Season 2 · Episode 20

Shawn Lee Jones of Creative Healing Foundation and G6 Landscaping

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0:01Welcome, welcome, welcome to Alienize Photos Industry Talk
0:07with your host, photographer Jackson Steve Jackson
0:10at Alienize Photos Media.
0:14And I have a special, special, special, special guest,
0:18Mr. Sean Lee Jones, a veteran entrepreneur,
0:23photographer, filmmaker, community builder
0:25whose life reflects service, creativity,
0:28resilience, and legacy, which is important.
0:33After serving 17 years, six months, and five days
0:37to be exact in the military, Sean redirected,
0:42Sean redirected his discipline and leadership
0:45into entrepreneurship.
0:48He is the president of G6 Landscaping and Snow Removal
0:53and Ohio Sea Corporation,
0:55built around battery-powered landscaping operations,
0:59efficiency, and sustainable growth.
1:03He is also the co-founder of Creative Feeling Foundation,
1:07where photography, media, storytelling, and agriculture,
1:10and creative education are used to strengthen
1:13individuals and communities.
1:16Through Liquid Vision Film,
1:21Sean continues his work as visual storyteller,
1:24documenting people, organization, events,
1:27and meaningful life experiences.
1:30His business journey is deeply connected
1:33into family, mentorship, ownership,
1:36and generational legacy.
1:39Sean believes success is not simply measured
1:41by money or recognition,
1:44but by the ability to create opportunity
1:46should knowledge serve others
1:48and leave something meaningful for the next generation.
1:52That's right.
1:53Sean Lee Jones, my brother, my mentor, how you doing?
1:57Hey, bro, I'm glad we was able to get this sit down.
2:00Our schedules finally came together
2:02and we were able to make something happen, right?
2:04Yeah, we are here, we are here, we're here.
2:07It came a long way, so it's gonna,
2:09just the next phase is exciting to see where it go.
2:14Yes, sir.
2:15And it's funny, I think about, oop.
2:19Man down.
2:19We got equipment falling, that's never a good sign.
2:25But it happens.
2:26Yes, it happens, it happens, it happens.
2:30But you just think about G6, it's like,
2:33wow, we kind of knew each other for six, six years,
2:36so that's right on point.
2:38But for the community that may not know G6,
2:42what is G6?
2:43So G6 is?
2:49The sixth letter after the alphabet.
2:51It really is, right?
2:53A, B, C, D, E, E.
2:54Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:56It's the sixth letter in the alphabet
2:57and everybody always ask what G6 is.
3:01How did you come up with that?
3:03Is there some particular meaning to the G or the six?
3:11And all it really is is a representation
3:17of why I do this, what keeps me on focus.
3:22At the time, it was my six grandkids.
3:25Okay.
3:26Now there's seven,
3:27so I'm gonna come up with something else for him.
3:30But for the six that started it,
3:34it was just about building legacy,
3:36trying to figure out what to name it.
3:41G6 has this introduction before it even had a name.
3:50And that was, I wanna say, six years prior.
3:53Wow, yeah.
3:55Yeah, so it was six years before it even got a name, G6.
4:00In 2016, I bought my first Ego more
4:06and had a really small yard.
4:08Yard wasn't as big as this room.
4:11And the battery just cut the grass two, three times
4:14and still had battery.
4:16At the time, I was pushing a five amp hour battery
4:21on one 21 inch more
4:25and had enough to do my yard.
4:27I would then jump over to Ms. Dot's yard, my neighbor.
4:30I would do her front yard.
4:32And then I had another neighbor on the other side of me.
4:36I would do her yard.
4:39And then I would jump across the street
4:41and do another yard.
4:44Then there was a field next door to that
4:46that I would do that
4:47because that's where I walk my dog at.
4:50So all of that was still operating on one battery
4:53and not having to go to the gas station.
4:59The whole idea of landscaping from that was just there.
5:03I mean, just cutting grass.
5:04It wasn't even landscaping.
5:05Just cutting grass was different
5:06because you didn't have to do all of the preparations.
5:09Went and grabbed a more proper battery in there
5:11and you was gone.
5:13Battery, when it did die,
5:14put it on the charger, charge up.
5:16You're gonna go do whatever you're gonna do.
5:19And then you come back, battery charged,
5:21pop it back in and you go.
5:23You wasn't dealing with no oils, no spark plugs,
5:28no, you know, no gas.
5:31And it just, the idea behind it as a young kid,
5:34I used to go down south
5:36and I would be sent down to cut grass,
5:3910, 11, 12 years old.
5:41And it was work.
5:43I remember it at work
5:45because you had to pull the lawn mower out of the shed,
5:48help you get stung by no bees.
5:51You didn't get chased out, you know, in that aspect.
5:55Then dealing with the spark plug.
5:57You gotta go find some gas.
5:58You got the gas can.
5:59You gotta go, somebody take you to the gas station
6:02and get the, it was a whole build out
6:04to just cut the grass.
6:07And when I came back up north and up to Cleveland,
6:10we stayed at the projects.
6:12So we didn't have no grass.
6:13The maintenance men cut the grass, you know.
6:16So where there was grass, there it is.
6:18And I used to always think like, wow, you know,
6:21if we went up to the heights and cut grass,
6:25we could make money,
6:26but we ain't had no grass.
6:30We didn't even have one.
6:33So I fast forward through all of growing up,
6:382016 turns into 2017.
6:42Key Bank comes on to Kimberly Street
6:44and they do this whole block cleanup thing.
6:47And I'm like, oh cool, I'm gonna participate in that
6:50and see how many yards I can cut.
6:53And I cut like 11 to 14 yards on that,
6:56just front yards on that street.
7:00And my feet was killing me though.
7:07I said, well, if they ever come out with a zero turn,
7:10I wanna see what that does.
7:17For those who don't know what a zero turn is,
7:19what's a zero turn?
7:20Zero turn is the riding lawn mower that you sit on.
7:23You got the little controllers on it.
7:25Go-kart with blades on it.
7:27Go-kart.
7:28Go-kart on the grass.
7:29Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:31It's a good way to look at it.
7:32So if you've never rode one, it's fun.
7:36It's a grown man's toy.
7:38You get a chance to get something accomplished
7:41at the same time.
7:41You get a chance to have some fun
7:43and relax at the same time.
7:45You're concentrating on what you're doing.
7:48It's not work first of all.
7:51It's accomplishing something that you putting pride into.
7:55You're putting your attention into it
7:57and you're not rushing through it.
