Interview With Sam Vargas | Content Creator In Charlotte, NC
Instagram sliding art.
Bobby:
Welcome to another episode of Starks Media Podcast. Today, I have with me, Sam Vargas. He's one of the greatest content creators here in the Carolinas. I know he travels around all the time, so let's just get straight into it. What'd you want to be when you grew up?
Sam:
I wanted to be Batman.
Bobby:
Is that your favorite superhero?
Sam:
He is one of my favorite superheroes. No, I think just like any other little kid, I grew up in a Maryland, DC area. It's really close to... So 30 minutes outside of DC, not too far from Baltimore. I had a real interest in firefighting and wanting to join law enforcement and stuff like that. But I grew up in a really Christian home that was against any kind of violence or danger or anything like that. So I was always kind of steered towards doing something in the admin field where, get a manager position somewhere, do something in the medical field, excuse my language. I hated that shit. But I did it for a very long time, but I think growing up, I always had an interest in law enforcement, military, that sort of thing, but never... That's probably one of my biggest life regrets is never having joined the military.
Bobby:
How'd you get into content creation? Making videos and photos.
Sam:
Yeah. So I think once I left my home, I was living with my mother. I think I was 20 years old and left the house and from 20 until about 31, 32, I was just working dead end jobs. I mean like auto parts stores, medical records at some big hospital, barely getting by. I think around 27, 28 years old, I found mixed martial arts and fitness. I was super out of shape and in super in this depressive mode all the time. I found that as my outlet. Did that for a few years, got into really good shape, started personal training. Then I got NASM certified. Started doing personal training on the side. I'm like, "All right, this is it." But it wasn't it. I felt it deep down inside that it just, this wasn't it for me, but I just kept going.
Sam:
I really didn't know where it was going to go. It was kind of like just walking in complete darkness type of a thing. I invested in a camera to do YouTube content for fitness. The first YouTube video I saw on photography and videography was, take your camera with you everywhere, practice on anything, and that's what I did. Long story short, it just kind of fell on my lap. I started falling in love with taking photos and I started taking photos of like butterflies and my dog. I go to a lot of coffee shops here in town, so I would take photos of the latte art, the baristas. I'd go out at night and take photos of the skyline just because, it was literally just because of the love for it.
Sam:
I made an Instagram page, the page that I have now, which is Sam Vargas Images. But back then, it was called Just a Dude With a Camera. I didn't want anyone to know it was me because I really didn't think it was good work. It was just kind of like another outlet for me. Mind you, I was still working a cubicle job, not doing anything with my life. This was my outlet. I couldn't wait to get out of work, go to a coffee shop, and just take pictures of whatever. So someone found my Instagram page and said, "Hey man, do you take portraits?" I'm like, "No." He's like, "Well, I really like your eye. What would you charge me for a photo shoot?" I'm like, "I don't know, dude. I don't know, like 50 bucks?"
Sam:
He's like, "I'll get back to you." I'm like, "Okay, I guess that was too much money." He got back to me a couple hours later and he's like, "Hey man, I talked to a lot of photographers who are charging triple your amount, but I just don't see that they have a good eye." I didn't know what that meant at the time. I'm like, "Okay." He's like, "Well, let's do a photo shoot." I'm like, "Cool." So we met up, did the shoot. I didn't have a laptop at the time or anything like that. I edited all the photos on my iPad and mind you, you can't group batch that. You have to edit each photo at a time. It took me hours to edit.
Bobby:
For $50.
Sam:
For 50 bucks. I gave him the photos. He was like, "Dude, this is amazing." I'm like, "Thanks." He's like, "This is your first shoot?" I'm like, "Yes, sir." He was like, "You definitely have a future in this." That's when the light bulb just started blinking. I'm like, "Hold on a second. I just made 50 bucks doing this." I started thinking to myself, "If I got better at this, I could charge more, I could do different things, and so on and so forth." That guy turned out to be an ex NFL player/hot shot in college football player. So when he posted those photos, naturally people started falling and...
Sam:
Yes, correct. Then I had a guy who did nightlife stuff in the Latin community here in Charlotte. He's like, "Hey man, you got a nice camera? I'm like, "What do you mean?" Like, "Where are you going with this, dude?" He's like, "Yeah, I'm starting to throw some parties in the Epicenter and I could really use some really high quality photos. At the time, I'm using a point and shoot with interchangeable lenses, but it's still a point and shoot.
