Cam Kirk Interview: Capturing ICONIC Hip-Hop Moments | "Record" Label for Photographers

How quick does it feel like the 10 year run has been? I think the first couple years flew by because I didn't really have a goal or game plan in mind. I feel like when you're moving like that, unintentionally moving, the years can just kind of fly. When you're more goal-oriented, like I have been probably the last five years, where it's like, oh, I want to achieve this. You remember every step it took to try to achieve that one goal. And that makes it last a lot longer. Start of 2015, when I got off the rodeo tour, that's when my life changed. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back for another episode of the One More Time Podcast. I'm Playback Ben here with my co-host, Henry with a three, aka The Trap Jack Black. Trap Jack Black, who do we have in the hot seat today, my friend? Welcoming in on episode 84 of the One More Time Podcast. It's a legendary day today. The Brow has shaved his brow.

It's Anthony Davis. A.D. A.D. That's how y'all do me. That's how we're starting. That's how we're welcoming him in. That's how we're welcoming our. brand. Have you ever got that before? What? I got that yesterday. Oh, yes! There you go. It's funny because someone else asked me the day before that. It's funny. So this is like a three-peat now. Someone asked the day before, has anybody ever said you like Anthony Davis? I said, nah, like they don't really do that. Yeah, even though they do. And then yesterday, somebody was like, Anthony Davis. And I was like, nah, so now I'm here. I appreciate that. That's amazing. Three in a row. We love a good three-peat. That's a three-peat. For sure. In all seriousness, we have legendary photographer, director, philanthropist, entrepreneur. The list goes on and on. We got Cam Kirk, the Cam Kirk in the motherfucking building. I appreciate it, man. Yo. That's a better intro. Thanks, man. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, over the last 10 years, just to set the stage for everybody, you've shot for pretty much the who's who of specifically Atlanta hip hop, but obviously, you know, broader speaking, you've done Gucci, 21 Savage, Metro Boomin', Future Thug, et cetera. You've also worked with some of the world's biggest brands.

We got Nike, Adidas, Puma, Airbnb, Budweiser. Once again, I don't have time to list them all. I just wanted to give you your flowers while you're sitting right next to me, bro. I appreciate it. Seriously, it's unbelievably impressive. A decade of impressive accolades, man. I appreciate it. Congrats on that. Because I know that you celebrated your, you know, overnight success tour because you, you know, quoted the fact that like people say an overnight success takes 10 years. You're 10 years in the game now. Yep. Yep. How does it feel? It feels amazing. It feels like I'm on, I still feel like I'm on uncharted territory because there's no blueprint for I feel like what it is I'm doing. So there's there's not a direct source of like inspiration that you can say, okay, this person was a photographer in a subculture, and then rode that wave to pop culture and then was able to cross over to commercial and work in all these different realms, and then started a studio and then has a label, then has a nonprofit. Like I'm just doing it, whatever comes natural to me and whatever makes sense to me.

So as a result of that, I still feel like unstable at a at a sense, but I love it. It's like what I thrive for, what I live for. Yeah, there's no like Cam is the new somebody. No. I yeah, I passed that. When I first started, I was the new this and the new that. And then I'm like, I don't think you can say I'm the new anything yet. Yes. He's just Cam Kirk. Who did you get early on as like Cam is the new who? Uh early on, it was it was obviously a lot of uh just really dope photographers. And photographers I I still look up to to this day, some that I I don't think I've passed in the realm of straight photography. So it was like the some, Jonathan Mannion, or, um, Chi Modu, or, uh, um, I got, uh, like, you know, I, I find myself following the footsteps still of Zach Wolf and Diwang Valdez. Like those are like big bros to me that I still look up to to this day and still you know like are super inspired by and impressed by that work. Uh but early on it was like those names were the ones that were kind of like put on me, and then a few people say Gordon Parks, which I think is very like ambitious.

I won't go that far. Um, but I appreciate when people can look at what we're doing in hip hop and see it from an art lens and still be able to articulate it on the scale of like a Gordon Parks, something like that. So I appreciate that one, but that that was a little over my head a little bit. But those were the original names I got. I think you could earn that maybe at this point. That's dope. I mean, that's the power of hip hop. You know, that's how I look at it. Gordon Parks is one of the most critically acclaimed photographers ever, you know, of all times, no matter race or anything. Yeah. Uh grew up, you know, photographing civil rights, you know, movement and all that. So to think me photographing Lil Baby or Gucci could be compared to the historicness of that time in America, that's impressive. I mean, it speaks larger than me. It speaks to hip hop in general and the power of it and the magnitude of it, but you know, that's deep. Yeah, it's interesting. I think I live in a hip hop bubble, but is it just me, or is like rap and hip hop photography like so iconic in comparison to other genres? Like, do I live in a bubble by saying that?

Uh not now. I don't think you do. Because rappers are rappers are dripped out and they look cooler than everyone. else. We're more flashier. So I don't think that uh, you know, photos of Adele and stuff like that are going as viral on her day-to-day. Yeah, yeah as a photo of Young Thug could go, just him in this room right now would go viral. You know what I mean? Or him and with Thug in the studio, like pointing out something on Pro Tools. Yeah. Anything like that. Like, I don't think uh that same picture of Adele or uh another genre would go as viral. But I will say uh, you know, from the work of I think myself and other, you know, really dope documentary style photographers, uh, Gunnar Stahl and uh Ray's Corrupted Mind to you know those that came before us, you know, of course we made hip-hop as iconic and cool, I think, as rock and roll. You know, rock and roll photography was the epitome, you know, those photos of Aerosmith or the Beatles and you know, those types of of artists in that genre, you can go to Barnes and Nobles and find books, photo books of those moments, breaking guitars, the backstage, the fans, the raves, and all that. And that was kind of what sparked me to want to bring that energy to hip hop and specifically the South.

It's like, why can't I find all these? I can find these really crazy photos of like John Lennon and Aerosmith and all these people, but why can't I find a really that same level of photo of Gucci Man or T.I. And not one where they are um in the on the magazine cover styled up and you know, with a model next to them, but just them, you know, their lifestyle. Why isn't their lifestyle as displayed as like a rock and roll lifestyle? And I think through photography now, now there is like a hip-hop lifestyle where you see it on more of a day-to-day basis and not just like the flashier music video style, but you s you have a little idea of what it's like to be young thug or to be Lil Baby, like just on the natural, like what he does on a day-to-day. You can see that now through photography. And I think at a time before, you wouldn't really know what Jay-Z did outside of being Jay-Z or Sean. You know, you didn't really know Sean Carter.

I feel like you know Lil Baby. You know the things he's into, his hobbies, if you play, you know, Quavo, you know, if he plays basketball, pick-up ball. And a lot of that is through content creation or photography that now starts to document them on a 24/7 basis versus just when their chains is on and they're and they're in that mode. Yeah, things used to be way more curated. Like you if you were gonna get pictures or videos taken of you, it was very like, okay, this is what it's gonna look like, this is this, and now it's more like people with like TikTok and stuff that are happening now, people are gravitating towards the what are you actually just like as a human? Facts and the little flaws and the little weird little insecurities that people have, people connect with those things, and I think photography can capture a lot of those things and it generates a connection. But like as someone who obviously does a lot of set like photography where you are curating, like here's the look we're going for, whatever. What do you prefer?

Cap capturing like that in the moment, raw, authentic in the studio vibe where he doesn't even maybe know you're catching the photo, or the like lights are on, you're on, you know, you're at a set, the perfect backdrop, the perfect this, the perfect that. Like, what do you like more? That's tough. I feel like I'm in my uh, you know, like how Diddy has changed himself multiple times. He was an exec to an artist that I feel like I'm in my second reinvention. if not third. Take, take take that. So uh when I started out, yeah, I was a documentary photographer. I was in the studio, I was in the trenches. I was in every place you can imagine I was at. I was in the club fighting through the crowd to get through the section. I was uh in the studio till 4 a.m. I was uh everywhere, literally everywhere you can think of that an artist was at, I was there. I tried what I did that documentary style. And I love being a fly on the wall. I love, you know, I'm a pretty quiet person naturally. So I love just capturing images that they didn't know I took. Um, like the iconic photos that I took of Gucci man early in his career, he had no idea I took those photos that he was in prison.