7:59So it becomes enjoyable.
8:042020, they came out with it.
8:07And I told my wife, I said,
8:08look, I gotta get one of those.
8:10I got this idea of this landscaping business.
8:14I'm about to retire in a couple of more years.
8:18And if I can do what I wanna do,
8:22I just wanna make enough money cutting grass
8:24so I can take you on a trip once a year.
8:26So I figure six, seven grand cutting grass
8:29is not many yards, not many flowers planted
8:32and all of that.
8:33And that was the thought process.
8:36And from there, it grew wings.
8:40First year I went out and I did it like that.
8:44I didn't have a truck at first.
8:45That was the first part about it.
8:47I didn't have a truck.
8:48I had an SUV.
8:50So that was his own process.
8:53And I finally transitioned over to a truck,
8:56which was the best, oh man, the best.
8:58Great investment.
8:59Great investment, great investment.
9:01Always understood the importance of a man having a truck.
9:04But when I had a buddy in Texas
9:06that used to tell me all the time,
9:08Pat, he was like, man, you need to get a truck.
9:09Man, ain't nobody gonna take you seriously.
9:12Trailer and no truck.
9:13I'm like, man, but I got a MDX.
9:15I'm pulling a trailer with the MDX.
9:18I can drive this trailer.
9:19And then I can steal, skrrt, skrrt.
9:21And you know, I enjoyed that.
9:24That was one of the best vehicles
9:28I ever had the experience of driving.
9:34Great ride.
9:35Acura did their thing.
9:36It was a 2016 in itself.
9:38And I enjoyed that build.
9:42But I had to go to the truck.
9:44I got it with South Euclid.
9:46I ran into a young lady that worked in
9:50the one South Euclid nonprofit.
9:52And one day we was just talking at the park
9:54and she was like, Sean, what do you do?
9:56And I went down the list.
9:58Well, I'm trying to retire from VA.
10:01I'm a veteran.
10:03She's like, you're just a renaissance, man.
10:04You just do everything, huh?
10:06Cause I had my camera with me.
10:07I was taking pictures that day.
10:09And from there, she told me about the senior program.
10:16But somehow we got into talking about cutting grass
10:18and all that stuff.
10:19And she told me, well, if you had a truck
10:20and you can do snow removal,
10:23you can do senior program.
10:25And I was like, oh, that's right on my alley.
10:27That's what I wanna do.
10:28I don't wanna charge people for cutting the grass
10:31cause I don't wanna have to deal with that aspect of it.
10:34I'm not in it for the money.
10:36So that's not truly important with me.
10:39I'm cutting seniors and veterans grass
10:41and you still gonna pay me for it on top of it?
10:44Oh, that's a win or win.
10:48I looked at landscaping, the entry into it
10:51has always been the equipment.
10:54Nobody wants to buy a lawn mower,
10:56especially if you don't got a house.
11:01Nobody, what am I gonna do with a lawn mower?
11:02I'm gonna spend six, seven, $800 on a lawn mower.
11:05For what?
11:06I can do all of this with that instead of a lawn mower.
11:09And I just understood what lawn mowers do.
11:13And when you take the gas aspect out of it,
11:17the profit margin, the money just changed.
11:21It's just been a great thing.
11:23Yeah, especially as the gas prices steadily increase,
11:27like it's out of control.
11:30This season here has been one for the records.
11:35And every landscaper that I've talked to,
11:37they feel it, they feel it at the pump.
11:39It's been a whole thing across the whole industry
11:41on the web that's dealing with going electric,
11:47one, and raising prices.
11:51Miss Smith been paying $25 for the last 14 years
11:57to get her grass cut bi-weekly is what they consider it.
12:03And now prices end up, that one yard and that's $50.
12:08And Miss Smith ain't trying to pay it,
12:10but she don't understand how that price went up.
12:17I understand, okay, gas prices went up.
12:18I understand grocery prices went up,
12:20but you're gonna raise the price
12:23on doing the same service that you've been doing?
12:27Oh, explain it to me.
12:28And that drives them a little bit
12:31toward battery-operated equipment,
12:34but they'll go purchase it themselves, which is cool.
12:38Great for the environment,
12:40but at the same time, the landscapers are like,
12:42hey, hold on, gotta go up on these prices
12:46and the average person just not gonna get out there
12:48and do a great job.
12:51Well, it sounds like processes and systems is important.
12:58I guess I stumbled on this.
13:00It wasn't intended to be what it is
13:03and the future of where I'm looking for it to go is off.
13:08The imagination is just so vast.
13:12I mean, you can make it what you wanna make it,
13:15but at the same time,
13:17I'm looking and thinking into franchising,
13:20I'm looking and thinking into youth entrepreneurial programs,
13:26just building it out.
13:28I mean, in this, I had a,
13:30so one of the other things that got me into this was,
13:32or is, a neighbor that I have, Brother Anderson.
13:37Shout out to Brother Anderson.
13:40Brother Anderson is 96 years old.
13:44He'll be 97 come this upcoming March in 2027.
13:53When I first moved into South Euclid,
14:01Arkansas dude moved into Cleveland in like the 1940s
14:06and he talked to me like I was here with him
14:08when he moved here.
14:10So it was just the coolest conversations.
14:12Yeah, you remember, Brother Anderson.
14:15St. Clair looked completely different
14:17when you saw it for the first time
14:20and when I go to it now.
14:23And from there, I just seen what he was doing.
14:26He got up every day.
14:31He cut grass until he was 95.
14:3495, that's when he called me and told me I'm done.
14:40And at that time, I was into my second, third year of cutting.
14:48So he said, listen, I'm gonna do the first year.
14:51Now this is to catch with it
14:52because the first year he did his yard
14:54and two yards on the side of it.
14:57That's 95.
14:5996, he just started doing his own yard.
15:04So looking at him and what he was doing,
15:07he was one, staying busy.
15:10Two, he wasn't a troublemaker, wasn't in any trouble.
15:14And he was helpful to the community.
15:19The South Euclid Magazine did a nice write-up on him
15:22at one point when I moved into the neighborhood
15:25and got a chance to hear his story,
15:28how he got into it.
15:29He got into landscaping.
15:31And what I learned also was
15:33there's a difference between landscaping
15:35and yard maintenance.
15:37Cutting grass is just yard maintenance.
15:39A whole different level than landscaping.
15:43Culturally, we just see somebody outside in the yard
15:46and they raking, blowing leaves or whatever
15:49and we just give them the title of landscaping.