Bobby:
What was it? Sony, Canon?
Sam:
Sony A5100.
Bobby:
Oh, nice.
Sam:
Yeah. It's a great camera, but not something you would take on a professional shoot. I'm like, "I mean, I could get a better camera." He's like, "Cool, I need you here in a couple of weeks." So at the time, I'm dead broke.
Bobby:
How much did you charge him for this shoot?
Sam:
Oh dude...
Bobby:
If you remember.
Sam:
I don't remember, but it was very low. It was like 75 bucks for photos.
Bobby:
And you're filming all night, taking pictures?
Sam:
I'm there for two hours, yeah, taking pictures. The video stuff didn't start yet. Then I started doing that, but in order for me to do that, I had to dig into the little bit of savings that I had. At the time, I was dating someone and I'm like, "Hey, do you mind letting me borrow a couple of bucks?" She's like, "For what?" I'm like, "A camera." "You already have a camera." I'm like, "I need a better camera." Whatever, long story short, got me a Canon T6i with a nifty 50 and I got the $40 on camera flash and just shot with that. Little by little, other promoters in the city started noticing my work and it was progressing and progressing. I started getting hired for different things. That was March, 2017. October, 2017 is when I decided to leave my full-time job. I quit right then and there, went into my 401k and bought a Canon 5D Mark IV.
Bobby:
How scared were you to pull that money?
Sam:
I'll put it to you like this, I bought the camera, got it, it stayed in the box for two weeks.
Bobby:
Really? [crosstalk] about returning it?
Sam:
I was thinking about returning it. I said, "This is stupid. I just spent three grand," at the time, this camera was $3,000. I spent three grand on a camera and $1,200 on a 24 to 70. I'm like, "I can't, this is ridiculous. I could do so much with this money. I could get caught up with my bills and all this other stuff." It just stayed in the box for two weeks.
Bobby:
I think that's the problem with corporate life when you're in it, because they don't really teach you how to invest in yourself and, dude, that investment portion, buying that expensive camera, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's tripled your income throughout the time you had it.
Sam:
I made that money back in less than three months, and this was still in my beginner stages, but it was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. But it was a very humbling experience. I always remember that time because those sort of decisions don't go away. You have to make risky decisions all the time. I just didn't realize it. I thought that was the only time that I had to make a... Yeah. But yeah, that was my beginning. When I got that professional camera, that's when I started diving into video a little bit. People know me as the photographer that does video, but as you know, I enjoy video a lot more than I actually do photos, but that was my start.
Bobby:
How'd you start developing your style that you have? I see you on Instagram. I mean, you have beautiful pictures, portraits...
Sam:
Thanks.
Bobby:
... boudoir. You put these really cool sequences together. How'd you figure out that style that you kind of have online now?
Sam:
Lots of trial and error. The best teacher is experience. You can watch all the YouTube videos you want, you can go to school, you can read all the textbook stuff that they give you. But I literally, I still to this day, I still learn something new every time I go out and shoot, whether it's something about lighting, something about sound design, something about my camera that I didn't know. I'm still shooting with the same cameras I've had for the last couple of years. I'm still learning about them. I'm still figuring out how to get a cleaner picture out of them. It just took a lot of practice. I forced myself to shoot. So I was setting up a lot of collaborative shoots, multiple collaboration shoots during the week, working all weekend, doing different nightlife things. I wasn't working with a lot of lighting in these particular venues. So I got really good at low light shooting because of that. So putting myself in a lot of uncomfortable situations, so to speak, and I'm still sort of developing a style, but I think I've honed in onto what I like and what I don't like.
Bobby:
Do you have anybody that inspires you?
Sam:
Oh yeah. You.
Bobby:
Oh, [crosstalk].
Sam:
Yeah, yeah. When we first met, your video stood out to me on a bigger scale because there was so much effort behind to it. I have a lot of other filmmakers that inspire me, YouTubers, too many to count. I don't know them all by name, unfortunately, photography-wise, but I have a lot of inspiration from other photographers that I follow on social media. But I look at, I think my biggest inspirations are people that are not necessarily in the industry. It's other entrepreneurs that I look up to and follow that know the business world and know what entrepreneurship is. Those are the people that truly inspire me because it doesn't matter what industry you're in, all the rules and the concepts, they're all the same. Business is business.
