I recently sat down with Lance Burkitt for an episode of The Lance Burkitt Encounter, and it turned into one of the most wide-ranging conversations I have done about this career. We talked for nearly an hour, and Lance asked the questions photographers actually want answered. Not gear trivia. The real stuff. How you get in the room. How you stay in the room. What 27 years behind the camera teaches you about people, fame, and survival.
Getting in the room
I got into photography young. That is the short version. The longer version is that I got obsessed early and never found a reason to stop. Most photographers can point to a moment when the camera stopped being a hobby and became the thing. Mine came fast, and I have spent the decades since trying to deserve it.
The early doors opened because I showed up. That sounds like a platitude, but it is the entire business model. You show up where the work is, you do the work better than expected, and someone remembers your name. Then they call you again. Then someone else calls. That is how a kid with a camera ends up photographing Lady Gaga before the world knew her name.
Lady Gaga before she was Lady Gaga
Let me talk about Gaga, because the episode is literally titled around it and people keep asking. Before she was Lady Gaga, she was Stefani. I photographed her pre-fame, and that shoot has stayed with me for a simple reason. Fame does not change a person all at once. It changes the room around them. The photographer sees the before and the after, and the difference is never the person. It is the circus that shows up with the fame. She was the same artist in that room that she is on the biggest stages in the world. The world just had not caught up yet.
Lance runs a straight-talking photography channel with new conversations every week. If you are into portrait, celebrity, or editorial photography, his channel is worth a subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@lanceburkitt. You can find him at https://lanceburkitt.com
And if this conversation reminds you it is time for new headshots, you know where to find me.
The night a 2.1MP camera won
One story from the episode I want to repeat here, because it still makes me laugh: the night a 2.1MP camera beat $10,000 film bodies. Early digital. Everyone with money was still shooting film on bodies worth more than a car, and I walked in with a 2.1 megapixel digital camera that the film guys treated like a toy. The images held up. The clients were happy. The film guys were not. Technology does not ask permission. It just shows up and makes the old arguments irrelevant. I have watched that happen three or four times now, film to digital, digital to mirrorless, and now AI knocking on the door. The photographers who survive are the ones who learn the new tool instead of defending the old one.
AI is a tool, not the talent
We spent real time on that in the conversation, the AI question. My take is simple. AI is a tool. It will replace photographers who were already replaceable, the ones doing work a machine can do. It will not replace the photographer who walks into a room and makes a nervous celebrity feel like a normal person for ten minutes. That is not a technical skill. That is a human one. Use AI to your advantage, absolutely, but do not confuse the tool with the talent. The photographers panicking about AI are usually the ones who never learned to direct a human being in the first place.
Treat famous people like normal people
Which brings me to the thing I have said for 27 years and will keep saying: treat famous people like normal human beings. The camera knows when you are performing for the fame instead of photographing the person. Every great portrait I have ever taken started with forgetting who was in front of the lens. Snoop Dogg. Pamela Anderson. Usain Bolt. Richard Branson. The Kardashians. Different rooms, same rule. The moment you treat them like a trophy, you get trophy photos. The moment you treat them like a person, you get something real.
I have been shooting the Teen Choice Awards since 2000, back when I was filing same-night images from a Nikon Coolpix 950 over a 56k modem while everyone else was still waiting on film. That is where the Beyonce photo above comes from. Same rule applied then as now, and it is the same rule I bring to every session as a celebrity photographer in Los Angeles: the celebrities who trusted me did it because I treated the job like a job, not an audience with royalty.
Price is a finished sentence
Lance pushed me on the business side too, and I am glad he did, because photographers do not talk about this enough. Know your worth and your style. The client who haggles your price before the shoot questions every frame after it. The one who pays your rate without flinching trusted you at booking, and that trust carries through the whole session. I spent 27 years photographing some of the most recognizable people in the world, and the best clients I ever had never asked for a discount. Price is a finished sentence. Say it once, then stop talking. That is how I run every booking, from a two-look headshot session to a full editorial day.
Access is a reputation business
We talked about access, because everyone wants to know how you get into the rooms. Editorial work. Magazine assignments. Red carpets. The honest answer is that access is a reputation business. You get access by being someone people want in the room, and you keep it by never making anyone regret it. One bad story follows you for years. One good reputation opens doors you did not know existed. Create opportunities rather than waiting for them. Nobody is coming to discover you. Go discover the work.
Say yes to the weird opportunity
There is a story in the episode about bartering my way around the world, trading photography for travel, and about a fashion show in a Hollywood parking lot with 600 people. I will let you hear those from the episode itself, because Lance gets the details out of me better than I get them out of myself. But the point of both stories is the same: the photographers with the best careers are not always the ones with the best cameras. They are the ones who said yes to the weird opportunity, showed up, and delivered.
Find your niche
We also talked about the disappearance of photographers in the UK, the way the industry has thinned out, and what that means for the people still standing. My advice has not changed in two decades. Find your niche. Be the person who does one thing better than anyone. Generalists starve. Specialists get called.
Ditch the circadian rhythm
And ditch the circadian rhythm. That one is half a joke and half serious. This career does not run on office hours. The call comes at midnight. The flight leaves at dawn. The best light does not care about your sleep schedule. If you want a predictable life, do something else. If you want this life, the unpredictability is the job.
Watch the full episode
The last thing Lance asked me was where people can find my work. Twenty-seven years in, the answer is the same places it has always been. My photography at dclee.net. My publication, David's Guide, at davidsguide.com. And on Instagram at @davidcleephotography and @davidsguide.
Watch the full episode here: