Podcast #1 - Justin Bettman.

Self portrait of Justin Bettman. You thought I was looking like a pimp, he makes me look like a choir boy. The fur coat is his signature look, which also explains why I look like pimp in my profile picture.

This post is actually not about me, but it is the story of Justin Bettman, the photographer who shot my profile picture. Next to his fancy job in advertising, Justin is also a talented artist and photographer, best known for his Set In The Street art installations.

One day Justin decided that his next mission was going to be shooting celebrity portraits. Which is an ambitious goal as celebrities are hard to come by and most of his friends are just regular people, like me.

So if you are just a young upcoming artist living in Brooklyn, where do you get started?

This is the moment where I see a lot of people get stuck. They have a dream or a goal, but it just looks too far away and out of reach. Because they don’t see the path that could lead them there, they stop before they even got started. Luckily it didn’t stop Justin.

Instead of waiting for some magical breakthrough, Justin took the only right course of action. He started doing. He went to the hardware store for some basic supplies, hand painted a backdrop and started to shoot his friends. It didn’t stop there, he stayed longer at work to keep shooting there too.

Just starting to do has some huge benefits.

1. You get better. Practice makes perfect.
   In Justin’s case, he perfected his set-up and technique so he always can get a killer shot in 5 min or less. Something you need to be capable to do when working with celebrities.
2. You create a proof of concept.
   While your idea might be amazing in your head, others don’t necessarily share your vision and won’t see it, regardless of whether you can actually pull it off or not. The best way to share your vision is to create a first proof of concept.
3. You get the word out.
   There are always a lot of people willing to help you. The only reason they aren’t doing that right now is because they don’t know what your goals are. Once you start doing, people start seeing what you are aiming for and will be more than willing to help you if they can.
4. You create momentum.
   Start walking, one step at a time, it doesn’t matter if you can’t see the path toward your end goal. It’s only when you are moving and the end is getting closer that it will reveal itself.

So what happened to Justin?

Left is the ad he shot for IBM; in the middle an action shot of shooting Dale Earnhardt Jr; on the right Laura Dreyfuss after he got introduced to her by a friend.

While improving his skills by shooting portraits at work it got his bosses interested. So they let him shoot a portrait for an IBM ad. Next, they flew him to North Carolina to shoot Dale Earnhardt Jr., a famous Nascar driver.

There were only a few months between him setting this goal and him shooting all these pictures.

So what are you waiting for? Start doing.

My takeaways :

1. Never ask your Facebook friends to suggest the title of your next blog post.
2. I need better friends. Be my friend.
3. The first step to reaching your goals is always to do.

Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed it, would mean the world to me if you shared it with someone. :)