Sam:
It's just, each industry is different on how you approach that particular business. That's the thing I look at. I'm looking at it more so now as a business instead of a hobby. I think that's where a lot of artists have trouble with progressing. There's a lot of great, great filmmakers, a lot of great photographers, graphic designers, and stuff like that. But sometimes they don't know how to separate the art with the business side. Then it kind of leaves them stuck, so to speak.
Bobby:
Is there anybody that you want to inspire?
Sam:
Yeah. I want to inspire all the, I guess you can call them the newbies. I don't know if that's a good word to describe them, but anybody that's coming into the industry. So cameras are just so much more accessible now that everyone's getting into it. Mind you, you can still see the level of experience. But when I got into it, especially here in Charlotte where the art community is kind of tight, I wasn't welcomed at first. A lot of the photographers and videographers I looked up to didn't even recognize me when I first started up. I kind of want to take that stigma away because the biggest insecurity of an artist is competition. But even in the small/big town of Charlotte, there's very little competition because, for example, you have a different networking pool than I do.
Sam:
It's not common for that networking pool to overlap. You know what I'm saying? I want to inspire those new people that are coming into the industry to not let that tarnish anything that they want to accomplish. Because when I got into it, the first thing I told myself was, "I'm not going to compare myself to anybody else. I'm just going to go into it, figure it out, and do my own thing." To this day, I still don't look at a lot of other people's work because it gets into my head and you're like, "Oh man, I got to do it like they're doing it."
Bobby:
Or get their type of camera.
Sam:
Or get their... Yeah. But when you start thinking that way, you automatically derail from where you originally wanted to go, you know what I'm saying? So those are the people that I really want to inspire. The podcast that I'm starting and hopefully when I get time, the YouTube content that I have in mind is really tailored for those people, for the people that are starting and have questions about the business side, have questions about the technical side, and blah, blah, blah. Everybody thinks about gear as being the main focus. That's really the last thing you should be worried about.
Bobby:
Right. Yeah, limitation of just thinking of gear, but it's about the creativity and the setup [crosstalk] behind it. Do you think you could learn creativity or do you think it's just something that's in [crosstalk] yourself? Or do you have to work on it? Did you always think you were creative?
Sam:
No. Hell no. I grew up playing Call of Duty, man. No, there was not one creative bone in my body. I do think there are people that are just naturally talented, but in the modern world that we live in today, you can learn a lot of those talents and it's just like sharpening a sword, man. You can't really... There's always going to be someone better, but as far as telling a story or playing with different colors or playing with different lighting, setups, or learning sound designed for video, any of those things you can get better at. If you focus at one thing at a time, you can progress into that and then you can start being more creative. The creativity part comes when you are comfortable with something.
Sam:
For example, you can't just pick up a camera and just start being creative. You got to learn how to use the camera first. You got to learn to understand the lighting aspect of it. You can have a great eye, but understanding all the things that compliment your footage or your frames or your photos have a huge impact on your creativity. So I think, yes, there's always going to be someone better, but you can always learn those techniques that those better creators are using and make it something of your own. That's kind of what I've done with my career.
Bobby:
So for being in the content creator space, what's probably the most annoying thing that's probably being in this industry for you?
Sam:
I think the most frustrating thing has been finding an acceptance in the creative space. So what I've noticed with traveling, and mind you, I didn't start traveling until I started doing this. I was always a stay in one spot kind of a guy. But what I noticed was that the creative and artist world is more accepting and I guess more established in metropolitan areas. So in Charlotte, for example, it's really hard to find clients that understand the value of a good content creator. A lot of people have the misconception that you can just kind of just show up and shoot with a camera and that's it, but there's so much more that goes behind it from investing into the right gear, from learning how to light things, to audio, then...
Bobby:
Telling a story.
Sam:
... telling a story, and then we're not even going to talk about the editing, which takes hours.
Bobby:
Yeah, that's the best.
Sam:
Yeah, seriously. But I think that's been the most frustrating part is, I've had people tell me, "I'm not paying for a photo shoot. I can get a photo shoot for free." But showing those people the value between a free product and something you actually invest in or pay for, there's always going to be a difference. You get what you pay for type of a thing. I think that's been the most frustrating thing. But granted, with meeting the right people and networking and investing my time and the right clients, that problem's been going away little by little, but I still find myself working more out of town because I have found clients in different, like I said, more established cities that understand it already. They're like, "Hey man, I need you to do your thing with this." They don't even ask questions, you know?
