The Eric Phan Interview
When you first start out, you might not realize it, but every person you come into contact with – they are a potential client, they are potentially a person that you can build a relationship with, they are someone who you might start a company with. This piece of knowledge can take you far, and it did for 24 year old commercial photographer and creative director, Eric Phan.
Eric got his start in photography documenting musicians, and eventually moved on to working on commercial projects for athletes, fashion brands, and more. In this interview, Matt Moloney sits down to chat with Eric Phan about his photography career from his start to where he’s at now. Continue below to learn more about Eric Phan.
Getting Started
Matt: So whenever I sit down and think about questions for interviewing creatives, I’m always drawn to the subject’s background – where your from, what you did for fun growing up, etc… Tell me about where it all started for you.
Eric: Yeah, so I grew up in Upstate New York, in Rochester and I guess for me as a kid, I enjoyed playing video games like Call of Duty and I think that’s kind of what sparked my creativity. After playing video games for a little while, I got into make Call of Duty edits and montages and things like that. I would edit in Sony Vegas and just compile quick-scope clips, nukes, things like that just for fun.
After I did some of the video game edits for fun, I didn’t really touch a camera or video ediitng for a few years. I think I got back into it in high-school; I started playing soccer and I had a friend that was really good, he was an All-American and he would make youtube videos and went viral a bunch (even got put in an Adidas commercial), so that was really cool to me and I started putting together a bunch of soccer videos. I made a ton of unboxing videos and stuff like that with my brother and one of my friends, and then after that I never really thought about doing photo/video as a career until about half way through college.
M: Once you got to college and became interested in photo/video again, were you consciously trying to do sports videos or work with athletes?
E: It kind of just happened honestly. I used the camera in college at first to do social media stuff, but I wasn’t that good at it. I was really passionate about social media and just putting stuff out there. I actually went to college as pre-Law / History major at St. John Fisher College and funny enough – the Buffalo Bills’ training camp is located there and I actually met most of those guys before I had ever went to a training camp to shoot.
I ended up switching to Media & Communications right before my senior year. My first real photography gig was in my sophomore year, and it was actually for Migos – after that concert I was hooked. I knew who the opener was going to be and I told him, ‘let me shoot for you, I know I’m new but I’ll get you whatever photos you need’ – I just needed to get in because I knew I’d figure out a way to shoot with Migos after.
I was super fortunate, I was put on very early, I met everybody and got close to them, and then second time they came back in town, I shot for them again, and they put me on to a bunch of other people.
M: This was still in New York right? Was it a local venue?
E: Yeah, it was a local venue that I knew about – the perfect spot and it just worked out really well.
M: That’s so crazy that you say that because so many people always ask how to get involved with more concert photography and how to shoot more musicians and things like that and this is always a main point – knowing the venues and the openers.
E: 100%, man – the local venues are always the best way to get started. They’re much smaller than big city venues, so you really have an opportunity to get closer to the artists and maybe even get backstage with the artists. At local venues it’s always about getting in the room and what you can say – everybody’s trying to do the same thing; it’s competitive, so it’s really just how you stand out and differentiate yourself.
Networking
E: So the story of how I got in to shoot for Migos the first time is actually pretty funny. I knew the venue guy and so that’s how I got into the venue, but Migos’ private security wasn’t allowing any outside photography – you know how that goes. This is where the networking / finesse comes into play and all about how you differentiate yourself. I told Migos’ security guy, ‘listen man, you have a really dope job, people don’t understand that you’re traveling all over with them, you’re doing all of this cool shit too – let me document and capture you, too.’ He was really intrigued and gave me the go ahead. He basically said that if I took pictures of him on the job then I could get on stage, go on the pit, whatever I want pretty much.
So the main security guard, Jamar, shoutout Jamar – he’s the reason I really got in the first time, and he’s even who invited me to shoot with them again when they came back a year later.
I realized that he’s there for a similar reason as I am – he could be doing security anywhere else, but he chose to work with musicians and be seen and be respected for what he does just like I was.
I told Migos’ security guy (Jamar), ‘listen man, you have a really dope job, people don’t understand that you’re traveling all over the world with them… you’re doing all of this cool shit too – let me document and capture you, too.’
Eric Phan
Honestly this is what really changed my viewpoint and perspective on networking because he’s one of the most amazing people I have ever met – he’s helped me land almost every big gig I’ve ever had up until like 2 years ago; he really blessed me. I really didn’t even understand how much he was helping me until afterwards.
Bring it back full circle, the morning after that first concert I shot for Migos, I get a phone call from Jamar saying to check Offset’s Instagram. Offset posted my photo the very next morning. To me, this was insane, this was like the second concert I had ever shot and everybody’s already posting my stuff. I had a bunch other people post my stuff before, but Offset posting it was just really crazy to me, that was the first time it really hit me that I could do this.
A little after that, Jamar hits me up and tells me he actually runs a big security business, it’s a worldwide company and they protect the biggest celebrities and artists in the whole world. He told me if I ever wanted to work with someone that he could put my foot in the door, but there’s no guarantee of working with anyone. After that I really utilized this to help build my portfolio and grow my network – he connected me with Rae Sremmurd; I was originally supposed to work with Slim Jimmy, but ended up working with Swae – and then he led me to work with Idris Elba and all of these things put me on to numerous, numerous other projects.
Really all it took for me was one connection.
Moving Forward
M: You’ve shot for Migos twice now, and I’m sure some other stuff in between, but what are the next steps now that you’re hooked on this realm of documenting concerts/musicians?
