We recently connected with Sean Rider and have shared our conversation below.

Sean, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

All of my favorite artists are really sad…and I’m no different. I don’t wonder what it’s like to have a regular job because I have one but its just a means to an end, and most importantly provides me with the time and resources to pursue my art.
I think the best art gets made when the artist isn’t focused on how they are going to monetize the stuff they create. If you’re creating something with the intention of selling it, I think it limits the degree of expression you can put into that project. True art gets made when a human feels something and tries to translate that emotion into a medium that resonates with other humans. The best art is specific enough to evoke the emotion that the artist intends, but vague enough that it can be projected across a range of meanings, and by doing so it becomes relevant to a wider audience, or even humanity as a whole.

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.

Hiiii :) My name is Sean. I am a full-time human, and most-of-the-time photographer.

I’ve been taking photos ever since I was a kid and my parents sent me on a field trip to the zoo with a disposable camera, but didn’t start taking it seriously until after I graduated college.
My favorite thing to do as a young adult was going to concerts, but buying concert tickets quickly became a habit I couldn’t afford so I started looking for ways to attend concerts and music festivals for free. I worked as a stage hand for several years, setting up speakers and lights before a show, and then taking them apart and loading them back on the truck after the show had ended. This was a job that I really enjoyed, but it was back-breaking labor and would often have me working until 4AM. So even though I was getting to see the shows for free, it still felt like something I couldn’t sustain long-term.

During that same time period, I was at a show with my girlfriend at the time and mentioned to her how jealous I was that the photographers shooting the concert got to waltz up to the front row of the shows for free. She looked at me and said “Why don’t you do that then?” The gears in my mind began to turn. About a week later, I was at the casino with the boys and won around $5000 off of a slot machine, and used those funds to buy my first digital camera and lenses. Now I had a camera, but had no idea how to actually get permission to bring it into shows. The first show I ever shot was Avenged Sevenfold, playing the stadium in my home town. I used my job as a stage hand to bring my camera in that morning, so I could get it later once the show was under way. My plan worked perfectly and soon I was snapping away (although still not front row). I was nearly caught by security and thrown out of the show, which most likely would have also lost me my job as a stage hand. Looking back, I wouldn’t recommend anyone start their photography career this way, as it could quickly get you black-balled from the industry. However….it worked for me. I got what I considered at the time to be the greatest photos I had ever taken, and managed to avoid security and make my way back to the employee break room to stash my camera and get back to the job I was actually being paid for, and completed the loadout while still buzzing from the adrenaline rush of shooting my first concert.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that feeling would be one that still chase to this day. Now that I had some legit concert photos I put together a modest portfolio (along with some photos from previous shows I had taken on my phone) and began sending out requests to shoot basically any concert that came within a 4 hour drive of me.

Now, 6 years and countless shows later, I still get a rush every time I step into a photo pit and watch the lights dim as the band steps on stage. Shooting concerts is my favorite thing to do in the world, and I’m incredibly grateful that I get the privilege to capture so many profound and emotional moments.

The camera was my ticket to unlimited concerts, but during the Covid pandemic, concerts were few and far between. I would often reflect on how many door photography had opened up for me, and naturally started extrapolating that concept to other areas of my life. Sans live music, I decided to see what other life goals I could accomplish with a camera in my hand. This led to shooting for travel agencies and exotic car dealerships. I found myself in exotic locations, and even more exotic cars. Thanks to photography I’ve been able see the world, and drive Lamborghinis and Ferraris, and meet all sorts of incredible people along the way.

I think the reason I have been so successful in my art so far is because I’ve never focused on the money. My goal has always been to get my self into a situation where I think there is great potential for beauty, and then capturing that moment in time as beautifully and as true to the experience as I can. Sure, I make money taking photos, and I’m not saying anyone should do it for free, but money has never been that important to me. Creating something beautiful, that resonates with the intended audience has always been the goal. The money just happens as a side effect.

I think in this day and age there are more barriers to becoming an artist than ever before. It takes a lot of money to simply survive in our world, and most people spend the majority of their waking hours focused on that pursuit. Today’s hustle culture has people too tunnel-visioned on creating content, and finding ways to go viral that the act of creating something truly beautiful gets lost in the shuffle. They spend more time on their marketing than they do on the actual product. The only metrics that matter are likes and view counts and how many dollars you can squeeze out of your audience. I measure the success of my art in a different way. To me the important numbers are how often people gasp in delight when I show them a photo of themselves that they love, how many people think my work is pretty enough to print out and hang on their wall, and how many fellow artists trust me to capture them in a way that shows their true beauty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had my fair share of promoted posts, and made plenty of Instagram reels, and if the price is right I’ll do the same for future clients. But if presented with a lucrative job creating content that has no inherent meaning beyond generating revenue, or a smaller job that sparks my passion and gives me the opportunity to capture something truly beautiful, or stirs emotion, I’m taking the pay cut every single time.

So if you’re a musician going on tour, an exotic car owner looking for photos that capture you in the best light possible, or a travel influencer who needs photos for your Instagram all across the world, take me with you! In the meantime, I’m going to be here at home, working on projects that I find beautiful, for people who inspire me, in the most thoughtful and emotion provoking way I can.

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

I just want to make stuff the people think is beautiful.

I have a lot of secondary goals, like I would love to go on tour with a world famous musician and capture not only their shows, but the intimate moments that the fans don’t get to see. I want to humanize the celebrities that we all put on a pedestal by showing that despite the fame they’re all still humans who experience the same ups and downs as everybody else.

I also really want to go on tour with a band no one has heard of, and document their journey from being a nobody trying to get their name out there all the way up to rockstar levels of success.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Shooting concerts is a practice that comes with a lot of rejection. I still get denied for more shows than I get approved for. Sometimes it’s really difficult not to let that get to you. It’s easy as an artist to compare yourself to your peers, and there is a lot of jealousy that comes along with that. Seeing people get opportunities that you really really want can be heartbreaking. I think it’s important to remember that art is not a competition, nor is it a zero-sum game. We can all succeed together, and often time when a band or publicist tells you “no” what they really mean is “no for now”. Keep your chin up, keep trying, and eventually those “no’s” will become “yes’s”, and then those “yes’s” will evolve into bigger and bigger opportunities and bigger and bigger paychecks.

Contact Info:

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

Image Credits
Sean Rider