15:55You get into the industry,
15:57you learn the different terminology,
15:59you learn how and why it's different
16:05and the prices come.
16:06And then the different services you do come.
16:10Because people gonna ask you to do everything.
16:11They want you to cut this branch down here.
16:13They want you to move this plant here to here.
16:16They want you to throw mulch here.
16:18So it gets more and more from just cutting grass.
16:22But at the same time, myself,
16:28I have to figure how do you build this out?
16:30How do you grow the team?
16:32It's money.
16:33So, hey, let me pay somebody else to do this.
16:37And when you find someone that wants to work
16:39for a fair wage, you explain to them,
16:43hey, listen, this isn't hourly work right here.
16:46This is production.
16:49You get paid based on what you do.
16:50You go cut this yard, you get paid.
16:52You don't come in and clock in for six hours
16:54and make $10 an hour,
16:57but you can go cut this yard over here and make $20.
17:00Go make this $20 and be done in three hours.
17:04For a kid, when I say kid,
17:06I'm talking about 15, 16 year old, maybe 17.
17:14That's enough in a sense.
17:17It's enough work and it's enough in your pocket
17:19for you to go do what you want to do.
17:22That's one day, but what if you do two days?
17:24What if you do three days?
17:27What if you learn something else to do
17:30with that tool over there
17:31and now you can go knock on somebody's door and say,
17:36this is my resume, this is what I can do.
17:39What service can I offer you?
17:42And then that comes into the training aspect
17:44and then that gets into the entrepreneurial part
17:48of one, being creative,
17:50two, wanting to have some bread in your pocket.
17:54As I've grown, I learned.
18:00When you get to the point where you want to be productive,
18:04it's best to find something positive to get.
18:08The negative stuff is going to be.
18:11If you go down that wrong path
18:13and you end up in the wrong situation at a young age
18:16just because you're trying to put some money
18:18in your pocket so you can impress this girl
18:20or you can go hang out with your fellas,
18:24life can fuck you up real,
18:25I don't know if I can say that on here or not,
18:28throw you a curve real quick
18:30and some brothers don't recover from those
18:33and it's already hard becoming a man,
18:41a black man stereotype because we're different.
18:48It's a little different.
18:51So finding something positive to get into
18:53that's going to put some money in your pocket
18:55is how G6 is building its legacy on helping
19:02young entrepreneurs are more focused,
19:06more mission driven and let me teach you something.
19:08Let me show you something,
19:09because the other part about it is
19:11when you're in a truck and you ride,
19:15you can do a couple of different things
19:17from point A to point B,
19:20but when you turn the music off
19:21and it's just a hum of the engine
19:24and now you're getting familiar with one another,
19:28conversation, now you got a young soul
19:32that's willing to open up and have a conversation
19:36with an older soul and hopefully that older soul
19:40has some wisdom to him and now he can pass on
19:43to that 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 year old and so on
19:48because at that point, it's how we learn,
19:54seeing, doing, hearing, you start asking questions
19:59and they do and that's the coolest part to it about me,
20:02when I get around the younger guys
20:05and open up and start asking questions,
20:09they start talking about and coming from that
20:13understanding and knowing that it don't happen
20:17the way that you want it to happen
20:18and it definitely don't happen in the timeline
20:21that you want it to happen in.
20:22Yeah, for sure.
20:26I know when I asked you to send your bio,
20:30you also recommended that you ask your mother
20:33to write a bio about you.
20:35Yeah, that was coincidental on that part.
20:42My mother's birthday was on the 5th
20:45and I'm in the process of putting something together
20:49for her and at the same time, you asked me that,
20:53it was, hey, man, check this out, what would you say?
20:58And it just came out that way
20:59and she sent me her thing and I said,
21:04okay, we got the ability now to throw it into chat GPT
21:09and chat GTT said, hey, listen,
21:12I'm gonna keep the same language
21:14and the same tone directions here and there
21:20within the way this was written
21:22and then it came out like, man,
21:23I said, oh wow, that's how that came about.
21:30But I thank you, cause if you never would have asked me
21:33and I asked her and it never wouldn't have got
21:36back to you.
21:37The conversation and yeah, one thing she said was,
21:41you know, you ask the questions
21:43and you research before doing something
21:46and that's something that you instill back into the youth.
21:49I see that, yeah.
21:51Yeah, that's how I, I mean, it's helped me
21:54through life, you know, being able to have people
21:57to ask questions, cause sometimes you have people
22:00that you can't ask questions, you know.
22:03Some people don't know the answers to the questions
22:06that you may ask and some people,
22:09they'll just tell you anything.
22:11Maybe because they just like talking
22:14or maybe because they just don't wanna feel
22:16like they don't know.
22:17But when you're asking questions,
22:19my grandfather used to tell me this thing
22:22where he said, don't ever ask a question
22:23that you don't know the answer to.
22:31Hit me a certain type of way.
22:32I remember when I was younger
22:35and in life, it got me to that point
22:38where if I'm gonna ask you a question about something,
22:41at least I wanna have some information about it.
22:43I don't wanna ask you about a subject
22:49that I have no interest in.
22:51Right.
22:52How do I know what you're telling me is the truth?
22:55I'm just gonna listen to what somebody else say.
23:00My grandfather used to always say,
23:02have your own mind, think for yourself.
23:04I remember them words, yeah.
23:07You're gonna have somebody else always think for you.
23:11Yeah, you live in their life.
23:12You live in the life that they want you to live.
23:15So that's some Pearson words
23:20because we live in an age of AI
23:22where a lot of people are stuck with this technology
23:26and always on AI,
23:29which a computer is thinking for them
23:32and not a human thinking for themselves.
23:35So how do we balance the two
23:39where we use this as research
23:41and also as a thinking partner,
23:44but we may become overly consumed with it
23:47versus going back to meditating and reading
23:50and journaling your thoughts?
23:53For everybody is different
23:56and everybody wakes up at a different point.
24:04There's a generation now, they're growing up with it.
24:07They're not gonna have the understanding
24:09of what life was without it.
24:12So that in itself is gonna make a really big difference
24:17in the future as we move forward
24:20because it's like, looking at my age group, 51,
24:28our grandparents, 9.9 out of 10,
24:32had outhouses when they were moved up,
24:38got grown, moved to the city,
24:39they had indoor plumbing.
24:42But when they went back down south,
24:44they still had outhouses, had to learn how to,
24:49they learned to deal with both.