Like he was in prison and I was just dropping him on Instagram because we had kind of just got Instagram. I was just releasing some of them, and that's how he found out I was even taking photos of him. It was like 10 years ago. Yeah, he didn't even know I was really taking photos of him. So I love that style and and the work and a lot of that early work in my career has lasted, you know, 10 years and it's been iconic, and it's it's certain things you think of when you think of some of these artists. And now that, you know, through my success, I've been, I would like to say privileged enough to earn the respect of the artist to say, I don't even want to waste your camera on these moments. I want your camera to pop out when it's time. I'm gonna call Kim when it's time. Like that's a that's a privilege for a photographer to win that level of trust for you to say, when I spend money on a stylist, when I get my hair done, when I rented this out, when I rented that out, that's when I want you to shoot me, and not when I'm just chilling. Like that's a privilege to get that level of of respect. So now I feel like I'm in, you know, partially I'm in that phase of my career where it's like they don't call me for little stuff no more.

And sometimes I have that itch where I'm like, well, why you didn't call me to come, you know, Metro? What are you doing? Yeah, why you didn't call me? I would have been in there. Or whoever. Like, I wouldn't have to do that. That metro album's fire, by the way. Amazing, incredible. Like, I would have been there for that. You know what I mean? Like, I'll come shoot that. But at the same time, I love the position I'm at now and uh and a level of respect I've gained through my career. So I wouldn't really trade it. I think it's just like levels, layers, it's reinventions. And yeah, I'm on that reinvention. if I'm not moving past that reinvention now, into now stepping into a more producer role and and uh calling plays for other content creators, other photographers, and allowing them to get their shot and making sure that they got their shot earlier or connecting certain dots. So uh I love that position that I'm moving into as well. So I love both. I love both. By the way, wait, is your real name Cam? My real name is Cameron. But Cam, yes. So how just amazing is that, right? Like the stars fucking align, Henry. They did.

It was meant to be, right? Like that's just called Cam for the Cam. It's definitely not as cool as a photographer named Ben. You know what I mean? It's definitely not It's just not as cool. I know it's cooler than a photographer named Ben. So you mentioned obviously you're kind of a you know, more quiet, reserved type of guy. But I met you first on the pickup basketball court. Yes, sir. And this dude can pop that shit. He's he's not as quiet as you think he is when he's on the basketball court. Gets a little competitive. This dude gets a little competitive. I mean, he's a shooter behind the lens, but he's also a shooter behind the three-point line. I'm just gonna say, No, I'm just gonna say, and sometimes you get it. You play a two. I'll play whatever they let me play. I'm I'm trash. I can't run up and down that court no more. I do it for cardio. No, both of us are kind of huffing and puffing. sometimes. I rented out a gym. Um I've done it for two years now, and I rent out a little gym and I invite certain people to come play, but it's just a way for me to stay in shape. I'm 33 years old now.

And for me, I can't work out if it's not interactive. Like, I'm not, I can't run on no treadmill. Like that's, it's the fucking worst. I can't do it. I can't just Shoot me. Run up and not like so. I'm like, all right, well, I I don't feel like asking for next or calling next to LA Fitness or doing all the extra. Oh, he airballed too many times. Don't pick him up. Like, nah. I just rent the gym out. Start my own shit. Start my own shit. Y'all can't kick me off the court. I'm gonna play and I'm gonna just run up and down the court. If I make a shot, I'd be happy. If I don't, just live with it. Like, don't say nothing. So I'm here. It's my own uh, you know, controlled environment. Yeah. You know, yeah, we we out there for sure we hoop and we play and uh it gets kind of competitive though sometimes. Oh, it definitely does. I enjoy it. You know what I mean? Like, you know, you and I end up guarding each other a lot. So I just wanted to set the stage. Like, can we keep this cordial today? Of course. You know what I mean? Always, man. Because like we've been, you know, it's always good vibes. What I, what I most what I love about sports, you know, just like music is community. It literally breeds community.

I mean, this this sport session that we do has went from, you know, there were days, it was five of us and six of us, to I think our group chat is 40 something names in there. And what I'm most proud about, whether we do it is it's two years, no fights, no altercations, uh, no negative energy. And that's you know, in competitive basketball, that's a contact sport, that's that's pretty rare. So uh I commend the community we built there, and that's also allowed me to escape from industry a little bit. It's like I'm there and I'm I'm just me. Like there's people on the court that have no consideration for me being Cam Kirk. I'm I'm just me out there, and I, I love that it keeps me grounded, and I like having environments like that where it doesn't matter who is anybody out here, we're just all equal and we play basketball. So uh I love the community that it brings for sure. And also, if y'all do want to have any beef, it could be good content. So don't be afraid of that. And we're here for the clicks.

Now maybe. We need the clicks. But yeah, maybe I'll vlog one of our games one day and you know, get Cam in his element. It could be dope, it could be dope. Um, but you know, so going back to kind of like the the decade of a run that you've had so far. What I wanted to ask is like, does it feel like this 10 years has gone by like that, or does it feel like a hundred years? You know what I mean? Like, how quick does it feel like the 10-year run has been? Uh, I think the first couple years flew by. I think they were, I was um I think the first couple years flew by because I didn't really have a game, a goal or game plan in mind. So I feel like when you're moving like that, unintentionally moving, the years can just kind of fly. And then you look up and like, damn, I didn't do what I wanted to do. I didn't, you know, you're not really able to calculate what you were doing. Um, but when you're at when you're more goal-oriented, like I have been probably the last five years, where it's like, oh, I want to achieve this, you remember every step it took to try to achieve that one goal, and that makes it last a lot longer. When you're like, I set out this year to do this.

I remember that process, I remember all that. But if you ask me about days in like 2012 or 2013, it's like those are like blurs to me to a degree. I didn't really have a a mission in place of what I was trying to achieve. I was just kind of out here going with the win. But but start of 2015, or like March 2015, when I got off the rodeo tour, that's when my life changed. That's when it was like moving with intention. Uh we don't just do anything. I I took ownership of my brand of who I am and what I stand for. I developed who I am and what I stand for. And I was able to start building community around myself. And that started like 2015. So from there, those five years feel a little long. Like, you know, sometimes it's like, wow, that was that was a long time ago. Like, you know, like, wow, look where we're at now. So it's like a science experiment. You need to have a control to like, you know, to work against to be able to measure how you're how you're doing. You know, you gotta have like the, you know, and then you introduce a variable, having goals, something to measure against.

I think, yeah, I could see how that would slow things down a little bit. Yeah. So what was the like light bulb moment or light switch moment of you know what I mean? Like what happened when you came off that that tour in 2015 that made you pivot and understand like moving with intention and branding. You know, what I mean, like, was there something that happened or yeah, 100%? It was uh, it was honestly seeing uh traveling, you know, the United States with Travis Scott, Thug and Metro. And it was the first time in my career. I had before that, when I first started my career, I traveled with young scooter. So I was that was the artist that I first started my career really, you know, locking in with. And Scooter was a GOAT, but scooter did a lot of like the um, you know, sub markets. That was kind of before hip hop really started to really become uh popular music. You know, he was probably doing like the Chitlin circuit, right? Yeah, we we would, you know, we would go to Carolinas a lot, uh, Cincinnati, uh Houston. Um, but yeah, it was that that little corner of the world right there.

Um, so when I went on a rodeo tour, that was my first time, like, you know, I don't know how many cities, well, let's say Mainstream, 30 cities, you know, LA, Dallas. Yeah, it was all the NFL markets, right? Yeah, you're going to all these places and back to back to back. You know, Scooter at that time was, you know, that was before people went to rap concerts. You would go to the club and see your favorite, you know, Atlanta artists. Now you go to their shows, right? So before he was performing in the middle of a club, and you know, he still did his set, and and what I will say, Scooter set the tone for this whole hip hop that's in Atlanta right now. And I'll stand on that. Um super underrated. Shout out to Scooter. Yeah, big shout out. Like, was getting paid. He's still streaming like crazy. Yeah, I can believe it. Cult following. He's getting paid 30, 40,000 a show before Instagram. Like, you know, like that was unheard of to not have an album out. Like he was doing outrageous things at that time.

