We were lucky to catch up with Tony Taafe recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tony, thanks for joining us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

When I became really good at being a headshot photographer, I started working for some of the largest companies in the US and beyond – they asked me for recommendations for other photographers in different locations around the US, which I would happily give them – but I realized that I could organize and mobilize these photographers to service these companies and save them valuable time and resources. Headshot Booker now organize and supply photographers to some of the largest companies in the US, Europe, and SE Asia.

That’s how I came up with the idea for Headshot Booker. It’s the largest headshot photography company in the US today.

Tony, 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?

I moved to the US from England in 2011, exactly 7 days after being offered a job at a car dealership in Santa Monica, CA – it’s safe to say that I didn’t take into account how long the visa process would take. (it’s not 7 days, not even 7 months!) Weeks and months passed by where I had long run out of the $1200 I had in my bank account and was doing cash in hand jobs to get by.

I eventually got a “journalist visa” to stay in the US, although I wasn’t strictly (or at all) a journalist. I left school at 15 and although I was always smart, I was never somebody who could be described as a writer/journalist. However, I could be a “photojournalist” on this visa, there was just one problem, i’d never taken a photograph in my life!

Long story not so short, I bought an old Canon 7D camera body and an even older 70-200 f4 lens from Craigslist, and made a decent effort of being a photojournalist. I visited 46 US states in 4 years covering stories for UK and Australian media, and eventually got burned out doing photo shoots of people who were doing an interview because their kid had just been in a school shooting or photographing celebrity’s because their agent had organized a shoot to promote their new product. It was depressing and tedious respectively. So I rented a photo studio and started doing business headshots. I was bad at it at first, then became okay, then became good and then became the most in demand corporate/business headshot photographer in the US, which i’m very grateful for.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

What’s a lesson I had to unlearn? How long have you got? There’s a hundred, but the one that springs straight to mind is that there are no limits for you. I remember as a kid with my mates in Liverpool and aspiring when we’re adults to have good enough credit to lease a car, that was the dream. I specifically remember in the late 90’s thinking, “wow, imagine having a Ford Mondeo when I grow up” There was one guy on our street who had one, it was maroon, and he was rich in our eyes. As a kid, I would have taken that deal on the spot. Now, I look at the future and I don’t want to limit myself with long term goals. There are things that I can’t even imaging now that could become reality. Short term, absolutely, set targets. But in the long term here are no limits and I strongly believe in that. Don’t limit yourself with a finish line.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Outsourcing, we should pay people to do the things we don’t like to do. Outsource everything that you can afford to. If you’re doing menial tasks you don’t like to do, go and get a job, work for someone else. At least you’ll get a pension.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tonytaafe.com/, https://www.headshotbooker.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tony_taafe/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-taafe-4a547a125/

Image Credits
Tony Taafe