24:50It wasn't a thing about going back to the outhouse
24:53because you knew where you had to go to relieve yourself.
25:00I'm saying that to say the difference is gonna be
25:03for my generation coming into this
25:05and the generation above me,
25:08learning to use it productively,
25:15just becoming consumers of information.
25:19People can tell you any and everything.
25:22I love watching these videos
25:23where somebody's telling you what to do.
25:30Where's the expertise in them to tell you what to do?
25:36We don't even look at it like that anymore.
25:39Media, although it was screwed, was censored.
25:43You could only put factual information out.
25:47You couldn't talk down about a particular product
25:53unless you did it in a certain way, things like that.
25:58Now, you can say whatever you want to say.
26:01This is as good, as bad, as indifferent, whatever.
26:04And somebody's gonna look at it
26:06and then they have to determine for themselves
26:08how they're gonna use that information.
26:11And that's the scariest part
26:13because when somebody come to you,
26:15like say your daughter,
26:16she come to you and she say,
26:18daddy, this right here is what I was told
26:21and I shouldn't eat broccoli anymore.
26:30Somebody on Facebook said broccoli was nasty, dude.
26:35It had lead in it and it tastes like coppers.
26:40I'm just throwing stuff out there.
26:43But at the same time, somebody formed an opinion about it
26:46and to get likes or a post or whatever,
26:49that's what they put out there.
26:51Somebody gonna like this.
26:52I've seen a video.
26:55You get to see the videos of people killing people.
26:57I mean, this isn't a movie.
26:58This is really live video.
27:01Oh, he just shot her.
27:04She dead and you're getting exposed to that
27:09because it's available through technology.
27:11And now they got the AI videos
27:13where you don't know the video real or not.
27:15So now you looking to see,
27:17okay, yeah, that's out of context.
27:19Yeah, that's not a real video.
27:24So yeah, but I'm glad it's here.
27:26I'm glad I get a chance to experience it.
27:28It's been fun.
27:29Yeah, that's like bending the dimensions and reality
27:36like combining and transforming life into reality
27:44mixed with technology,
27:46mixed with the metaverses and stuff like that,
27:50which is, it's a lot.
27:52It's a wild, yeah, it's a lot.
27:56Back in that day, my biggest thing was
27:59like being an astronaut.
28:03Now you add this technology layer to it.
28:08Like what is the astronaut?
28:10You don't even have to be an astronaut anymore
28:13to see what outer space looks like.
28:15You don't have to be an astronaut
28:16to even see what outer space feels like.
28:19They got places you can go
28:20to get that experience right here.
28:23So like you say, yeah,
28:24what is being an astronaut today
28:26compared to being an astronaut in the 60s and the 70s?
28:31Yeah, it was a...
28:33I didn't even know it was,
28:34that was something that people actually became
28:38in that sense where you would just say,
28:40hey, I wanna be an astronaut
28:41and then you go to school to become an astronaut.
28:45Yeah.
28:47That's kind of funny because a lot of people in school,
28:51what you wanna be when you grow up?
28:52I wanna be a firefighter, I wanna be a police,
28:55or I wanna be a doctor.
28:56And I just, my big mind, I'm like,
28:58I wanna do something different.
28:59I wanna be what everybody else wanna be
29:02or do what everybody else do.
29:03I wanna be an astronaut,
29:05not even knowing what an astronaut was at the time.
29:08So it's like, wow.
29:10And now everybody call me alien.
29:12So it's like, it never left me in a sense,
29:16just that bigger picture, that outer space,
29:23that thinking bigger.
29:25Outside the box.
29:27Yeah.
29:27Where everybody else is.
29:28No box, having no box.
29:30Yeah, having no box.
29:31And that's, you know, like you say,
29:32and growing up in school,
29:34that's the first thing they put us in is a box
29:36to say, okay, what do you wanna be?
29:38That part, yeah.
29:38And you have to figure it out
29:40and determine your life course
29:44based on what you see as you wanted to be.
29:47Not having any input on why you were put here
29:51in the first place.
29:52What were you put here to be?
29:53What were you put here to do?
29:54Who were you put here to help?
29:56How were you put here to help whom?
29:58All right.
30:01And that takes it to a whole different level
30:03because now we're in positions
30:05because we were taught to get a job,
30:07to go to work, to earn money
30:10so that we could pay bills.
30:13I tell kids, and I'm talking to them,
30:15I say, listen, stay home as long as you can.
30:18But don't be a freeloader, you know?
30:21Don't come to the point where, okay,
30:23just because you can still stay in your parents' home,
30:25you're not contributing.
30:28You know?
30:28Figure out, like I told one cat,
30:30I said, hey man, listen,
30:31go home and I'll just ask for the sewer bill.
30:34Just tell him, you know, don't worry about it.
30:35I'm gonna pay the sewer bill.
30:36He said, sewer bill?
30:38Well, what's the sewer bill?
30:39Like, yeah, exactly, you know?
30:41Still that training, too.
30:43Getting to that point of understanding,
30:45just because you made some money.
30:47I had another cat tell me,
30:48he had some money in his pocket
30:49and he was burning a hole in his pocket.
30:51He wanted to stop at the store
30:52and he wanted to grab something here
30:53and he wanted to stop
30:54and he wanted to grab something here.
30:55And it's like, okay, you know what?
30:57It's cool, you can spend your money like that
30:59because guess what?
30:59You don't got no responsibility.
31:01You're 17, right?
31:02Enjoy it.
31:03Because in a minute, you're gonna be 18.
31:06And when you get 18, guess what?
31:08Now you're gonna come certain responsibilities.
31:10Now you gotta, your clothes are dirty.
31:13Yeah, mom's bought the detergent
31:15or sent you to the store to get the detergent.
31:19Now you gotta provide the detergent.
31:22Where you gonna wash your clothes at?
31:24Yeah, there's a laundry man up on the corner.
31:28Now you gotta go get the quarters.
31:30But you didn't know it cost $7 a load.
31:34And you're looking for free dry.
31:38And those are the things and the hurdles in life
31:40that I wanna help young people avoid.
31:45I wanna help young people understand
31:47that yeah, this is what's next.
31:51You need to get prepared for it now
31:52because it's coming.
31:53It ain't that it's not coming, it's coming.
31:55It's here.
31:56Yeah, yeah, you just 17 now.
31:59Wait till you're 19.
32:0219, what do you think 21 gonna look like?
32:04Feel like it.
32:06You ain't been 25 yet, but guess what?
32:08I have.
32:10And to get that break in the insurance costs,
32:12oh, that feel like money in your pocket.
32:18But at the same time, what do you do with it?
32:26Well, I say even when it's out of your pocket,
32:29because like you said, you could spend it
32:31and you could save it, you can invest it,
32:33you could donate it, invest in yourself,
32:37which is the biggest thing you can do.
32:41When I was a young younger guy,
32:44had a photographer,
32:45because all I ever wanted to do was be a photographer.
32:48I just wanted to take pictures, make a living.
32:54When was the first time you picked up a camera?
32:56Your very first camera.
32:57The very first time I picked up a camera,
32:59I was probably about five or six years old
33:02in Cincinnati.
33:05And attic, my aunt Juro, my grandmother's sister,
33:10they had all of this stuff
33:12that was just up in the attic.
33:14And I don't know what we were doing down there,
33:16but I found this little camera.
33:19And I was going around, I didn't have no film,
33:21but all of the buttons worked and it made noise.
33:23And I went around and I'm ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.
33:26And that's the earliest I remember.
33:29I have a lot of memories with cameras.
33:32It wasn't until high school
33:37that I made the determination
33:39that that's what I really wanted to do.
33:42But I was going to school for dental technology,
33:44so I learned how to make crowns and bridges
33:45in high school.
33:47And then high school gave me a trajectory in life,
33:52because I only did three years of high school.
33:54So that fourth year,
33:56I was already working in a dental lab,
33:59living the life of an adult,
34:02living in my parents' basement.
34:06I couldn't say no more.
34:08Full-time job, got up every morning,
34:11went to work five days a week,
34:12but I couldn't say no more.
34:14So I had to figure, ask the questions for myself.
34:18Why can't I save no money?
34:20I want to give me a car, I want to move out,
34:23give me an apartment, but everything costs.
34:27But why can't I save any money?
34:29So I had to go through the process of figuring that out,
34:32and then I had to say,
34:33okay, I'm going to change that,
34:36because now I'm going to save me some money,
34:38because that's important.
34:40So I had to give up some things,
34:41and I got to that point,
34:42saved a few dollars up,
34:44and still didn't have enough to give me a camera.
34:48So I joined the army,
34:51and joining the army,
34:52my whole goal was to buy me a camera.
34:58The same bridge that I saw just two years prior,
35:03being laid down by the army engineers
35:06going over into Bosnia from Hungary.
35:08I remember laying on the floor
35:11in the living room, watching TV,
35:15and big news, CNN talking about them laying this bridge
35:19and how they did it and everything.
35:21I'm just talking down on them.
35:23Oh man, they some fools going over there,
35:26fighting this war and all of this stuff
35:27and everything like that.
35:30And two years later, I crossed the same bridge.
35:33So it was a life lesson for me.
35:36Well, I think it goes back to that exposure,
35:38you know, what you exposed to.
35:41Would it kind of unconsciously be coming in your mind
35:45and you see it on TV?
35:50Also, look at it like you had this ambition
35:53to get what you wanted.
35:55You wanted that camera, you wanted to purchase that,
35:58and you found it.
36:01You know, and when you bring it all together,
36:04I really just didn't want to fuck up.
36:06I really just didn't want to.
36:07Like in life?
36:08In life, I really just didn't want to be a fuck up.
36:10I really just didn't want to find myself
36:12in a situation where I wasn't moving forward.
36:16You know, the dental lab was the starting point
36:19of I don't want to do this for,
36:25and I learned that in less than three years.
36:28It was like two and a half years, I learned that.
36:31You telling me I got to do this
36:33for another 40 years to retire?
36:37And then they said, well, if you joined the military,
36:40you only got to do 20 years, so you cut that in half.
36:43But then they said, when you join the military,
36:46you got to go active, and you got to do 20 years active
36:48to retire in 20 years.
36:51So it was like all of these different,
36:52you get a little information,
36:54and then the rabbit hole get a little deeper,
36:56and it's like, okay.
36:58And then I found out, they said, hey, listen,
37:00once you get in the military, just don't ever get out.
37:04Stay in for as long as you can.
37:08I did that, and that put me at 17 years,
37:11six months, and five days.
37:13And I'm proud of that time,
37:15because although everything that I looked to do in my life,
37:22I wasn't always making the right choices.
37:29But I learned how to not give up,
37:36to keep the vision, to let the passion burn enough
37:40to the point where I didn't have cameras
37:46over and over again.
37:49I gave it up twice.
37:51When I met you, you don't know,
37:54but that was the first time I had been out shooting
37:56in like five years.
38:00And that was me trying to figure out,
38:02okay, if I'm gonna get back into this,
38:04how do I wanna get back into it?
38:06Because the first time I got into it,
38:08I was just shooting Polaroids.
38:10And I was doing the bars,
38:12because that was $5 a shot.
38:15And at $5 a shot, that was enough money in your pocket
38:18from the dope boys and the girls dressing up
38:22on Friday and Saturday night to say,
38:25man, now if I can do this, this,
38:27and get a birthday party here,
38:30and do a wedding in the summer.
38:33And then I'm looking and I'm finding out
38:34what people are charging for these things.
38:36And it's like, wow, you can take something
38:39that's worth $2 and sell it for $20?
38:46Because you added value to it
38:48because of what you put on.
38:52Those numbers make sense to me.
38:54And that's how I saw it.
38:57And the 80s, I grew up through that,
38:59running into the 90s.
39:02Economy started doing what it was doing in 94, 95, 96.
39:10And I was thankful to be able to take that move
39:13and move forward and join the service.
39:17Again, I only did three and a half years active with that.
39:23So life for me, time-wise,
39:26has just always been broken up a little different
39:30than traditionally how they say you gotta do it.
39:33You gotta do four years in the military.
39:36Then they say if you do four, you might as well do eight.
39:38If you do eight, you might as well do 12.
39:39If you do 12, you might as well go ahead
39:41and retire out of there in 20.
39:42And we don't have the hindsight moving forward
39:48to see where that's a good idea.
39:51Because we're looking at saying, man,
39:53I know what I wanna do next year.
39:55I know what I wanna do next season.
39:58I know what I want for Christmas.
40:01So how does that play a part in the decisions
40:06that we make moving forward?
40:13Wanna stop in, definitely wanna say thank you
40:15for your service, service and time.
40:19I definitely appreciate it.
