Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tom Kubik. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Tom, thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I’ve been fortunate enough to make a full-time living in the photography industry for the last 12 years. In the beginning I was H-U-S-T-L-I-N-G; going to school full-time to finish my photo degree while assisting as much as possible. Once I finished school, if I wasn’t on set I was emailing every photographer on the first 10 pages of Google asking if I could assist them. Most days I spent 18 hours a day at my computer researching, concepting personal projects and emailing potential clients. Slowly I began picking up more and more gigs as the photographer and in 2015 I volunteered to go to East Africa for 3 months to make photos for an organization called Mama Hope. Making images 14 hours a day every day for 3 months with no creative direction helped me hone my style very quickly. I learned how to relate to so many different people across language barriers and cultural differences. When I returned I knew that I was done assisting. As soon as I made that decision, I landed the biggest job of my career that gave me a great cushion to step into my new role. It’s a slow process that takes time and I don’t know of a faster way to go about it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My path to photography was winding and disjointed. Creativity was not something that people in my family do for a living. It’s a luxury if you have time when you’re not working or taking care of your family. So, it was a challenge to acknowledge that I’m a creative at heart and it took my until my 30s to really step into that. First I tried out the military, fixing airplanes in the Air Force. Then I moved into dealing poker in Las Vegas, knowing it was a transition job until I figured out what was next. I was going to community college and taking so many different courses, trying to discover my passion. Photography emerged from the pool of potential future careers, mostly because I had been making landscapes and selling them as a hobby, so I thought, “Maybe I can make this work as a career”.

It took me a while to realize that photographing people was my main talent. I really thought I would end up shooting landscapes or nature. I was not at all comfortable asserting myself with my subjects, and I felt way overly cautious about intruding on their time and space. It took many years to realize people were there because they wanted to be and me holding back on directing them was actually diminishing their experience. Now, I’ve honed my specialty as working with real people (non-actor/models) and actors to create lifestyle and portraiture for branding and advertising. People come to me for deeply connected and emotional (full spectrum) photography with subjects that are not models. I capture moments that are in between moments, natural and spontaneous. Rather than directing with rigidity, I create the conditions for the desired outcome to unfold. I believe that photo sets should be stress-free, productive and communicative. Feedback and collaboration is essential to the creative process. My goal is to create a moment of true connection with the subject where they reveal something that surprises themselves, even. Whether I’m photographing Obama or prison inmates, I want the viewer to be able to feel the ultimate truth lying underneath all of our relationships, which is that we are all just humans, messy and vulnerable.

My spiritual journey and self exploration is inseparable from my work. Because I practice working with my emotional states and because I have explored topics like death and dying (check out my podcast “On Death”), no topic is awkward for me. It gives people the freedom to open and be themselves. Whether I’m holding a camera or leading a sound bath or meditation, the way I relate to people is always the same. I’m genuinely curious to get to the bottom of what it means to be a human, and everyone’s definition is valid and additive.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I’d like to be more clear in material goals for my creative journey. I recently found a mentor (go find a mentor if you don’t have one) and he got to where he is through writing down EXACTLY what he was going to create in the world. I don’t know if that’s my path or not, but it’s worth a try. For now, my journey is about self discovery not just for me but for my subjects. Our session is an exchange and hopefully we both learn something about ourselves and about the other during our sessions. To me, that’s the juice of life. There’s not much sweeter.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

There are so many great photographers these days that unfortunately you need to have more than nice work. Something my mentor taught me was to say yes and when it comes to client requests.

Client: “Hey can we photograph this with 3 different backgrounds?”
Me: “Yes, absolutely. That’ll take a lot more time than we had planned initially. We’ll either have to add a day to the shoot or maybe there are some other shots we can get rid of that are less important”.

Communication like this helps the client feel seen and heard and it gives me a chance to insert my expertise. Often times clients just don’t know what’s possible and educating them in a respectful way shows I know what I’m doing and helps them learn.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tomkubikphoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomjohnkubik/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomjohnkubik/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ondeathpodcast7760/