He's super goat and super slept on and underrated and and not appreciated enough. But beyond that, uh, the rodeo tour opened my eyes to like, because after after Scooter um unfortunately got locked up and Gucci got locked up, that's when I started working with Metro. And I started working with more like the younger, up and coming Atlanta, which was a new, a new regime. It was SoundCloud Atlanta to a degree. It was um, it was Migos, it was Thug, it was Rich Homie Quan's, it was that lane of Atlanta that was ushering in. So I had put a lot of groundwork from like 2013, 2014 up until the rodeo tour. So I had started to really develop Cam Kirk because I wasn't just shooting for Scooter anymore. I was now kind of spread around the whole scene. So I was doing music videos for Migos, music videos for Kwan, music videos for Metro Boomin', music videos for Thug. So I had started to develop the brand Cam Kirk just as a content creator.

So that tour was the first tour that I ever traveled outside of Atlanta after that little groundwork I was doing in Atlanta. So when I went on tour, it opened my eyes up to see the value of what we were doing in Little Atlanta. I mean, it was Thug headlining shows, it was Metro and the crowd rocking. I'm like, they know Metro out here. They know these songs, they know Thug's whole album. You know, you know, Travis wasn't from Atlanta, but he had built a lot of that album in Atlanta. And I'm like, wow, these we're in Colorado and they're rocking for Young Thug. We're in Colorado, they're rocking for Metro Boomin'. And I remember even in, I believe it was Phoenix, you know, before the show, I'm thinking I'm just a regular cameraman. I walked across the stage, you know, just whatever. And I I heard like Cam Kirk, Cam Kirk. And I'm like, what? Like, I'm in Phoenix. Damn. Y'all know who I am out here? Like, this is weird. This is wild right now. Like, and I had those moments on tour myself where I felt like I'm on tour. Like, I'm not just here with I'm on tour.

They know me too. Add me to the bill, motherfucker. Yeah, yeah. I'm the opening act. I got a rider. I need Cheez-Its. I need a roller. I wish, I wish, I wish. Only Red Skittles. I didn't even have a bed on that tour. I was sleeping like on the tour bus like this, like just sitting down. But uh, it was just like one of those eye-opening to me, the power and the value and the magnitude of what we were creating in our bubble in Atlanta and how the world was taken to it. That was Metro's first tour. That was Thug's first tour. So it felt like underground to you when you were in the city. In it, yeah. Yeah. We didn't know the magnitude. I didn't know the magnitude of it. Like, I'm just like, okay, some people going know it. I wonder what the show's gonna be like. I wonder what this is gonna be like. I mean, wow. Rodeo tours, every show sold out. Like tour buses. Like, yeah, we never really rode on buses, tour buses like that, and to see the mag, like it just was, it was so eye-opening for what we were doing and for me as well. So when I saw, like, wow, I don't care what y'all say in Atlanta, there's people in Phoenix that know who I am. There's people in Chicago know who I am.

There's people here that know who I am. I gotta stop playing around. Like, I'm I don't need to be in the shadows anymore. And then thankfully at that time, I had got to witness uh firsthand an artist, you know, come up story. I witnessed young Scooter go from local club crucial shows to, you know, NBA All-Star weekend getting booked in certain places, right? So I watched every step of way he when he went from 1500 a show to 40,000. The last day I was with him, he got close to 40,000 for that show. I watched the interviews he did, the way he branded himself, the change, the marketing, the way he carried himself, the crew he brought around him. So then when he went through his unfortunate time when I got with Metro, I watched Metro go from he was in a college dorm the day I met him. I watched him go from that college dorm to the moments of dropping out of college, just having that discussion when he did karate chop, all the way to, you know, even at that time, just all the way to the rodeo tour. Now he's on tour.

Like he has a set on tour. Yes. He's hit, you know, he Kanye West came out to that tour. You know what I mean? He's on tour. So I watched it work for an artist. I watched it work for a producer, and I said, I wonder will it work for a photographer? And that was when I went home with. And I was like, I watched this, I seen it. I know how they do it. You know what I mean? When Metro had a song, he didn't just put a song out. He went and did an interview about it, or he did this about it, or he did a photo shoot with me. And the caption might say something about the song that came out, or he shot a music video. I'm like, all right, 2015. How do I do that same thing for my work? How do I take the artist's approach and apply it to my work? And that's literally when I came home with that mentality. Like, oh no, I'm gonna apply that same energy. I'm gonna build a team, I'm gonna have these people in place. I got a manager, I got this person. I was like, I'm gonna build these people around me, and I'm gonna tell them to treat me like an artist. Treat me like a rapper or whatever. I was doing interviews.

I did the I did my concert, which is my trap God exhibit. That's a concert. You know, that's that's a performance. That's me putting some a show on for y'all. And that's how I approached it. Like, so I gotta do radio. I went to, you know, 945, I went to 1079, whoever would talk to me. And I did, you know, I went through all these resources that I had, and I started treating myself like an artist, and that's when it changed, 2015, coming off that tour. Damn, so there was no blueprint for this. Nah, I if it was, I don't want to disrespect anybody that's been doing it before me. Cam didn't read it. Uh I didn't know it. Didn't know it existed. My blueprint. Now blueprint was. Now, my blueprint was was Zach Wolf, D. Wong, and Jonathan Mannion, in the sense of how they carried themselves as photographers, their approach to a photo shoot, the quality of their work, the way that they were able to work with multiple artists. Uh D. Wong and Zach. D. Wong to me was like the ultimate documenter. Uh, that whole motion family click.

They were very underground and raw, and they would travel with Lil Boosie and travel with Jeezy and get the shots that you wouldn't expect to get. And then Zach Wolf to me was a little bit more at that time, a little bit more polished and commercial. He would shoot Gucci for XXL when Gucci had this on and that. But he was documenting the South from a more like editorial lens versus a documentary lens. And then Jonathan Mannion, who to me is still the ultimate. The goat. There's no, there's no debate. The goat. He's his. If he only took one picture and it's the one where we all know which one, the outcast one. I mean, even if you just have that, to me they go down to history. within within his his, like, you know, catalog of to be able to shoot. It's unreal. Jay-Z and to capture a New York essence with Jay-Z, to then come to Atlanta and capture an essence of Atlanta, something that's iconic for different regions, to then go to capture Lil Wayne and his whole catalog in New Orleans and create something that feels true to New Orleans and something that's true to New York and Atlanta. And then to go to Detroit and capture Eminem and something that's true to Eminem.

And then go and skip all that and go to Lauryn Hill and capture something that's feminine and true to, uh, Lauryn Hill and Aaliyah. It it blows my mind. The photos he's been able to capture and how he's been able to transcend his career over 20 plus years to still capturing new artists to this day, or DJ Khaled covers to this day. He's just, it's it's honestly, ridiculous. Have you had the pleasure of meeting Mannion? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've met a few times. We've actually uh spoke on a panel together. Um that's gotta feel Yeah, that was incredible. Unbelievable. I spoke on a panel with Jonathan Manion, Zach Wolf, and D. Wong. Get out of here. Like that was like a that's a fanboy moment, kind of right. Yeah, I was. I was I was tweaking. Yeah, that was that was amazing. So to do that was like, wow, I'm ushering in. And then me and Jonathan have had a couple occurrences where we spoke to each other on like a platform. Um very very welcoming and very just like you know, doesn't really um not guarding no gates, no gatekeeping, no weird energy.

Very just like yo, I respect what you're doing, what you're doing is is dope, and uh you know, he's an idol. That's dope. So, contrary to popular belief, probably for a lot of people who are maybe familiar with the impact you've had on Atlanta culture. You're not from Atlanta. How many people think you're from Atlanta? Uh I mean is it the majority? I would say majority. Henry, you thought he was from Atlanta. Henry doesn't do his fucking research, but it's all good. I read your notes, it wasn't in there. It would definitely be. I will like to say Cam Kirk was birthed in Atlanta. Okay. I've never been called Cam Kirk anywhere in my life. The brand. That the that name, that that philosophy, that way of life. I came to Atlanta at 18 for college. So I was very sheltered as a kid. I like to say, like suburban life, Catholic school. So, like the first time I saw weed was like in Atlanta. You know what I mean? Like the first, like, you know what I'm saying? We got plenty of that. Yeah, like so.

