Photo:@Genosnaps

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Kevin Goolsby: The Man Behind the Camera

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Tell me about your background and how you got into photography?

Kevin started somewhere around the age of 12 he began to get interested in art. He claimed that everything that happened back around that was somehow interrelated. He stated that he realized that he had two interests. He states his interests were in  both baseball and art. He states as early as he can remember, he used to paint and draw and illustrate figures like Michael Jordan and Spike Lee. At the age of 12, he played baseball in the Little League World Series.  Kevin was humble enough to give luck some of the credit for his team being  qualified to be in the series.  He said this experience is what made him more serious about baseball than art. Once he reached high school, he stated he had to start thinking about his future and he had to decide what he wanted to do after high school.  He states “A SCAD recruiter’s visit to my high school was a factor that played an important role in my future plans. He said “they were  talking about all the different opportunities they offered at the school and they offered art and sports.” Kevin wanted nothing more than to keep doing both art and sports, after he left high school and this would give him the opportunity  to combine the two things he loved the most. Kevin knew if he ever had to choose, it would be a really hard decision. 

‍              I asked Kevin if this was SCAD Atlanta and he said that it was way before they opened the second campus in Atlanta. He emphasized he was talking about  the main campus, Savannah Colleg Arts and Design in Savannah, Georgia. 

The next 2 years in high school  Kevin became super determined to go to SCAD. During his senior year, he became an All-American baseball player during his senior year in high school. He was excited he was getting closer to securing a position on the SCAD baseball team. Until one day, his baseball coach called him to the latter’s office and announced that he’d given Kevin’s starting position to a freshman. Kevin was replaced by a freshman whom he identified as the son of the coach’s best friend. “Everybody in the city knew I was the best player out there. I even went to the dentist one time and the dentist was like “why are you not playing?”. Things didn’t go well between Kevin and his baseball coach, he states he had a big argument with the coach and the coach ended up taking him off the team. 

During the interview, it was almost like our guest was reliving that period and he emphasized that he had to wait 3 years to get that starting position back. Kevin recalled the argument with his coach as the first official time he cursed at an adult. He told the coach to keep the starting position and that he didn’t want to take part in the team anymore. “In my mind, I kept saying I’m still going to SCAD all senior year” However due the emotional setback of him not being able to play baseball, Kevin said that his grades were dropping and that he became distracted. He ended up being required to  go to a junior college for a semester to get his grades up and so he could be accepted to SCAD.   During his freshman year, Kevin and his roommate were out in Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia playing baseball back and forth. The baseball team was practicing at the same time that day.  And unbeknownst to Kevin, the coach saw Kevin  throwing long-distance. The couch and the other players on the baseball team noticed Kevin was throwing 100 yards easily.  The coach decided “we need to go ask that kid if he goes to SCAD and if he wants to play baseball”.  Kevin states 2 weeks later, Kevin was placed on the team  as a center fielder at SCAD. He played for the team for the first 2 years.  Finally Kevin states, his dream came true. “Of course, I was the only black player on the team, the coach didn’t like me too well because I wasn’t one of his recruits. I was outdoing all his recruits so they only wanted to get me in the game when it was time to win.”

The coach found out that Kevin had been telling people he was not happy with  the lack of playing time he was being given during the game. Kevin states he  cut him before the end of that second year. Kevin said that the coach was fired because of this incident and the president of SCAD, Richard Rowan of SCAD  told him he  was replacing the couch with. Luis Tiant, the famous Boston pitcher. The new coach went to  Kevin’s dorm room and asked him to play again. After that, Kevin became an All-American in college and the first art  student to get drafted to a major league team. 

Kevin says that while being at SCAD, he became an exceptional  artist and he wasn’t just there as a student  he went there to learn more about art. He had a minor in photography and a major in graphic design once he completed SCAD. “Graphic design was my thing and I knew how to handle a camera; I knew how to arrange shots and everything that has to do with cameras. We started with the old-school film cameras, not digital. “

Kevin went back to the days when he worked in the  darkroom where he spent time developing films. He said they had to wear masks in the darkroom because these chemicals were too strong  and they smelled so bad. Kevin says that’s how he really got into photography. 

After graduating, he started working in graphic design for  Atlanta Fever Magazine. Kevin did the graphic design layout for the magazine. While working at the magazine, a big shoot came up and the photographer notified them 2 hours before the shoot that he wasn’t going to show up. Kevin didn’t know who they  were shooting but luckily, he had his cameras with him. “The publisher of the magazine said “you’re gonna be our photographer” and I looked at him like “what!”. So, I’m nervous, grabbing lights running into the house and packing it all into my car. I got to the shoot and realized we’re shooting T.I. “That was Kevin’s first photoshoot and after that, it became non-stop photography.

What celebrities and corporations have you worked with over your career? 

 He humbly mentioned  Andy Stone, Christ Tucker, T.I., Future to list a few. He also mentioned brands like Coca-Cola, Changan, Adidas, Woodford Reserve…‍

‍How does someone who is a photographer become a commercial photographer?

Kevin said that there are many things that photographers need to consider. He said this is a business and customer-service driven job.  He said photographers are spending time  shooting, editing, and not to mention purchasing equipment. Kevin said that there are many photographers that don’t know how to effectively quote prices based on the time invested. For example, he said he meets a lot of photographers that do multiple outfit photoshoots for 500$. He has to explain to them that it wouldn't work in a commercial world.

Kevin insists that a photographer’s concept, time, editing, and equipment has a price. He continues by emphasizing the cost of the shooting location, the electric bill, and that everything has a price. “The one thing that a lot of photographers don’t understand is; your images have a price. Copyright use of your images is where the real money is. It’s so much money in copyright images. It's insane. For example, you can rent your image out for 6 months; 1 image for 6 months for 500$. Imagine doing a custom photo shoot where you have hair, makeup, wardrobe, studio time, and you shoot 200 images but they want to use 15. Imagine 500$ times 15 images. And that is only the copyright use. The price is not including  hair, makeup, wardrobe, studio, camera equipment, your skill, your time, and your editing skills. Everything during the photo shoot has a cost. That's how your 500-dollar photoshoot  turns into a 15-thousand-dollar photoshoot.”

‍I found Kevin’s insights super relevant especially in Atlanta as the “Home of the Freelancer” unlike agency-driven areas such as New York and California. I still wanted to emphasize  the pressing question that most professionals ask in our field; how to charge good prices that everybody involved can benefit from without out-pricing one’s self and end up not getting the gig at all?

To answer my question, Kevin returned to explaining the business-side of our profession and how important it is to break down the job and its cost to clients. He insisted that it’s highly important to discuss the job with the client in detail and explore the costs you’re charging in detail (hair, makeup, wardrobe…and all personnel involved). In the same context, he highlighted that almost all clients know the exact budget they’re allocating for a shooting so the real objective is to break the fee down in numbers that make sense to them.

Kevin took the example of some corporate companies that ask about the price of a certain photoshoot to check if the photographer knows their work. To that, he suggested answering with the possibility of giving a quote and asking for a specific offer/budget. With a clear budget from the client, it becomes simple to break down the numbers and meet them with a clear list of where that budget is going exactly. For my interviewee, that was the best approach to negotiating for a photoshoot and it wasn’t an easy process for him to learn as he highlighted.‍

 Following the business side of our work, I wanted to ask about another very important factor; the portfolio. I asked Kevin about the portfolio and he said that answering this point can be in a short answer or a long answer but I asked for a good one.

To start addressing the importance of a portfolio, Kevin said “no one is going to pay you for anything you haven’t shot before”. He gave an example and highlighted that it’s impossible to have a portfolio full of nothing more than naked girls and “T&A” but opt to get a Coca-Cola ad. In the same context, he explained that it’s impossible to get a product-based job with no prior experience shooting products for corporate brands.

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For those of you who didn’t get the “T&A” shoots that Kevin was referring to; it means photoshoots that focus on highlighting a female’s sexuality. I find this to be highly important because many photographers start shooting this kind of work and fill their portfolios with it. That can be good if they plan to keep working on these photoshoots. However, it won’t do them any good if they target shooting weddings or products, simply because their portfolios won’t include any work to show potential clients.

We agreed on this, Kevin and I, and I reminded him of one experience that he came across in his career. There was an agency that tackled this issue with him so I wanted him to talk about it. He talked about going to this agency for work and after checking his portfolio, they asked for some shoots to be removed. According to them, it was because they wanted the portfolio to be free of any sexual-oriented content or as he put it “a 6-year-old can look at it as well as a 60-year old”. He concluded by stating that agencies will probably not hire photographers with a T&A-based portfolio.

To move to my following question, I told Kevin that for me as a makeup artist and probably for him as a photographer, we always think we didn’t make it no matter whom we work with. However, there always comes a turning point in our careers where we take a moment and realize that something major has changed for us. I told Kevin this to ask him about what he considers as the turning point in his career.

