Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Boatright.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My dad was a professional photographer/photojournalist for the first ten years of his career. He taught me photography when I was twelve and we had a darkroom together as I was growing up. I’ve had a camera of one sort or another since then, but began an active interest in fine-art photography about fifteen years ago. I was a founding member of the Booth Photography Guild (associated with the Booth Western Museum) and a board member of the Southeastern Photographic Society for eight years and President for two.
For many years, I photographed primarily travel and landscape subjects. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turns out that you rarely have to ask a tree for a model release, and it almost never says, “No.” You don’t have to engage in any kind of intimacy with a tree-it’s just there; you shoot it and then you move on. And with a steady corporate job to pay for my photography habit, I was able to make lots of pretty pictures of wonderfully exotic places throughout the world.
My daughter was a very accomplished actor growing up (and went on to graduate from NYU Tisch with a theater technical degree). For years, I photographed every theater rehearsal and performance that I could. When she graduated from high school I presented her with a poster with of “Fifteen Years of Theater Excellence” using my images on (“fake”) Playbill magazine covers from every year, from Pre-K through Twelve featuring one notable performance each year. It is a treasured gift.
About ten years ago, I met local dance photographer, Richard Calmes, heard him speak about his passion for photographing ballet dancers and was instantly inspired. Our paths were similar-he was a dance dad and I was a theater dad. His work was simply magic!
As a result of that relationship, in the spring of 2012, I began photographing the Sideways Contemporary Dance company. A co-worker, Jeremy Williamson (and now President of Sideways Board) invited me into their studio as they learned, rehearsed and then performed “Blackout” by Charlotte-Foster Williamson (Sideways’ nationally recognized Choreographer and Director). At the end of the first four-hour rehearsal, I was completely blown away by their athleticism, beauty and complete dedication to their craft. And I was hooked.
For three years, I served as Calmes’ assistant, working in studio and in the field. The most memorable shoot was assisting him in photographing the Alvin Ailey Dance Company in the Fox Theater, during the second Atlanta ice-storm of 2014. We had the run of the theater, and because of the storm, the full attention of the dancers, including the incomparable Alicia Graf Mack and Ailey Director-Choreographer Robert Battle and his Artistic Director Masazumi Chaya. I have never met a more talented, humble, grateful group of beautiful people than the Ailey Company.
Through my dance associations, I also made connections with and quickly became the photographer for the DramaTech Theater Company. DramaTech (Georgia Tech’s student-run theater group) is the longest running theater company in Atlanta, celebrating this year, 70 continuous years of performances. Had I known how much fun these folks were having while at the same time carrying full student course-loads, my Tech fraternity days would have been much different.
And throughout this whole process, I became a much, much different photographer. The dancers taught me how to photograph dance. The actors taught me dramatic performance photography. But they ALL taught me what a joy it is to photograph the people. Not only was I transformed into a portrait photographer, but I also discovered that the shy, little boy inside me who was afraid to ask you if I could take your picture was really a people-person all along!
Art is perhaps the oldest form of communication between human beings. Just like the caveman wanted to share his experience with the big woolly mammoth with his fellow cave people, I love sharing my experience with all aspects of the human experience, from the beauty of a sunset to the most amazing people with whom I have had the pleasure of working to collaboratively make fine art.
At the beginning of 2016, my entire Atlanta-based business unit of a top-20 technology corporation was closed. This was perfect timing, as my photography business (I opened my studio in 2014) was consuming far more of my time than my well-paying corporate job. One can guess where my heart was and my heart won when I dove into professional photography as a full-time, working artist. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect-coincidentally at the beginning of 2016, the Professional Photographers of America (of whom I am proud to be a member, and that has been around for something like 170 years) started a program they called the “Business Challenge.” It walked a group of fellow photographers and me through the process of building a new (or growing an old) photography business. Truth is, there were a LOT of transferable skills from my years as a corporate manager, but the other truth is, even though I managed multi-million dollar projects throughout my career, starting my own sole proprietorship was just a wee bit intimidating. And in my first year of photography as both an avocation and a vocation, I was actually able to turn a profit!
When I teach photography classes, I ask my students “What do you take photographs of?” I always get the usual responses, “My children” or “My dogs” or “My grand-children” or “Nature” or the like. But then I inform them that what we really photograph is light. Phos-Photos-Light. As photographer, I am fully responsible for every single photon of light that enters and exposes my camera. It is in seeing the magic that happens when light interacts with the world (or the universe for that matter), that sets the stage for art to happen.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest challenge has been dealing with my new boss (the “sole” in “sole proprietorship”). He sometimes has some of the silliest ideas you can imagine. Like, “this will never work.” Or, “I’m just no good at marketing.”
There is, perhaps, a fine-line between making mistakes and failure, but the mind will always tell me that mistakes are always failure. But a sage one suggested to me that more is lost from lack of trying than ever lost by making good mistakes. Another told me, if you are going to screw up, screw up boldly!
Please tell us about Michael Boatright Photography.
My business card reads “Theater, Dance and Fine Art Photography.” Given there is no (or practically no) money in either theater or dance, I consider myself a fine-art photographer. That can have broad interpretation, but I like to think that what I do is to add an artist’s flair to the basics of photography. Anybody with a smartphone in their hands today is a photographer. But everyone who sees my images says, “Wow! I can’t make pictures like that!” The truth is, deep down in all of us is an artist, just most of us have forgotten that simple fact.
So when I make your portrait, or make a commercial image for a client, I don’t set out to “make it cool.” I set out to share an experience from inception to presentation with my client. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.
Perhaps the best thing that I learned in the PPA Business Challenge (the business management program for Professional Photographers of America) was that “You will never be able to compete solely on price.” While my prices are reasonable, it’s the images that I deliver that set me apart from my competition.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My most favorite memory was Christmas Eve, 1968. I was an acolyte at the mid-night Christmas Eve Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Kansas City, Mo. There was a full moon out across the snow-covered fields as he drove me to church in his 1965 Dodge Dart. And on the radio, we listened to Frank Borman and the Apollo 8 astronauts read the story of Genesis as they orbited the moon.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2846 Franklin St, Avondale Estates, GA 30002
- Website: www.michaelboatright.com
- Phone: 404-488-6644
- Email: info@michaelboatright.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelboatrightphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaelboatrightphotography
Image Credit:
Michael Boatright Photography
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