I feel like, you know, like Atlanta grew me up quick. It was like, yo, you ain't at home, man. You you in a real world. I met other people. So um his parents are like, what happened down there, Cameron? Oh man, what? So, where are you from? I'm from PG County, Maryland originally. The DMV, baby. Yeah, is that what they call it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, DC Maryland, Virginia. Yeah, my parents definitely are wondering what Atlanta did to me. But now they're probably like proud. That Atlanta's not that bad. Come look at our son now. My dad wants to move here. It's lit. It's nice. So other other than the weed, what were some of the like first impressions, right? Of Atlanta culture. Yeah. Um, Southern hospitality was was probably the big selling point for me. Uh growing up in PG DMV. If I don't know you, we don't speak. It's just period. We can someone can walk in this room right now, and if they only know you, they'll speak to you. That's so awkward. We're all just looking, you know, like, oh I'm gonna say nothing to him. So that energy was just weird.

You know what I mean? And I never I never understood it, but you don't notice it until you go somewhere else, and then you're like, oh, it is normal to walk in a room, and then if you don't know everybody to say, what's up, y'all? How y'all doing? Or I'm Cam. Like, you know, that's normal. You gotta like learn how to do that. Yeah, like walking down the street, and if you're close proximity to somebody, you give a head nod, or how you doing? Yeah, that doesn't happen in the DMV, at least when I was there. I I'm afraid that things have changed and people are a little more social, but you just walk past them like nothing happened. Like, you don't you don't recognize, you don't have that that uh welcoming hospitality factor. So that was rare. Um, and then uh the the collaboration working together, and you know, where we grew up, it was you see your friend, you don't just say, Man, you're doing great things. You clown them. It's just natural to just be more like that's your way of showing love, It's to, you know, has your little camera gig going, Cam? Yeah, the road story. Everything is just a road story. No one's just like just you know, still taking pictures, yeah.

Nothing is yeah, exactly. Nothing is just like welcoming. So when I move when I came to Atlanta and I visited, I was like, wow, that's weird. Like, that's person just spoke to me. I don't even know this person. So did it feel good? Felt great, but it also caught me off guard. Like, you know, like what's wrong with these people? What you mean? What's up? Like, what's up? What you mean? Have we met? Yeah, yeah. Did we do I know you? Like, it's like so. When I got used to that, I was like, man, that is, that's an incredible feeling to just feel seen. You know, sometimes just be seen and accepted for whatever it is you got going on. So when I that's what made me fall in love with Atlanta, and that's why you know, I like to say if I wasn't if it wasn't for Atlanta, I would be a completely different person, you know, not necessarily for the bad, I just would have been a different person. Like, I'm not like many people from the DMV now, so it's that that uh part of me is kind of worn off a little bit, and Atlanta is kind of taking more of a shape. Sure.

Hey, your experiences kind of just shape you for better or for worse. Exactly. I thought he was gonna say his first impressions was there was hella ladies that were in the AUC. That was definitely a because I heard an interview that you did, and I wanted to fact check this. So there's Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, and Spellman, for those that aren't familiar in the AUC here in Atlanta, all HBCUs, yep. Spellman, all girls, Morehouse, all guys, but Clark is both, right? Yeah, but you said in another interview, it was like a 20 to one girl to guy ratio. Yeah, because Clark Atlanta, unfortunately, is a reflection of you know, just black men versus black women going to college. So there's already a a skew of up on women going to college more than black men. Well, now you're making it depressing versus I was trying to make it uplifting. It is it? I was trying to say there's so many girls in Clark Atlanta. It was 21. It's like, ah, there's no black guys in college. He's like, Well, there's a sad reason behind that. truth, man. It is, you gotta give it the real. But I mean, for me at Morehouse, an all-boys school was like you were like, all right, we take advantage of this. Uh, but yeah, it was it was Clark is probably made up of hopefully it changed now, but probably like 70% women.

Dang. Just naturally, just you know, so because of that, you got 70% women at this school, 100% women at this school, and it's just y'all at this school. So yeah, yeah, the ratio is skewed. How did you get any work done? I didn't, man. My GPA was terrible. Um, you don't have classes with them at least, so that's helpful. Sometimes you do, sometimes they cross over, but not as much. And I think that that's that's an advantage. Yeah, it sounds like it would be. You go to class without thinking about that, and you go focus on your school, and then you you do your thing after after class or whatever. For sure. So despite your dad being a photographer, obviously you've told this story, you know, a bunch, so I don't want to belabor it, but you know, you didn't pick up photography because of your dad having all this camera equipment and shit, really. No, that was just something he did. Yeah, but my dad, he does a different style of photography. What kind did he do? Um, my dad's the type that you were hired to shoot your wedding, or uh set up a backdrop at like a formal event, or uh like more of that style of photography where it's very, very professional, like he wears a suit to go take photographs, you don't wear a suit when you're on the tour bus with Travis?

Never know. So it's different. It's like his, you know, it's more said, and his stuff is just different. So watching, experiencing photography from his perspective, I didn't know of the creative, like artist side of it. I knew more of the technical, like, here's how you show up, and here's how you present yourself. And how many photos are you buying? Five, eight by tens? It's like, okay, that's the package. I got an eight by ten package. It's like it's like super transactional. It's very transactional, it's better. I mean, my dad's a creative stew, so some of his wedding photography was lit, but it's like you didn't really see it that way. It was like, how many, what package are you buying? You're buying 20 photos, a book, you know. So it was just very different. So it wasn't uh to me, it wasn't cool. Like it, and it was a chore to me. My dad would make me do that for allowance or spending money. Like, well, you'd have to go with him to the oh yeah, put your suit on, You're coming in your mouth. Oh, shit. So it's like Get some b-roll. I don't wanna No, just like set up the lights and you know, yeah.

When I raise my hand, click the button, and all like it's like, man, I don't want to do this. I'm trying to, you know, do something else. So photography was a chore to me. So I'd never ever in my life imagined I'd be doing it. It was a chore to me. I didn't like it. Um, because of that. And then when I when I moved to Atlanta and I witnessed an industry like the music industry, we don't have necessarily a music industry in the DMV. Um, so when I witnessed like young Jeezy and Gucci and this, and then I figured out I can marry photography with this world, that's when it became like, oh, light bulb moment. Like, okay. I I necessarily did not like taking photos. Like, you know, every once in a while, if I got a dope photo of my dad with my dad, I probably would be excited to see it. Like, oh, I took that, like, that's cool. Everybody's happy to create something. But when you can mix it with the industry that you like, that's when it's like light bulb moment. Yeah, for me, I kind of feel like that about podcasting, in that the reason why I found this so enjoyable for me is that I'd like I was just the kid that was obsessed with the music industry. So I started doing shows in college, and then even after that, I was following like managers and ARs because I just saw them associated with my like favorite acts and shit.

And I was just fascinated by like the whole spectrum of the music industry, right? So then I loved having conversations with people. And it was like, oh wait, you can just talk to people that are like in this vortex of the music industry and you know, just chat with them about their like life story and like their you know vision and creativity and all that stuff. I was like, this is no fucking brainer. Yeah. So for you, it sounds like you kind of you know eventually fell in love with photography, and then being able to marry it though was something that like fascinated you. That's why it kind of got you so I guess excited, right? Exactly. And then I and I and uh really my I tell people my passion is really marketing. So marketing is my that's my passion. So when you get to the root of it, you skip past photography, you're gonna fall into marketing. I like coming up with marketing plans or marketing ideas, and photography is a means to market things. So when I approach photography, I approach it from a marketing eye. That's why like right now, my go-to in the industry is like I do press photos for artists.