Without a lot of thinking, my interviewee answered with the Coca-Cola shoot. However, he explained that it’s not as glamorous as many people would think. The advertising firm that represented Coca-Cola then called and asked him to pick some items from their offices. Even though he found it surprising, Kevin just negotiated the shooting fee and just went to get the Coca-Cola items he was hired to shoot.

Kevin said that shooting the Coca-Cola items took him 2 days then he started working on the editing stage of his work. As soon as he finished the whole process, he started preparing the invoice for his work. Kevin said that while he’s working, he wouldn’t think about how much each part of his job costs and when he put all the numbers together, he was astonished by the invoice and thought “wow! That’s a lot!”

My interviewee said that the amount that he charged Coca-Cola probably didn’t mean a lot to them and after 2 weeks, he received the check and spent an hour looking at it. I was laughing when he talked about this experience in particular because I could see it was like he was living the experience all over again. Kevin continued remembering and demonstrating his astonishment back then as he couldn’t believe that they paid him such a fee for shooting Coke products. He concluded by identifying this experience as “his moment”.

Proceeding with my interview, I wanted to take Kevin from an unforgettable moment of success to hardships and missteps. I asked him if he had many professional heart-breaking moments. He laughed and said that there were a couple of such moments. I could notice he found it a little hard to tackle these moments so, in an attempt to make it easier for him, I said he wasn’t supposed to mention any names and he agreed.

Kevin walked me through how disappointing it was to come in direct contact with people he’d been seeing on TV for so long and their management crews.  He highlighted that the disappointment was in realizing that the people he saw on TV were not actually how they really were in real life.

I totally agree with everything Kevin had to say about this point in particular and I told him that as a makeup artist, and as soon as I started working with celebrities, I stopped watching TV. I did that because of the different versions of the same people that I saw both on and off the screen. 

In the context of celebrities, I asked my interviewee about professionals in our field, especially in Atlanta, that call themselves “celebrity makeup artists”.

Kevin thought that titles such as “celebrity makeup artist” and “celebrity photographer” were made up simply because shooting celebrities doesn’t make the photographer a celebrity. However, he pointed out that there are probably 2 celebrity photographers out there who can be considered as celebrity photographers because they took part in movies and productions and people celebrate them but they happen to do photography as well. Kevin finished explaining his stance by claiming that calling one’s self a celebrity photographer just for shooting celebrities doesn’t make any sense.

I discussed this issue with Kevin before and I reminded him that we came to agree that the most accurate title for such a job would be an “industry makeup artist” or an “industry photographer”. I also agreed that photographers and makeup artists don’t take the fame of their clientele and that the only way for them to be considered as “celebrities” will always come from being celebrated and known by people. I wanted to explain my stance and I think people always want to be known for something especially that our artistry means a lot to us. Many of us have a need to be noticed so we attach celebrities to ourselves. For me personally, I worked with a lot of celebrities but that does not make me a celebrity makeup artist. I just can’t insist on this enough and even though I have celebrity contacts on my phone and I talk to some of them regularly, that does not make me a celebrity. Instead, I always like to introduce myself as a “professional makeup artist” and “hairstylist” and “creative director”.

In the same context, Kevin said that he also talks to celebrities regularly but he sees his job as a commercial photographer because he creates commercial-style-photography and not celebrity-style-photography. He thinks that those are the right terms to use and I agreed with him.

‍As we approached the end of our interview, I asked Kevin about his future projects and what’s next for him. To that, he replied that with excitement “more traveling, more scenery” but when it comes to his job, even though he thought it sounds a little far-fetched, he wanted to be the best at his job.

Kevin acknowledged the existence of some amazing photographers that he considers to be the best. He said “honestly, I’m trying to catch them!” then took the examples of David Lachapelle and Annie Leibovitz as some monsters in the business. According to Kevin, these commercial industry photographers have ultimate teams and what many people don’t realize is that when you get to that level, it’s not just you as a photographer. Such teams include publicists, creative directors, photo editors and retouch people taking care of the behind the scenes aspects of the work. Kevin returned to identifying his goal as getting to that level and traveling the world in the process. He wants to become a household name instead of being just a commercial photographer but a household name. 

My final question for Kevin was on where we could find his work and portfolio so he stated that his website is the best way to find him despite being present on some social media platforms.

His website is https://kevingoolsby.com/ and he hoped that his name will be a household name one day. With that wish, I thanked Kevin and concluded the “Backstage Spotlight” interview.

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