Hi, I'm Tamara Lackey and on this episode
of Redefine show for AdoramaTV
I speak with music, celebrity and lifestyle
photographer Drew Gurian about his
progression from photography student to
intern to assistant.. for years, for the
already iconic Joe McNally, to when he
knew it was time to head out on his own.
Check it out.
Hi Drew. How are you Tamara.
Good, how are you? You are here from
Brooklyn, 8 minutes away. Not too far
yeah! And, but you're on the road like 30%
a year. Yes or there abouts 30/40%...
something like that! Ok, and you and I
met for the first time in Vegas. We did. Six
, seven years ago...
Something like that. Yeah. At Photoshop world.
Yes. And at the time you were working
with Joe McNally.
I was, I was. Share the evolution of your
very interesting and really cool career.
Sure. Thank you!
So I I went to school for photography
and while I was in college I interned
for Joe, in 2003. I had seen Joe speak up
at Maine Media workshops in Rockport
Maine, where I was a taking a summer
class at that point. Think like a photo
2 darkroom class or something like that.
So I'll sawJoe speak, and was incredibly
inspired and just sort of uh remembered
his name, and then during school I
subscribe to Communication Arts, and I
thought that the best thing to do for
finding an internship, was to look
through the CA photo annual. Ok! And
I flipped through, and I sort of ear
marked every page that had a
photographer whose work I really enjoyed,
then I flipped to the back, at that point
this is like, pretty like, I mean early
two-thousands. I mean emailing was of
course a thing, but I just called people
at that point! Yeah. And I looked at all
the photographers who were based in New
York. I grew up right outside of the city
in New Jersey, so that helped. Yeah, but
and I just started calling photographers
who were based here, whose work I really
enjoyed, and I of course saw Joe's name
in there, called the studio, and you know
I think that's one thing that people, are
always like... wow, 'how did you intern
for Joe?'. I called him! Yeah, and I was
proactive. I reached out to him in
maybe the fall for the next summers
interim period. Right. Um, so I kind of
beat the crowd. I think yeah and Joe is
cool enough to meet me at like a shop on
palm, like a coffee shop on Broadway.
I brought my portfolio with me. Okay cause I thought
that was very important. I had my printed book
with me and I'm sure Joe was very impressed ..
He offered me a job.
I mean a job as a summer intern. Right. So
I had a great experience with that. I
remember that the first shoot that we
ever went on was at a medium security
prison, and I needed a background check.
Luckily I had a
completely clean record. But yeah our
first shoot was at a prison, The Wild Cook
Correctional Facility in New York,
about an hour north of the city! Why was
that your first shoot? What we guys doing
there? It was a shoot for Reader's Digest.
There was a sort of a retired or abused
or hurt former thoroughbred racehorse
farm of sorts, that the prisoners with
better out door privileges, that
was one of the the jobs that they got to
do, was actually take care of the horses,
and there's a really interesting story
of rehabilitation for the prisoners. I'm
working with these animals, so it was a
really cool story, and we got to spend a
day working with a bunch of convicts, but
it was it was very cool.
And went on a handful of other shoots
with him over the summer, and just had a
really great hands-on experience, so that
was in 2003/2004. I interned for Danny
clinch, a very well-known music
photographer in the city, had a great
experience doing that as well, and I
finished school in 2005 in Pennsylvania,
and I was you know at that point. I
worked for an ad agency for a short
stint for about a year.
Quickly realized that the corporate
world was not for me. What were you doing
there. I was a graphic designer in that
agency. Did you have to wear like at tie.
Did't have to wear a tie but what was around
like Account Executives and sales people
all day. I just like it wasn't me. Yeah.
That was like a 21 year old kid out of
school, and life it just wasn't, wasn't my
scene. I was in a rock band, like playing
drums at the time, and like then I had to
go and like pretend this, like this
corporate thing was not my, it was not my
deal. So actually a band who I had done a
bunch of like personal shooting with
over the time, a guy named Will Hope from
Nashville asked if I would go on the
road with him, and shoot some photos and a
music video which is very bad and you'll never see...
but I put in my two-weeks, and left this
job, and that was the start of my
freelance career. Smart move!
So I started freelancing and was
shooting lots of like weddings and
events, but in a pretty small market like
Allentown Pennsylvania. I think all.. most
people know about Allentown is a Billy
Joel song, that's about it! And I did that
for a couple of years, and I also sort of
stuck around there, cause my band was, we
were playing a lot of shows, and all that
so that's sort of the the tie-in to
music and photography for me. It made
perfect sense, it was a great marriage of
the two. So stuck around there for a
while but wasn't really producing the
work that I first saw myself doing. I
didn't really know what I wanted to be
doing, but it wasn't shooting 40 weddings
in a year. Like that wasn't, wasn't what I
wanted to be doing with the rest of my
life. So I felt kind of stagnant and to
me the next best step was to apply to
grad schools for photojournalism. That's
really, I'd spoken to Joe about it.
It was a recommendation from him, and I
thought that was a good thing to do. So
started applying to grad schools, and
during those years though, during college
and after college, I'd always stayed in
touch with Joe and Lynn his studio
manager. And at that time Joe's first
assistant happened to be leaving, that's
Brad Moore, who then went on to assist
Scott Kelby and Joe offered me a job as
his first assistant. So I took that in
2008 kind of just jumped right in, and
started traveling like crazy with him.
Went all over the world with him, that's
why I was surprised we said you've been
traveling about 25-30 percent a year.
Why wasn't I used to it! All the time. I used
to, yeah! And I worked for Joe until 2013.
So worked for him for I guess all-in-all
about four and a half years, or five
years, and I was just an amazing
experience.
Joe is a great, great guy! He's so mean though. Ha ha!