40:23But kind of shifting gears,
40:27I know you said you was getting back into photography
40:30like when you first met me
40:31and I was just starting my photography journey.
40:35Like just thinking back as a child, kindergarten,
40:38five years old, six years old,
40:40going to the zoo for a field trip
40:43and my mother purchased a little 12-shot camera
40:46and wound it up.
40:48And I remember wasting all my shots
40:51as soon as we got off the bus, just a little animal.
40:55I only got like two shots.
40:56I'm seeing a number at the bottom.
40:58I was like, is that the, let me see.
41:00Yep, it changed.
41:02I got one shot left.
41:05And that was my first moment.
41:07So holding the camera,
41:08experiencing the camera in the film days.
41:10I'm like, wow, never saw that film ever
41:13but just the experience of this,
41:16taking a picture I always love.
41:17Like, wow, I could freeze time,
41:21capture a moment and remember it now.
41:24It's digital.
41:24You can really remember it instantly.
41:26You can see it instantly.
41:27You can do so much digitally now
41:29where it's not even the camera anymore.
41:32It's the, you have a phone
41:34and get as creative as you wanna get where,
41:38like I've done a wedding on a phone before.
41:40And when I first, it was a guy that taught me photography.
41:45One of my first mentors, Mickey.
41:48And Mickey used to take a camera
41:51and he'll throw what he called a hammer on it.
41:54And then he'll put a light on it.
41:57And then he'll put a soft box on it.
41:59And if you've never seen all of those things,
42:01it's like, wow.
42:03I mean, and it looks professional.
42:08It looks polished.
42:09It looks like, man, he took care of that, you know?
42:14So the idea behind, it was a piece of equipment
42:18that he just took and transformed into something else
42:21that was just, and then learning what everything did.
42:25The hammer was so you could mount the flash.
42:28The flash needed to sit above the lens
42:30so it could run so that it can push the light
42:35through the shadows.
42:36The soft box was so that it can soften the light.
42:39And you wouldn't get hard shadows.
42:41So once you learned all of those things for myself,
42:45it got really interesting.
42:46Because now I knew something
42:50and it was just always interesting
42:51that nobody else wanna learn.
42:53It was like, they were too intimidated
42:56by all of the knobs and the numbers and everything.
42:59And that was the most exciting thing for me
43:01about the camera.
43:02Yeah, it was like math.
43:03Yeah, yeah, it was literally, it's math.
43:06It's solving a problem.
43:07And when I first started with Polaroid,
43:11and you said you had one shot left,
43:13you started off with one shot.
43:15So you had to not only learn how to compose the shot,
43:19you had to make sure, and the Polaroids are light hogs.
43:22Oh wow, they ambient light don't got nothing
43:27on the Polaroid.
43:28You about to have the blackest, darkest picture.
43:30You know who it is just because you took it
43:33and you knew what that scenery was.
43:35But yeah, you ever look through somebody's photo album
43:37and you get to the Polaroids and it's like,
43:41yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:45And I learned that way.
43:47And then I was tested.
43:50And the test came into, now go take a shot.
43:56Now did somebody, did they like that shot?
43:58Because if they liked that shot,
43:59they gonna give you $5.
44:01And they give you $5, you owe me a dollar
44:03because that's how much the film costs
44:05and you got 10 of those in there.
44:07So you come back and give me $10,
44:09I'm gonna go buy another pack of film
44:12and then you get to do it on Lover again.
44:14And to me, that was just the exciting part.
44:17And then he told me something that stuck
44:19as soon as he said it.
44:21He said, I don't know how invested you are in this.
44:28Wow, cause he let me borrow his cameras.
44:30I go knock on the door, boom, boom, boom.
44:31I was there, you know, 16, 17 year old,
44:35you know, going down to Gordon Park.
44:37Hey, Mickey Young, hey, can I get a camera?
44:39He had 35 millimeters, Pentex, Minotas,
44:43Nikons, yeah, go ahead, grab you one.
44:47Going out there and now people looking at me like,
44:50cause I got this camera and I'm this young dude
44:53and it's, oh man, cameraman, picture man,
44:56hey, come take this picture.
44:58From that part, it was enjoyable, man.
45:01It was, I thought it was enough to,
45:05I seen him making a living at it.
45:06And then I seen other photographers
45:08that was in the community doing it.
45:10And I said, oh, okay, I can do that too.
45:14And I knew what to stay away from,
45:16cause you're in the clubs.
45:17So everybody drinking, everybody smoking,
45:21whatever kind of drug you into,
45:23that's what you into, you know.
45:25And I just knew to stay away from all of that.
45:28And that's what really, I say saved me
45:33because I didn't get caught up into the community.
45:37I didn't get caught up into,
45:38even though I was in the clubs and the bars
45:40at 17, 18, caught up in, you know.
45:48Mickey used to say, you know,
45:52I don't know if I can say this the way he used to say
45:54it, but the way it was put was a woman,
46:02if she hang out with you and she give you something,
46:06that ain't gonna pay no bills.
46:09But you got that camera
46:12and she camera free,
46:14cause she wants you to take pictures.
46:17Oh, now you go to the 35 millimeter and now you,
46:19oh, okay, this photo shoot right here is $75.
46:23And every time they man this,
46:25I didn't have brides wanna sleep with you
46:34just so you can take their pictures for their wedding.
46:40It's a cost and they don't want to pay the cost.
46:45Wedding, three, $4,000
46:47for the pictures you say you won't, it's the cameraman.
46:54No, no, that don't pay no bills.
46:55All right.
46:57And then you had to figure out
46:58do you want to be labeled that type of photographer?
47:02Cause she gonna tell all her friends,
47:04yeah, you gonna hang out with Sean,
47:05yeah, he take all your pictures.
47:07Yeah.
47:11Yeah, that's the important business lesson,
47:14especially if you want to be in business,
47:16any business for real.
47:18Yeah, yeah.
47:20And it goes on both sides, male and female.
47:23You're gonna do business, do business.
47:25Don't mix the two.
47:30Especially not setting out to do that.
47:33I'm not saying you're not gonna find your,
47:36cause you got a lot of people
47:36that are listening to this type of stuff.
47:38I ain't saying you not gonna go out there
47:40and find your husband or your wife
47:43or your significant other in the field
47:46because that's what you do.
47:48I'm saying don't go out there
47:49and get caught up in it and end up,
47:52your camera's not making you money.
47:54Your camera's not supporting you like the tool it is
47:58because it's just another tool
47:59and another form of a toolbox.