That's like probably what I get booked the most to do on a day-to-day. It's like your images that's gonna live on your Spotify billboard or your Spotify top, whatever it's like banner, banner. Like I do more of those type of photos, and I'm I'm really good at that, or ad campaigns like Nike and Adidas and stuff like that because I shoot from a marketing eye. So when I take the photo, I'm already thinking about what is the what are they gonna feel, what are they gonna think when they see this? And where they're gonna put the words at. Where's the logo gonna go? Leave it. Here, so let me leave space. You know, use your face this way because I can see your track list coming on the side of this. That's such a like it's such an obvious thing almost, but I guarantee you, it's not I was like, oh shit, you don't think that way. Yeah. So they shoot either too tight, they don't leave space, um, they don't shoot uh horizontally, they only shoot this way. So if you only shoot that way, you know, you can't get a billboard. You just cut yourself off billboards.

Or a YouTube thumbnail. YouTube thumbnail, all these things you just for my head goes. Yeah, because you're thinking too much of your phone. You're, you know, younger photographers are thinking about their phone, they shoot this way. Yeah. Um, so off the rip, it's like you didn't eliminate it so many ways that your photo can be distributed just because you didn't take it horizontally. Uh so you have to think both ways. It's Like, oh, this would be great as a thumbnail. This would be great as an album cover. Album covers are squares, so your image has to be has to fit the dynamic of a square. So you have to think about everything you want in the image and take a step back, take a step forward, or think about the crop. You gotta think about the logo placement. You gotta think about do they have drugs paraphernalia in their hand. If they are, they have weed, it won't be, it can't go nowhere. Like your distribution of it is gone. But maybe you get the smoke and you tell them to hide the blunt behind his hand behind his back. All right, take a puff and put the blunt down. Or you zoom in, and you gotta know how to still capture the essence of what you're trying to capture without ruining it, you know, ruining it. So if he's wearing a lot of logos, you want to avoid the Nike check maybe on his shirt if it's not a Nike shoot, because that can come up being something that the label will say, we can't use it because we don't want to clear it with Nike.

So you have to think about it. Yeah, but you got contacts at Nike, you can just call them up, right? Labels don't pay me to do that. So shout out to Coca-Cola. Yeah, exactly. So walk me through. I'm really interested in this, right? Like, walk me through. I'm a big rapper, I want some press photos done, or I want a Spotify banner photo done, right? And I'm like, yo, who else can I call besides the Cam Kirk? Yeah. Can you walk us through whether you want to use a real life example and say who it is? Or if you just want to talk in generalization, I'll leave that up to you. Let's say Ben's the rapper. Okay, Henry, I was hoping he was gonna say a specific one, Goddamn it. Okay, but like what's the process like? Like who calls you? What's the planning like? What's the day of the shoot? You know what I mean? Like, can you walk us through kind of like a start to finish of like how this goes? Yeah, I mean, me now it's changed tremendously. So, me years ago, that process was probably a lot more. Me today, it's like it's barely anything. It's like a phone call, like uh from a label rep or somebody I know in the industry, like, yo, I'm sending my guy to you.

We need some quick press photos. So when I first started, and I think it's a it's a gift and it's a uh a testament to my trust and I guess my my uh reputation in the industry. Now when I do it, the label don't even show up to shoot 90% of the time. 90% of the time, there's no rep there. It's like I'm sending uh my guy to you right now, and I want to come back with photos. Need. Email us. Yeah, just email the photos when you're done. Um when it first started, and there's certain artists that have more hands-on, you know, management, uh, but when it first started, it was really, it was really like hands-on. So it's like the label may not trust you, they may ask you for a mood board back. They may say, hey, how would you want to approach it? Show me this, show me that. Where are you gonna do it at? Who's gonna do this? What this? They give you a whole shot list. I need three quarters, four quarters, I need a this or that. And then it's a lot more like while you're trying to get it going, you're following like a blueprint or that they have. I need them shot on white, gray, and and they give you all these rules.

Um, so that's how it first started, but it usually would be an email um to me for the most part. Uh, but now it's more like it can come from the artist themselves or the label, but it's more like Cam budget. Here's a budget, need money bag, yo photos next week. This date. Connecting with his manager. And it's just like, all right, bag a pull up by himself, bring whatever clothes he got. We knock it out. Usually there's no one there. I do it at my studio. No one asks me how I did it or what I'm doing or to show anything, and I have free reign. I know, but I know this already. So I know you need a white, I know you need a black backdrop. And then I'll usually take the liberty on the third one and just have fun and do whatever, whatever I want and have my own style to it. But so those label like blueprints kind of helped you to at least be like now. I don't even need to. yeah, I already know. You don't gotta tell me. I know what you need. Is that just because your reputation kind of precedes you now, or do you think it's just indicative of how the industry is now? They kind of just nah.

I think it's my reputation. Yeah, because we you know, now that I rep other photographers, sometimes we have to answer a lot more questions, or who's gonna do it? Can you send me their work? Can you send me that portfolio? Da-da-da-da. We're gonna shoot it at. And it's it's a little bit more, or the label will come on set. Um, so it definitely is like, oh, Cam's doing it? Oh, okay, bet. All right, bet. We appreciate that. We're good with that. Here's the artist, here's the artist number, or here's whoever, just get it done. Um, so definitely the reputation allows me to be able to move in that in that way now. So it's effortless. Now I can do a press photo shooting two hours. Like, it's like it's especially if it's at my studio, it's simple. I know the setup, I know what you need, roll the backdrop out, da-da-da-da. da-da-da-da. Get you in and out, and I don't really waste a lot of time. For sure. So, you know, this kind of a perfect segue. You know, you mentioned obviously that you rep other creatives, so I think this is probably the most innovative thing you've done, if not one of the most, is your collective gallery business. You have multiple businesses.

We can get into maybe you know some of the others in a minute. But can you tell the people what exactly collective gallery is, what the vision is for it, what inspired the idea, even because I think that it's genius and it's innovative. Like, just talk to us a little bit about that. So everything I've done uh or been inspired to do from even a business standpoint, career, movement, is because I wanted something and it wasn't available to me, so I made it. I made it happen. Necessity. Yeah. when I wanted to take photos of rappers, uh, not just in the studio, but photo shoots, I made it happen. I started putting rappers on billboards, and I did uh my trap guy, I mean, I did the uh day four exhibit where I started to hit up rappers to say, if you give me an opportunity to do a photo shoot with you and you take it serious, I'll put you up on a billboard, I'll pay for it. So that was how I got boom. That was how I got artists. Who's saying no? Don't want to say no to that. say no to that. And that's how I got them to say, shit, I know who you are.

I just whatever, I ain't gotta pay for this and nothing. All right, and now you want to put me on a billboard. So that's how I was. That's how I became a go-to for photo shoots because before that I was just documenting, yeah. Um, you know, when I wanted to be in an art museum or have my work blown up or printed, I did it myself. I did a trap guy exhibit. Like, all right, I'ma just rent a space out and print my work, hang it on the wall myself, and invite people here because I'm not getting into the high museum, I'm not getting into these galleries, which is fine. Like, I'll just make it my own. So, but like, were those big financial risks? 100%. Yeah, Of course. because you're making, I mean, I'm just saying, like, the way it panned out, it's like, oh yeah, no shit. Like, I'm just gonna throw some money at some billboards. And I had no money at the time. I was broke. Yeah. So I was I was wrangling up money. I did a GoFundMe for the day for exhibit, um, which was very stressful. But I was I did it. I was I asked for money and I and I bartered like video shoots or photo shoots and things of that nature uh with like local artists that was like, all right, you was gonna pay me a thousand dollars for the video shoot, send 500 to my Kickstarter, I'll do a video shoot for you for this. Wow.

Um so I was doing I was leveraging my own, you know, my own money and resources and just doing whatever to invest back into myself. I've always invested in myself. That's I've never not done that. So I don't respect anybody that doesn't do that. So I've always done that. So all of that came either out of my own pocket or out of a major resource that I uh a relationship that I've been nurturing that came through. So um even when I started my studio, that was my my own pocket of money that you know I invested in to try to do that. But fast forward to Collective Gallery. When I in 2015, 2016, when I started to do more photo shoots of rappers, me and my business partner John Rose, we sat down and I was like, yo, I'm not getting called to shoot, you know, magazines, I'm not getting called to shoot these campaigns that I want to, I'm getting looked over. I need an agency. I need to sign to an agency. Maybe that I feel like that's how the New York photographers are getting on, or I was like looking up, like, is Jonathan Mannion signed to an agency? Is this person signed to?