E: At that time, I was thinking pretty small-minded so I was just thinking of artist photography and touring – I loved traveling a lot, and before any of this, when I was just doing social media stuff for fun, I would travel wherever and do travel photography videos. Once I saw that you could tour with an artist and see all these big cities and huge venues, it had me so shocked. I couldn’t believe this was really a possibility. I literally picked up my camera seriously like 6 months before this; not even, maybe 3 months.
M: That’s so crazy to think about and I talk about it all the time, but really it’s so interesting to see where your camera will take you. Tons and tons of people have serious, high-quality cameras now, and not just the phones in their pockets, but everyone is able to find their camera taking them somewhere else. It’s so cool to see how a camera can almost pull you towards your passions and make you take a step further into the action rather that just being a bystander.
Enough of my tangent – after those other jobs you had been getting, what was the new plan to get more and more work?
E: So I lived with Swae Lee for a month in my senior year, and I pretty much just flunked that whole semester because of it. So that’s like $20K down the drain (my school was pretty expensive, it was a private school), but luckily my professor’s still pushed me through for the most part.
I had realized that Buffalo was really close to me and I knew there weren’t that many people out here asking to shoot and work for these people. I also knew that I was one of the better people in that upper New York region so I reached out to two Bills players at the time – one of them was heading out to another team, but Zay hit me back and we messaged for a little and he said he liked my work. He had a dinner coming up a month later and he wanted to get to know people in the area so he invited a bunch of people – he told me to come and bring my camera if I wanted to.
I drove an hour to Buffalo for the dinner, shot with him, met some really dope people and then me and him kind of grew into this organic and genuine work relationship. We developed a good friendship over time too and I would just do stuff with him and that’s how I started to lean more into sports for a little while.
M: At that time were you looking to get into sports heavily? Or at that point where were you trying to take your career?
E: Honestly I was so lost. After the concert stuff, I was really lost, I felt so untouchable, so I told myself I’d write down some goals and my interests and these are the things I want to do out of college, so that I could decide what I want to do long term. My main passions were music, sports, and fashion.
M: And is that when you kind of realized that you wanted to use a camera to help you bridge into those fields?
E: Exactly, because I knew I had a lot of leverage and that’s where my skillset was – using the camera and having a good eye for things.
Strategy
M: To me, it seems like your strategy is to go after the individuals – the artists, athletes, musicians, etc… rather than going after the brands. Were you trying to work with brands and companies, or more focused on finding people to work with?
E: Honestly, what’s crazy is that I would really try to work with local brands that had minimal foot traffic, no online footprint whatsoever, and I would never hear back from them. Then I would DM people with like 10 million followers and they would DM me back. I figured, why not work with this person? I even tried reching out to local restaurants, nobody hit me back or they just had no budget, and then Zay would hit me, so I would just go work with him; why would I not just go work for a dude who’s on the Bills?
He would post a lot of my stuff and I actually got offered an NFL job halfway through my senior year and I worked for the league for about 6 months and then when he got traded, I quit, and that’s when I pivoted more to fashion.
So I hit music, sports, and fashion about 6 months out of school, I hit all three. I really felt the need to try as many things in the space as I could because it was such a fast pace and it’s so competitive, and only getting more competitive.
Bigger Projects
M: It seems like you started to hit your stride a little bit, at what point did you move out to Las Vegas?
E: I moved out to Vegas during quarantine, but before that I was living in LA and working for Daniel Patrick with Adidas – that was my fashion gig which I super hype about because I was big Daniel Patrick fan for years and years before, so it was really cool to work on that project because I got to work with celebrities, athletes, and fashion on that. I really liked the mixture of that type of work and I loved what i was doing there.
But before I actually moved to Las Vegas, I visited here for about a month with Zay – he invited me to come out because I was bored during quarantine. He had his family and friends here so there was always something going on.
I knew that I enjoyed being around driven, high-energy people, and one day he looked at me when he was talking to me about starting a clothing line and said, “do you want me to hire you?” – and I said, ‘if you’re willing to pay this number right here, I’ll leave right now.’ On some wolf of Wall Street shit, I was ready to do it. So that’s what I did. I left my job and moved out to Las Vegas to work with Zay and that’s what I’ve been doing since. I kind of switched my role from photo/content to more of a management role, trying to get Zay more brand deals and things like that.
M: That’s insane – and crazy to see that you’re transitioning from just doing photo/content stuff to now doing both content and management roles. Are you working with any other artists or athletes to help them with their branding/partnerships?
E: Yeah, so I worked with another company where I would work with some of the top athletes in football and basketball, and I did that on a retainer basis for awhile, and I’m also helping represent a few guys right now for their social platforms and things like that, but mainly working Zay right now and trying to line some stuff up with Swae Lee again soon as well.
Now I’m focusing more on bigger projects that I can really spend time on because I don’t like working a bunch on too many projects at one time. When I used to be on tour, it would be 24/7 different projects here and there, but now I want to spend as much time as I need to to make the project look good – and it also pays a lot more for projects that have that amount of detail put into it.
M: Now that you’re able to spend the time that you want to on your projects, how do you plan to take the next steps in your career?
E: Over time, I’ve realized I cover a lot of bases – I can do a lot of things, in tons of different editing softwares, with tons of production equipment and things like that, but the main thing that I’d like to move and push towards is having my own agency where I work with people like Zay or whoever, and they can come to me and say, ‘I need social content’ or, ‘I need ad campaigns, photoshoots, merch, etc…’ I want these people to come to my agency and have a one-stop shop to market and brand individuals.