48:02What's in your camera bag is just equivalent
48:04to what a mechanic got in his tool chest.
48:07It's how you use it that makes the difference.
48:11Yeah, and I think that also goes to the vision,
48:14which you focusing your vision on and vision and see.
48:26Don't be scared to try different things.
48:27For sure, I tried something,
48:31this for this podcast and then,
48:33but for time I went back to the old method.
48:36Old faithful.
48:37Old faithful, yeah, you know, supporting.
48:40Yeah, yeah, ain't nothing less because the more,
48:43and this particular craft is so forgiving now
48:47where you got Lightroom, you got Photoshop,
48:50you got all type of audio equipment
48:52that you can go back and make sound,
48:55do what you want it to do.
48:56You can pull it and push it, you know.
48:59Yeah.
49:01There's luts when you get into videography.
49:05There's so much to it that you can use to create
49:10and correct with.
49:13And one of the things that I liked about photography
49:16was when I got into the learning process of it,
49:19it was the only craft that I saw that was teaching,
49:24learn all of the rules first
49:26and then learn how to break them as best you can.
49:31And then that's when you get to the point
49:32where you now become creative.
49:35And like the first time around for me
49:37trying to do photography as a business,
49:41I did okay, I did cabarets.
49:45I was probably one of the first photographers
49:47in Cleveland with printers.
49:52I used to go out with these HP 1100 printers
49:56and I went from doing Polaroids
49:59I need your eight by 10 right now.
50:01Oh you can, eight by 10, how much?
50:04Now I'm going from $5, $10 shot to 20, 25.
50:11Let me see if I can get 35 off of this one right here.
50:14And people were paying.
50:16And the economy messed up
50:19and people got a little tighter on their pockets.
50:22And as you see, that all does this too
50:24because I experienced that in the early 2000s.
50:29And then that's when I knew I had a motorcycle accident.
50:34And that was the first time
50:37life showed me something where you had no money coming in
50:47and you couldn't go make any money.
50:59Mentally get yourself in a situation
51:01where now you'll be holding to other people
51:03or you can put on your boots and hey, get back at it.
51:11And I remember my first event back was in July.
51:16It was a cotillion and I was on crutches.
51:19And it was one of those events.
51:21I had sold off a couple of weddings that I had had.
51:23I had stopped taking events for about three months
51:28and I didn't have a lot.
51:30But what I did have quickly, groceries here,
51:35you got to pay for this, bills still due.
51:39So that pushed that.
51:42But I was still in the military.
51:45I was still in the national guard.
51:48What that did was it pushed me to get back in the drill
51:58to do extra drills.
52:03And then I started looking at,
52:05well, what am I gonna do if this ever happened again?
52:08This was a motorcycle accident.
52:11What happened if something else happened and I can't work?
52:18Well, I got to get a job.
52:20And for me, I understood Cleveland in that area
52:24where certain jobs, you want to get a job,
52:26you want to get a certain job so that it's gonna pay well
52:30and you can get some longevity into it.
52:33Because now I had went and reverted back to the,
52:36I got to have a job and this photography
52:39is just my hustle.
52:41It wasn't until later in life that I looked at it
52:45as an entrepreneurial type of journey.
52:47It was a creative hustle for me.
52:51And it could pay enough for a lifestyle.
52:53And I was cool with that.
52:56Now I'm like, man, sucks to be broke all over again
53:02and starting over.
53:04So the job came with benefits and all of that.
53:07And being a veteran, I went straight to the VA.
53:10And for about two, three weeks,
53:15probably like every Monday,
53:17as you were every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday,
53:19I went up to the VA, sat in the cafeteria,
53:22looked at applications, what was available
53:25and I put in for them.
53:28I ended up getting two cars
53:30with two different jobs at the VA.
53:32And I went on an interview.
53:34In the interview I went on,
53:37the lady that interviewed me, we talked about clothes.
53:41We talked, I had on a Tweed sports coat.
53:47And we talked, she was a Marine.
53:49And we just talked.
53:52It was for, it was a student position
53:54because I was still a student at Cleveland State
53:57at the time.
53:59And after that, okay, cool.
54:02She called me back and offered me the position.
54:05I said, yeah, I'll take it, yeah, cool.
54:08Then I had another position for the EMS department
54:10because I was a veteran in how that process went for me.
54:14I just got a call and said, go do a physical.
54:18And when I went and did the physical,
54:21came back and said, okay, the physical checked off good.
54:25You start on this day.
54:28Okay, cool.
54:30Now I got two jobs.
54:31And one was a night job
54:32and one was a day job at the VA.
54:35And I got a call from HR and they said, Mr. Jones,
54:40I'm sitting here on my desk
54:41and I got you in two job positions here at the VA.
54:45And she said, you can't have both of them.
54:48You only can have one.
54:51And I said, asked her a couple of questions, you know.
54:54Which one was more permanent?
54:57What was I getting over one and the other one?
55:00And it came down to the student position.
55:04I could wear my own clothes
55:07but I could only be in that position while I was in school.
55:11If I stopped going to school, position cease.
55:17The other position, I'm an EMS worker,
55:21work third shift and I wear a uniform and it's permanent.
55:30And that's how my career in the VA started.
55:33And I did that 17 years.
55:40And I got up to the point where at 46,
55:44I was 90% disabled through the army
55:48and my body wasn't doing what it was doing
55:51when I was 32 no more.
55:54And I looked up and said, man,
55:58social security sent me this letter and they said,
56:01well, at 67, you'll be eligible for a full retirement.
56:07And they had a number associated with it.
56:09And I said, wow, that's 20 years.
56:13I gotta work another 20 years just for you to give me
56:18the money that's on this piece of paper.
56:20And it ain't a lot, it ain't a lot.
56:23And you telling me if I retire early,
56:25it's just gonna be a couple of dollars less.
56:32Less than a hundred dollars.
56:33From 62 to 67, that five years,
56:37you only losing like 80 something dollars.
56:41But I gotta get to 62.
56:44I'm 46 at the time.
56:46And this don't make sense.
56:48Why am I working that hard like this?
56:51And I said, I only did my numbers
56:53and put some things in play.
56:55And that's everything started happening at the same time.
57:00That's when G6 started, it's built.
57:06And I said, look, went to my wife and I told her,
57:08I said, look, I can't do this job at the VA
57:13and build this landscaping from what I see in my head.
57:19Something gotta get, and it ain't gonna be my dream.