I was trying to find as much information as I can as how are they getting to shoot like a Nike ad or a this ad. So me and uh my business partner, we looked up all the agencies we can find on Google and just looked up. And I like this photographer. I see his bio, he's repped by this. I like this. And we send out a wildfire, like a mass email, you know, individual, but like to every agency we could find. And at that time, I was like already had press on like complex, hype Beast, like certain, I was getting looks. I was known. Um Complex had named me top 15 rappers, every rap fan should, I mean, photographers, every rap fan should know. I had like certain accolades under my belt, had the trap God exhibit that went viral, all these things. So I reached out to every agency, and not one agency even responded or offered it. You know, some responded, we're not looking for talent at the time. We're not looking for this, we're not looking for that. So I kind of that's what inspired me to go back to drawing boards.

If fuck it, we just gonna make this thing work ourselves. But when I got to a position where I found out my own blueprint, I never forgot about that. And I said, if I needed an agency and couldn't find one, a hundred of y'all need an agency and can't find one, or thousands of y'all, you know what I mean? Like, I've just been privileged to know how to get where I need to go or blessed to know how to do it. So collective gallery started because I remember not having that, and I knew I needed to do it. And then for me as a marketing, you know, guy, I knew starting an agency is boring. You know, oh, I have an agency, I do content. That's boring. I'm in Atlanta, music industry capital. What's inspired, what runs Atlanta? Labels, music labels, QC, Street Execs, you know, TIG, you know, Slaughter Gang, like that's what runs Atlanta. And I'm in that mix. I feel like I'm one of them. I've been branding myself like an artist for so long. So an artist doesn't start an agency, an artist starts a label. And that was literally the concept.

Like, I'm not gonna start an agency, I'm gonna start a label. And I'm gonna start a label because people need to respect photographers as artists and not just, we're not just photographers, we're actually artists ourselves. We shouldn't all only pick up our camera when you pay us. We should pick up our camera the same way you go to the studio and rap, and I'm gonna create a body of work and then I'm gonna sell that body of work to somebody. A photographer's journey should eventually get to the point where they're creating not out of necessity or as service, but they're creating out of like I have an idea. They're inspired to create, and then they should be able to find resources that fund them, especially black creators. And I know I didn't have that until I started my studio and had all these other resources that I was able to not be a slave to being a service photographer, meaning you only work when they call you, and that's the only time you get paid to do photography, the only time you pick up your cameras when such and such needs to photo shoot. You should be able to pick up your camera anytime and be able to find ways to make money.

That's what music artists do. Imagine if a music artist only rapped when someone approached them with a song, yeah. Like a writer they only do features. The only time I can ever rap is when I do a feature. Yeah, it's like that's unheard, like what the hell is that? Like, you know, like so that's how I'm I'm adjusting or comparing it. It's like, why are we like that? And that doesn't make sense. So instead of calling this a label agency, I'm gonna call it a label. And I'm gonna brand it like QC, I'm gonna brand it QC collective gallery, and I'm gonna stand on it. And I want you to turn your head and say, huh? What? Huh? How? what you mean you're signing photographers? Why not? Why can't I? Do you think we're not artists? Like, do I not shape culture? Do I not push culture? Do I not create a product that people can be fans of? How am I not an artist? Why am I not? And you can put out your own product, you don't have to wait for an artist to post a picture on Instagram. You can I can post it myself. Yeah. Do whatever I want with it.

So why can't I do that? So it's a bit of a marketing ploy. Um, but we operate, you know, behind the curtains, behind the marketing curtains. We do operate as like we have seven artists signed to us. Um that well, yeah, how does it differ from a traditional agency if if at all on like the business side? I mean, we don't we don't without getting into the we have artists signed to us. Okay. So literally, just like Def Jam has a roster of artists, we have seven artists that are signed to us. And our duty to those artists, we have a financial duty that we establish so when they sign, they got a check. They got uh most of them got at least $10,000 on signing to join the. label. So, yeah, we asked Anwar, who we had on the podcast, who works at collective gallery. We asked him, like, so they get advances, and he was like, I think that's a cam question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now it is a cam budget. Yeah, they get they get paid, they get an advance, they get uh a marketing budget. Um, so they have a marketing budget that they can say you recoup on that advance. Uh we don't recoup on the advance.

Nice, shout out. That's the label done the right way. That's what they said. That's your signing bonus. It's the label done the right way. It's a bonus. It's really a bonus. Not an advance. If I believe in you, I'm gonna make that money back. Yeah, it's easy to be honest. Easy. I don't have to hold that over your head. So yeah we don't really do any strong recoupment in our plan. So the initial one is an investment, and then you have a marketing budget. Your marketing budget can be used for your gallery event, uh, an exhibit that you might want to do, a book that you might want to eventually put out, travel to a personal project that you want to do, or if you need to go to LA to photograph this, but there's no budget for you to get there, use your marketing budget. If you needed to uh invest in merch, if you want to put out merch, or I got a t-shirt idea, and I think my audience will like it. Okay, cool. Well, use your marketing budget, produce a t-shirt. If you were like me, I use my butt money and you know, put a billboard of yourself up. You want to tell the world who you are or invest in that. We'll use that if we feel it can return on that investment for your stock as an artist.

So they get a sign and bonus, they get a marketing budget, but then they also get the resources of a team. So they have finance department that can go out and get their money or do their invoices for them, get their money from labels or brands, or at times we don't like to do it, but sometimes we have to front you money. You know, most artists are most photographers on a 30, 60 day net. You know, if you do a shoot for Nike or Adidas, it's great. It might be great money, but you're not gonna see that money to 30, 45, maybe 60 days after you do the shoot. The good old net payment terms. Still better than producers, though, I'll tell you that much. I think your net's like two years. Yeah, yeah, I've heard this. Yeah, it's trash. So at times we're just there for you. Like, you know, if you need something, sometimes we're there. So Ben, let's get a producer uh billboard of me. Yeah, like this. Yeah, you should put yourself out there. Your face. Yeah, you have a face for radio. Yeah. Oh man, yeah.

That was a good one. Damn, like this is so interesting, man. Yeah, so that's how we're uh labeled. Everything you think Dev Jam does for Big Sean or whatever artists, that's our goal is to be able to do that for our artists, help them achieve success as a photographer. Um, you know, through maybe campaign shoots or photo shoots, connecting them with brands, or just investing in their own random ideas that they might want to do um and helping them scale it. So how we compare it is like, you know, your gallery shows, I like your concerts. Um, the work that you do, your personal work is like your album, and we gotta find a way to sell it or get people to buy into that personal work or sell it at a museum or get people to buy prints and you know, all these things. So it has a few touch points where it relates directly to music industry. And um, and then also then for my own brand, because I brand myself as an artist, really as like a rap artist or rap superstar. That's like the blueprint of my brand.

I remember I said earlier I got that from Scooter, I got that from Metro. This is a way for me to just be in that realm again. Like, yeah, I got a label, Buminati exists, and so does Collective Gallery, and so does QC, and so does these other slaughter gang and all these other things, and now collective gallery exists. And we wanted to turn heads. We want people to question it and how what how? And then it's like I like the why not. I think I'm just as influential, if not more than a lot of rappers, to be honest. So 100%. I make more money than a lot of rappers. So why can't I? Why can't I be on that same scale? Like, what's stopping me? I can get the jewelry. I could, if I wanted to do that, I could do those same things. So what's why can't I do this same thing? When's the Cam Kirk chain coming out? I would never buy uh a chain. I mean, you pulled up in the Bugatti and we saw that. That was nice. I don't know how much of that cost. Was that at that time? 2023? I think it was.