You know working for Joe enabled me to
experience so many things in life and my
professional life and personal life, and
all of that, and I got to learn so much
about running a business from Lynn
Studio Manager, and from Joe of course.
Technically speaking, I really learned
how to light, and how to produce shoots
and all of that, and I learned the
business side from Lynn. These are all
things that I, I didn't have the
slightest bit of a handle on
before working for him. Right, which is good.
They don't teach it in photography
school. They don't. They don't. Um you know,
I have a fine art degree and like what
does that do for you? You leave there and
sure maybe you're a bit more creative
than you were before, but you don't know
how to run a business. It's fine though and
it's artful! Sure...! Running a business is
like, that's, that's, you know! If you're,
you can be the best most creative
photographer in the world, but if you
don't know anything about contracts. If
you don't know how to actually run a
business..., and that's a whole other
conversation! No, but it comes up I mean,
I've been doing this show for almost
seven years with people in all different
creative backgrounds, top of their game
performing amazing stuff, and everybody
is saying that. Like it's so it's amazing
to me that they're not teaching it in
photography school, but it's not really
telling people that they go years without ever
getting that kind of message that you
could be doing great work but it's going to
kind of stay here until you figure it
all out. It's unfortunate, it really is
and and the less that that is being
taught on the collegiate level, the more
difficult that that makes it for all of
us to make a living. Because everybody
comes out of school and sure we all do
personal shoots and free shoots here
and there, but like the less we all know
collectively about contracts and
negotiation and standing up for our
rights, the more that does end up hurting
all of us because everyone is
undercutting you If they're, you know
of the same level of knowledge. They won't be
in business next year but I'll use them right
now. Yeah, so it's it's, it's tough in that
regard, but um yeah, that's, that's a whole
rabbit hole we can go down.
So um, I worked for Joe
for quite a long time, got to
learn a lot, and then in 2013 went off on
my own. Moved from Connecticut where Joe is
based down to the city, and I've been
here since. What was the kind of
jumping-off point for you, when you said
I'm going to go on my own. That's a good
question. I guess there's a couple of
things for me one one was turning 30,
which sounds weird, but I had spoken, just
out of pure curiosity, I had spoken to a
handful of photographers that I
respected over the years and just said
sort of like at what point in
your career did you like feel some sort
of a level of success? And for whatever
reason a lot of people told me like
around the age of 35. 35 yeah because
there's a whole. There's a whole rock
star thing with 27. Well they, that's
when they died! So we've made it!
So that was part of it, and also just you
know you get to a point. I've always been
in this industry to be a photographer. I
was an assistant for a long time. I was a
really good assistant, I wasn't, I wasn't
a New York City or LA assistant who
assists a ton of different photographers,
and is incredibly versatile and knowing
like all these different lighting and
camera systems, it wasn't that but I
knew Joe's stuff in and out. Yeah. So I
was a great Joe McNally Assistant if
you are. Which isn't light weight. No. Like the amount
of gear that we traveled with, all over the
place was was crazy. Yeah, at times
sometimes it was lighter than others. We'll
put up four hundred flashes now! Yeah, I
mean I know for a fact that at least as
of, you know five, six, seven years ago, so,
so a certain airlines, like Delta on
American Airlines, they have a media
rate for baggage. If you have like a
media credential, and I know for instance
Delta which we used to fly a lot, you can
bring up to 24 cases of gear. 50 bucks a
bag up to 70 pounds. I only know that
because we've maxed that out. So and I'm
not like speaking down on that.
Like we've had, and I believe that was
actually for a Nikon d4 production on
the circus shoot with the elephants. We
had a ton of gear, and like literally lit
a circus tent, and like performers and
all this crazy stuff. So we basically we
flew down with like 22 or 24 cases, then
we shipped another like ten cases of
gear. Yeah so certain productions do call
for an incredible amount of gear, and the
fact that Joe owns what's essentially
like a small to medium size grip-house
at his residence. It's like you might as
well just fly with it probably, be
cheaper than renting in, all of that, and
you can maybe rent it out to clients
and what have you, when you have that much
stuff, that you've amassed over time.
So in any case, the point is, that I did I
learned a lot about producing a shoot, and
all that on multiple scales. So yeah! But
I was always, I was always in it to take
photos, and you get to a certain point
where you don't get burnt
out. I mean I think, every year I sort of
signed on for a year at a time, and every
year when that when that contract was
like getting closer and closer Joe would
just like spew out like. 'Oh I just booked
this, this, this, this and this, and it's
like we're going to like Africa and
Australia. I'm like you do that on purpose,
but it was great, and I loved the travel
and I loved working with him. No it was
just a phenomenal experience, so, but it
gets to a certain point where you're
like yeah, if I'm going to make this move I
need to do this, because it was you know
after a while, it got to the point where
I made a good living, and I had so many
great experiences, but I just wanted to
do something for myself.
Yeah. More so. So that's it. I'm jumping
out. You've made really good connections.
I did. And how? I like, yeah I
mean, I was very fortunate in that, a lot
of what, well Joe always put me out there.
Joe, Joe was very, very kind, and not a lot
of photographers that I've seen at that
level are like this. In that Joe, Joe put
my name out there. I was in all these
videos with him. I was on all these Nikon
shoots with him, and I met these creative
directors and there was always, Joe would
always like introduce me as a great
shooter, you know! And that was so kind of
him, um, because for that reason I built
relationships with these people, and
became like Facebook friends with them,
and stayed in touch, and all of that, not
like... the last thing you can do as an
assistant is like, go reach out and like
not there like to poach clients, but you do meet
people, in, over time, that develops in a
relationship, friendships all of that, and
a lot of those relationships did build the
career that I have now. And those turned
into clients that I do work for on a
regular basis. Right! Thanks so much Drew
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