of motivation or completely checking out and coasting through life.

I don’t really have a unit of measurement for success, but more so an internal reflection of happiness and willingness to partner up with the people who I believe in and more importantly those that believe in me. Being successful means dropping your boundaries and letting people in. Especially the ones that want to see you succeed.

Robby , 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?

During high school I was given the option to make my own schedule, I was already quite interested in photography and art as a hobby growing up but for some reason that class felt like it was calling to me. I quickly fell in love with the medium more and more as the years went on. By my sophomore year of high school I had already taken all of the photography courses my high school offered so my teacher was so happy to hear I wanted to continue to push the boundaries of learning photography they offered me additional courses that they made up on the fly. I was so grateful to be able to have this opportunity because it gave me time to work with my teacher 1 on 1 and constantly challenge myself as to why I wanted to take certain photos, move the lighting a certain way and select the subject matter I was choosing to shoot. With that knowledge I continued forward in my pursuit of the career – lucky for me success came relatively easy as I was well connected nearly the second I moved out to Los Angeles, I was vulnerable and allowed for one of my close friends to guide me to the jobs I was able to get.

Through the years i’ve realized connections and personality play almost as big of a role in photography as taking aesthetically pleasing photos – this personality trait led to word of mouth which eventually led to Samsung reaching out to me to take photos for the release of two of their Galaxy phones. For two years in a row I was contracted to shoot celebrities in studio for the release of the phones. This job specifcally makes me most proud as I was in charge of a large set and constantly in collaboration process with everyone involved on set. While on set for these shoots I realized quickly that I found my place in the industry and I was going to push towards that type of work as much as I could.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

YOUTUBE!

I spent $100,000 to go to college only to find out that I was spending money on the time to learn as opposed to the subject matter. If you have an interest such as photography – I truly believe that there is no better resource or way to learn a more in depth way than with youtube. There are thousands of videos on the topic and even the most niche questions have answers. It’s more important to me nowadays to make sure I am always up to date on the newest lighting techniques and photoshop tips and tricks. While youtube was around when I was in college, there was no way at the time for me to grasp how helpful that would be instead of the classes I was sitting in.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

First it starts with the obvious: a camera. then progressively you tell yourself you need something else, and the next month you get a big check and realize “oh, nows the perfect time to buy that product ive been wanting for months” – this is a dangerous cycle that i’ve absolutely been caught up in. Until one day you realize that the most important thing is the thing you got first – the camera. While it’s necessary to upgrade cameras and laptops pretty often, you should never lose sight of what you’re doing this for. While new shiny gear is great – it’s important to not become what we call “gear whores”. These are people who rely more on the gear than the process.

Contact Info:

• Website: robbymueller.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/robbymueller