Yeah, cut it out. But I invest in right now, I'm in my logical investment. I invest in my businesses. That's my that's my investment now. I'm buying shares of the NASDAQ. Yeah, but soon I'm going to be, yeah. I like to spend my money on things I care about. So was there like an aha moment with the record label thing? Or was it like tons of like brainstorming ideas? Or was it like that's it? I'm doing a record label for for you know what I mean? When it hit me, I I I don't remember what exactly sparked the concept of like where I was like, yo, that's it. Um, but I do know, like most things I do, you know, the universe has a way of telling me I'm on the right path because it just works. It it just works. I don't know, it's just like it's very little friction of bringing it to market when I'm on the right path. And that's what I use as my barometer of should I be doing this or not. Do you think that that's just kind of unique to you though? Because a lot of people have said that some of the breakthroughs that they've had were almost when the most friction was happening.

So do you think that's maybe unique to you, or do you think that maybe should apply, you know, elsewhere? I don't know. Uh yeah, maybe that's unique to me. I just feel like I mean, I don't know. Maybe you, you know, yeah, we've had a lot of people sit here, and like some of the ones that have gotten, you know, to be in positions of success. They had to really push. It seemed like not an obvious, like quick, not quick, but like not a least resistance path. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, that's always friction. I don't want to make it seem like I just, you know, glide it through everything, but um when I set my mind to something, because I'm a very intentional person and I'm also very calculated, just naturally. Like I'm naturally like an architect, I'm logical, I'm not emotional at all either. So my steps are are usually guided with logic. I've thought about it 10 times before I just woke up and did something. I don't move off impulse when I make decisions. So I would like to say that that plays a part as to why I already predict the friction, so it doesn't maybe come off as friction as much. So when I started the label, I knew people would question it.

I knew it wouldn't make sense. So I already thought about the three things we need to do to ensure that this makes sense. We need to sign people for real and have testimonials quicker. We need to do this. So I'm already like fighting the friction before it comes. So maybe that's the approach and why it doesn't feel as friction because I've already thought about it and I've already said I'm gonna do these things to ensure people don't add that weight to it. So maybe that's why. But yeah, like when I started photography 2012, when I said I was gonna do it, when I literally said the camera's gonna be what works. By February, I had out of nowhere, never met these people a day in my life prior to this. I had been working with schoolboy Q Estelle, Young Jeezy, future. Like, you know, like it was like by February. Like it was like that quick. It was like, oh shit, I'm in the industry now. You know, by that by that end of that year, I was, you know, young scooter, full time, traveling with scooter, working with Gucci, like 2012. Yeah.

So it's like certain things. if it's working now, yeah, you don't fight it. It just works like that, where it's like, oh, this comes easy. I took that iconic photo of Gucci in my first year as a photographer. Wild. Um, so it's like, look who's calling right now. Gucci. T I. Oh wow. Yeah. You can take that call from Tip if you need to. All right, we'll take this on this Yo, that would be amazing. Do let him know though, we'd love to do an interview for sure. We interviewed we interviewed Domani. Yeah, we interviewed Domani backstage at uh beer and tacos, and that was a good one for sure. Yeah, he's probably gonna call multiple times. So if he does call back, I'll answer it. Okay, cool. All right, sick. Yeah, we'd love to hear a uh TI conversation. Yeah, yeah. We'll edit it out just to make you know everyone jealous. Um, so I mean, you've got a product on the shelves in camera stores, like your camera cleaning kit, I think, right? Or something. Yeah. You've got, you know, your philanthropy stuff that you do through the Cam Kirk Foundation. Like, what are you most excited about right now?

I'm excited about everything, equal, you know, equally, to be honest. Um, hold on, let me text the mic. Text TI, please. Yeah. By all means. Tell them you're on the one more time podcast. Hey, I'm doing the one more time podcast right now, And it's fucking fire. I'm having a great time. They're an Atlanta-based interview podcast. They interview rappers. I'm most excited about, you know, truthfully, everything, but uh I feel like everything is lining up. The stars are lining up the right way. So, collective gallery, my studio just turned five years old. So Congrats. we're looking to take that to more cities and and do a lot more things with it. So I'm super excited about uh my studio, super excited about uh really everything. You know, everything is just is so exciting right now. So uh the cleaning kits that you mentioned, I'm trying to step into creating product and accessories for um photographers, like like you know, Jordan created his sneaker. Like, what does that look like for me?

Retail is a whole other world. Well, yeah, when I saw that, I was like, This is fire. Like, what's it look like? And then also it's like other than Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, like who are those people? You gotta make a lens? Who made that? I mean, eventually, why not? Shit, the cam lens. It's like I'm right now, I know for a fact there are photographers around the world that are, you know, looking at the equipment I use and literally going to the store to buy it. You know, they're looking at whatever I, you know, or looking at Jonathan Main, or looking at Gunner Stahl and those people and saying, what do they use and I'm gonna go buy it? So why shouldn't it be yours? Why not? Like, you know, vertical integration. What's stopping it? So I know I don't have all the resources. I'm not gonna say tomorrow and be a competitor to Canon, but it's like, all right, well, maybe I maybe I'll still use a Canon camera and a lens, but why does my camera strap have to be a Canon strap? Why does my bag have to be a Canon book bag? That's basic stuff that I know I can make today. Yeah.

Um that's probably a lot easier to compete with products like that that are compete with the accessories all day. So we started with a cleaning kit. It's an essential item. You need it, you need to clean your camera in order to be in order to take great photos. Every now and then your camera gets dirty, like anything in the world. Like you gotta clean your ass. Like every day you gotta clean your damn camera. So what's the biggest thing you've learned about the product space? I'm sure there's been like a crash course on like getting product into retail, right? Like, you know, like what's the biggest thing that's been like oh shit. Where's it for sale, by the way? Are you on Amazon. Amazon, Walmart, uh, it's for sale at social status here in Atlanta, PPR here in Atlanta, KEH. Um, yeah, so we've got a couple great, you know, distributing partners. It's at Closet, Fonny Store. Cool. Shout out, Fonny. And it's at the studio. So we have some great distributing partners. And again, like I say, anything I I do when I when it it works that easy in the sense this is our first order. Like, you know, so our first wholesale order, you know, we're in five retail locations, including social status and I'm I'm in here.

That whole vertical chain is like multiple stores as well. And then you talk about KEH, which is a premier camera store. That's you know, worldwide, world renowned. Then you talk about PPR, who's the number one camera store here in Atlanta. Um, and then you know, it's being sold on Amazon, and people are buying it on Amazon. It's like when you start something and immediately does that, like you make profit on your first run of equipment. It's like, wow, like that's that's a sign that you know, we're perfecting it, we're getting better at what we're doing. Um, you know, with everything, everything is a different challenge. It's one thing to teach some, tell somebody your skill set, like you should trust me to take your photos, bro. Um, but I gotta now you should trust me to do this. Or you know, if it's merch, you should trust, you should trust. I know what you look good in and you should wear this. But now it's like, you should trust me, bro. I use this to clean my camera, bro. Use it. It seems like very logical, you know, and especially, I mean, I think even just the biggest cheat code of like having it at the studio. There's photographers coming to rent your studio.

They're like, Oh, I gotta clean my camera. Looky here. You got some shit on your camera, bro. You want to Yo, do you ever just walk around and tell people they got shit on their camera and just hold your cleaning kit? That's a Marketing strategy right there. Yeah, yeah. That's our sales pitch. Yeah, that's amazing. Grab their camera and accidentally put your fingerprint on the lens. That's amazing. Man, it's dusty, you know. But yeah, that's that it's just an essential item. But also, a lot of what I try to do needs to have an educational component. So a lot of it is also just like educating photographers. I know for a fact, I inspired a lot of uh what they call it, do-it-yourself, photographers. DIYers. Like those guys that just went to Best Buy, bought a camera, and today they had it in their bio. I know I inspired that because that's in a sense what I was, you know. Like, like granted, behind closed doors, I was perfecting and trying to learn and YouTube and asking questions and taking photos every single day. So from when I was trash to when I was at least decent was a quicker scale.