Bobby:
That's the best.
Sam:
Yeah. You give them your price. They're like, "Cool, man. Let's do it." Not, "Well, could you help me out a little bit?" "Well, here's the thing. I have to invest in this and this and this." At first, I didn't know how to handle that, but now I'm like, "That's not my problem. You want me to show up and shoot your project that you want to invest 500 bucks in with my $3,000 camera? It just doesn't make sense. This doesn't equate." A lot of people just think on the shooting aspect, but they don't think about the pre-production, the pre-planning, and that post-production, the delivery. I mean, there's just so much goes on with it.
Bobby:
Yeah, lots of hours go into it.
Sam:
Yeah. So I feel like Charlotte being a banking city and real estate and restaurant and stuff like that, I still feel like they have more time to understand that. It's growing. Charlotte is growing. I mean, I've been here since '03. So I understand, I have seen the progress and there's a ton of talent here in this city and people doing what I do and making a living off of it. So it is getting better, but that has been the most frustrating part.
Bobby:
Yeah, it is definitely frustrating. I think the pandemic helped a little bit, a little bit.
Sam:
The pandemic helped a lot. It's kind of like...
Bobby:
Kind of open people up, like, "Dang, we need to get in front of people and the best way to do that is film or pictures or whatever it is." And they're trying to figure out like, this is like treating your Instagram like a mini, whatchamacallit? Not webinar, but...
Sam:
Portfolio?
Bobby:
Portfolio or website or anything of the such, people see it and they really judge people on just what they see and doing your work on their page, it's tenfold. They're probably getting a better ROI than what they paid [inaudible].
Sam:
Yeah, they're calling Instagram the new portfolio. I mean, granted, I've been doing this for almost four years and I still don't have a website for any of my brands. I'm just now creating a website because I see the value in it. But before, I just didn't think I needed it because I've literally gotten 90% of my clientele off of Instagram alone. Going into that, you don't plan for that. You don't say, "Oh, I'm going to get all my clientele from Instagram." It just happened. It just happened. I just got into it at the right time.
Bobby:
So what's next for you? What's the future look like?
Sam:
So not to get into too much detail, but I am refocusing and rebranding a lot with all of my brands and I'm focusing more so on video production because that's what I love to do. Like I said, I'm known as a photographer that shoots video. I kind of want to change that now. Doing what I've been doing for four years, it's taking some time and some pre-thought into how I'm going to do that because I've structured everything on photos, photos, photos, photos. Now I have to backtrack and figure out I'm going to do that. It's started making me realize I have a lot to learn about filming, a lot, because creating concepts for photo shoots and creating concepts for a video shoot are completely different things. So it's a humbling experience. It's humbling.
Sam:
I'm realizing how much of a beginner I still am in that world. But that's the focus now. I just, I enjoy it more. Like I said, I want to do more YouTube content, podcasting, filming fun, little commercial ads for social media or whatever, music videos, even though music videos don't have a lot of money into them, that would probably be my creative outlet is finding a good music video project that I can sink my teeth into, so to speak. But that's the plan.
Bobby:
Nice, dude.
Sam:
Video production is the plan. It's going to take some time to get there.
Bobby:
That's the best way to think about it, always think you're a beginner.
Sam:
That's for sure.
Bobby:
Yeah, [crosstalk] think you're a beginner, because then you always want to learn something new.
Sam:
Haven't you ever gone to a shoot and you're like, "Yeah, I killed that shit?"
Bobby:
Sometimes, then when I I get back into the editing, I'm like, "Dude, this sucks."
Sam:
Yeah, exactly. That's why I don't ever think that I killed the shoot. I'm like, "Man, I hope that came back good."
Bobby:
Yeah, was the lighting perfect on that? I think I did something wrong.
Sam:
Yeah.
Bobby:
That's always the worst.
Sam:
Yeah, man.
Bobby:
But let's cut it straight here. If you guys want to get ahold of Sam, I'm going to put everything in the description below, all his channels, email, whatever. But thanks again, Sam, dude.
Sam:
Thank you, man.
Bobby:
Best in Charlotte and the Carolinas.
Sam:
Thank you.
Bobby:
Anybody that's wants pictures or even video, dude, hit this guy up. He's so talented.
Sam:
Thank you, man. Thank you. So are you. I mean, obviously.
Bobby:
Cut.