Um, but I know for a fact I inspire photographers who picked up that camera to be closer to the music industry, or picked up that camera because they wanted to do or just thought it looked cool and didn't go to school for it, didn't have a mentor, didn't take classes, didn't read that manual, didn't study. So a lot of what we do at the studio, because we know that it's a lot of our clientele, unfortunately, is if we're gonna have a product, we're gonna make it an essential that we're educating you on why it's important. So why go out and spend thousands of dollars on camera equipment and not if you're not gonna take care of it? So that's like the first step. Before I can tell you, before I can tell you to buy a camera or buy a lens, I want to tell you why you need it. Why you need it and why you need to take care of it. Like these are things we're gonna have first. And then as the product line grows, it'll start to grow into like, all right, now you're ready to buy a five thousand dollar item or a thousand dollar item because you know how you you got these essentials that are needed. So the next thing we'll probably move to is a camera strap. Why are you walking around without a camera strap on your camera? You're giving yourself the ability to drop it, to bang it up on something, take your camera when you're not using it, put it over your body, protect it, move forward.

And we're probably moving to a camera case. Why you have your camera just thrown into your book bag with no protection? You go sling your book bag there, you drop your book bag, your camera can get damaged. You need a hard case for your camera. Like, so I'm gonna start to just like through the product lines, educate people on like here's what you do. If you can't afford none of that, afford to clean your camera every now and then. Clean your lens, get the dust out your lens, get the fingerprints off your lens, take better photos. That's number one. Then we'll start to move slowly into other products that help you there. Now, once I get them there, then I'll be able to probably sell you a lens or do you have a Cam Kirk uh you know YouTube channel? Yeah, Cam Kirk Studios in Cam Kirk. Okay, cool. So you're doing some of that like education stuff and what yeah, tutorials. That's like it seems like a you know, no brainer. That's like uh we're starting, we're gonna launch uh we've been doing it already, but we're gonna launch a more concentrated effort to uh create our own version of like a master class. So we call it night school And it's through our Cam Kirk uh studios umbrella, and that's going to be a more concentrated, like educational platform that's gonna be like you can go log in and watch Fonny tell you how to become a fashion designer in five parts. or this how to do this in 10 parts.

You know, like it's gonna be all of that. Do you think Fonny can even make me a designer? Of course. Well, Fonny's made me a designer. Me, me, Cam. Fonny's made me a designer. Well, man, this this is so exciting, man. We appreciate you coming on. We've entered a final segment of the podcast for someone who picked up a camera just to make sure he got a photo with uh Wiz the next time he booked his concert. Your story is incredible, bro. Like you're doing such amazing things for the culture and like the city as a whole, man. Like the philanthropy stuff you do is is also second to none. So I don't want to, you know, forget to shout you out on that as well. But Henry, take us away. Where are we at? We are at the rapid fire rampage. Okay. That's how we like to end our episodes. It's gonna be a three-part rampage. Yeah, you're gonna need a shot for that for sure. This is the time for the shot. So, first part is gonna be some quick short answer questions. Second part is gonna be a this or that. I'm gonna give you two choices. You pick one. The last part's gonna be a word association.

I say one word, and you just give me one word right back off the top of your head. Does that sound acceptable to you, Cam Kirk? Are these controversial this or that's gonna pass? You can, but you shouldn't. Okay. There's nothing that's gonna get anyone canceled, hopefully. So starting off with the short answer. On a scale of one to ten, rate Ben's jump shot. A nine. That's way too generous. You're not gonna lie. That jump shot. I'm streaky, I'm streaky. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Cam, what is one of the weirdest things you believe in? I don't believe in a lot of things, to be quite honest. I'm a very Matter of fact. I can be a pessimistic at times. Uh weirdest thing I believe in, I would say is all my dreams. Fire. You gotta be a little weird to make it as big as you've been. Some of these ideas are weird. Yeah. If you were an object inside Cam Kirk Studios, which object would you be?

I'll probably be the backdrop. Setting the stage. What is one fact about yourself that took you a long time to understand and accept? Uh I'll probably say my social skills, why I'm so quiet. This one's more of a philosophical question. What day is the first day of the week? Monday. I think we're like 50-50 on that still. There's some psychopaths that think it's Sunday. I kind of think it's Sunday. Nah, not for me. Exactly. We'll chop up a compilation later. 16 year old Kim just moved in as your roommate. What is the first thing you argue about? He's he's very messy. Clean your shit up, Cam. Yes. Okay. How many pizza rolls would fit in a Kia soul?

A million. A little preemptive there on the Jeopardy music, bro. I underestimated the speed of the answer. Yeah. Sure. That was on me. Last one of the short answer, Cam. What is your favorite curse word? Probably shit. Part one. He seems so defeated saying that. No, because until I was 26 years old, I never cursed. 26, really? Yeah. Wow. I started to like probably say my first like just like fluid curse words at 26. It used to be a thing. They used they used to tease me in the music industry about that. Like Metro and them used to tease me about that. I never curse. I would shh F that. Dang. Fudge. I could kind of tell by the way you said shit. Yeah. Yeah. Is it still eating you up that you like started cursing? I feel kind of weird. I will say that I do because it's like it's a discipline thing. So I think it showed I had it reminds me of a time where I felt like I had discipline. Yeah.

And then now a time where I I tend to lack it. Or it shows me a lack. So yeah, it does, it does bother me. I used to always say words have power. And because I'm pretty mild mannered and monotone or low energy, people wouldn't know when I was mad. Cause if I cursed, it was like Oh shit, he's not playing. Give Cam some space. But now if shit, man, fuck. It's like, you don't know. Now I gotta like raise my voice. Even then I gotta like do some extra and I don't want to do that. So before it was like, I'm not fucking playing. You'll be like, whoa shit. Yeah, like, oh, he's not playing. You know, what I mean? now if I say that now, you don't know. So I always believe words have power. So I just like to give more power to those words because I think it makes it stronger when you say it. Moving on to part two. Part two. This is the this or that. Pictures or video. Oh, photos.

Fish eye or slow-mo? Slow motion. Warm colors or cool colors. I like warm. France or Argentina? France. That was the wrong answer. That was the only one that had a correct or incorrect answer. Uh uh African uh scoring leader. Mbappe is the go with him. Is good. I'll give him that. Drums or melodies? Melodies. melodies. Drums or flats? Drums. PlayStation or Xbox. PlayStation. Free lenses for life or free sushi for life. Lenses, I hate sushi. That was the easiest decision. pizza would have killed me. That would have killed me. Damn. Okay, the next one. Um lenses are pizza then. The next one legitimately was free lenses for life or free pizza. for life? Pizza because I'm good with the one lens I got. There you go.

As long as you clean it and you have it in your protective case, then I mean, should be alright. I can borrow one. Speak every language or talk to one animal of your choosing. Speak every language. That would be fire. Talk to dogs. I don't like animals. I'm not an animal person. Because you and you also don't know how interesting those conversations are gonna be. Food here. Exactly, right? All right. Have an extra arm or an extra leg. Oh I'll probably go with arms since I use my arms for work. Fair enough. Okay, this last one might be a little sus. Every time you orgasm, Lil Yachty's Poland plays, or God damn it. Or every time Lil Yachty's Poland plays, you orgasm. Whoa.

I'll probably go with the first one. Part two. Wow. That was good. I hate that last one, Henry. That was a good one. Come on. Come on. We learned a lot about Cam with that last one. Did we? though? Not really, but he is keeping up the speed. This is a good rampage so far. It's all boiling down to this last part. This is the word association. I'm gonna say one word and just give me one word right back off the top of your head. Maybe two words. Just your first thought. Part three. Rampage. Starting with hip hop. Cam Kirk. Style. Kanye West. Caffeine. Mountain Dew. Airport. Hartsfield Jackson. Podcast.

Don't set me up one more time. One more time. Alright. You could have said any podcast you chose to say one more time. We're here. We're here. That means a lot, Cam. Thank you. Appreciate you, man. Diamond. Players Club. Pumpkin. Halloween. Rugby. Polo. Snake. YSL. Duty. Call of Duty. Call of Lil. Oh, Yachty. Cryptocurrency. Uh, Ethereum. Overnight. Success. What an interview. This is what a rampage. This has been Cam Kirk. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe if you fuck with this interview. We have an event coming up. Oh no. It already happen. It'll be the night of. We have an event tonight. We have an event tonight.

Pull up. Our bar ATL in Edgewood. Cam's gonna be there. He doesn't he just doesn't know it yet. Alright. And until next week, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting the fuck out of here. Peace. Peace. Ye!