57:22So I don't know when, but I'm telling you,
57:25one day I'm gonna go to work
57:27and that's gonna be the last day I go to work.
57:30And from there, it's just gonna have to do what it do.
57:34And she ain't like that.
57:36I would say what was your thought process
57:40in making a decision like that?
57:43Economics, being able to know the number
57:47and being able to afford life.
57:50Life is an affordable lesson that we go through.
57:57We go through the same seasons over and over again.
57:59It's about to be fall.
58:00How many falls have you been through?
58:02After fall comes winter.
58:04We in Cleveland, it's gonna do what it do.
58:08Spring is right around the corner,
58:10but it's not gonna start until April.
58:14And it does the same thing over and over again.
58:16No matter how you look at it,
58:17it's the same thing over and over again.
58:19You can go different places.
58:21It's the same thing over and over again.
58:23The question comes is,
58:24how do you afford month to month?
58:26How do you get from point A to point B?
58:30It's a number.
58:31I don't care if it's rent, mortgage,
58:34car note, maintenance, groceries, gas.
58:38It's a number.
58:38And every month, every year,
58:43you're paying what that cost is.
58:46But the only way to figure out what that cost is
58:48is not to project what it is,
58:51it's to add up last month.
58:52How much did I spend last month?
58:55You know the season changed last October.
58:58Well, how much did I spend last October?
59:00Well, I'm gonna pretty much do the same shit
59:01all over again,
59:05but now you can choose because you know what you did.
59:09You know if you spent $600 in groceries
59:13through the month of October, 94,
59:20you're gonna do the same thing again in 95?
59:22Because if you're not gonna do the same thing,
59:23what's gonna change?
59:25Because in 94, if it was a lot of eating out,
59:33you're gonna do the same thing in 95?
59:37Then I had to make that decision.
59:39Listen, I spent $600 last year and just going to eat.
59:45I ain't gonna do that again.
59:47So I'm gonna buy more groceries.
59:54Driving is the same thing, gas.
59:57And the military helped me with that
59:59because in the gas aspect,
1:00:01in the military, my first job duty was a fueler.
1:00:04So I pumped fuel into a lot of vehicles.
1:00:08And I see not many gallons,
1:00:10because I rode around with 2,500 gallons on me
1:00:13at any given point in time.
1:00:15And I had to get that off to somebody
1:00:17so I can go get some more.
1:00:19And I had a sergeant who took me under his wing.
1:00:23And now I was the one that was going
1:00:26to get the fuel from the boat places
1:00:29and not just stand in the truck,
1:00:31because we got there.
1:00:33And that came to,
1:00:34now you get the chance to see the paperwork.
1:00:36And when you find out that you just filled up
1:00:38four hemorrhoids and that cost,
1:00:42got a couple of commas in it.
1:00:48I ain't know we had to pay for this, just gas.
1:00:51Yeah, this coming out of the government budget right here.
1:00:54But in the military, it's just a signature.
1:00:56You just signed for shit.
1:00:58You signed $40,000 worth of fuel
1:01:00and you ain't even know it.
1:01:02And then when I started doing that,
1:01:03I started paying attention.
1:01:04Like, oh, if we doing that
1:01:06and we just training this week
1:01:10and we got other units that's doing the same thing,
1:01:12I wonder how much the first infantry's budget is
1:01:16for just fuel.
1:01:20And then you start asking questions
1:01:21and then people start looking at you weird
1:01:23because you are private
1:01:24and you're not supposed to be asking
1:01:26sergeants and lieutenants these type of questions.
1:01:30And it's like, hey, man, I just want to know
1:01:31how much is on?
1:01:33And then it's fuel, then it's food,
1:01:37then it's clothing.
1:01:39And it just became, okay.
1:01:41And I used to see the spreadsheets and everything
1:01:44when you're on it.
1:01:44And then I started keeping my own spreadsheets
1:01:48and writing shit out.
1:01:49Because when you see it,
1:01:51it makes all the difference in the world.
1:01:53Going back to that vision.
1:01:55But you can't deny it.
1:01:56And now it's concrete.
1:01:58And now you have to change it.
1:01:59Because if you want to do better.
1:02:09Let's shift gears to the Creative Healing Foundation.
1:02:12Amazing Creative Healing Foundation.
1:02:14Man.
1:02:17I remember the birth.
1:02:18I remember, you know,
1:02:20originated the idea first came to me
1:02:22and we birthed it, made it happen.
1:02:25But how important is that,
1:02:27that give back, that mentorship,
1:02:29even that ownership,
1:02:31like, you know, providing the tools
1:02:33for the community and also heal.
1:02:39I found it a challenge getting to the community.
1:02:43It's one thing to come
1:02:45with the idea of what you want to do.
1:02:48It's another thing getting others
1:02:52to invest into the idea of what you want to do.
1:02:56So it was like when we first came out
1:02:57and we first started with Creative Healing Foundation,
1:03:01you know, I mean, you in there too.
1:03:04You know, you was definitely,
1:03:07I mean, you're the youngest person.
1:03:09Out of the five heads that sat at the table,
1:03:12you're the youngest one sitting there
1:03:13when we came up with the Creative Healing Foundation.
1:03:16And the idea behind it was just,
1:03:18we just wanted to create.
1:03:20If it wasn't for going down to the arcade
1:03:23and getting put out,
1:03:25the Creative Healing Foundation
1:03:26probably never would have been,
1:03:28came the Creative Healing Foundation
1:03:30because we didn't have a reason to.
1:03:32That was just something that sparked an idea like,
1:03:35hey, you know, we don't want to get put out no more.
1:03:36Guess what?
1:03:37We develop an organization.
1:03:40And I got that information because I had the ear
1:03:43of an older, wiser, other father,
1:03:52Uncle Juro was just all of that in the one.
1:03:57And his profession allowed him,
1:04:00not only we were in COVID,
1:04:03every Sunday I had his ear.
1:04:05So here we are every Sunday going to churches
1:04:09to do these videos.
1:04:11And I'm having the conversations with him
1:04:14that we're having.
1:04:16And he's giving his advice like,
1:04:18hey, well, okay, this is how you do this
1:04:19and this is how you do that.
1:04:20And at the same time,
1:04:22the paperwork part of it,
1:04:24he's willing to help.
1:04:26So if it wasn't for Uncle Juro
1:04:28willing to help bring the idea
1:04:30and the visions that we had into fruition,
1:04:35there wouldn't be a Creative Healing Foundation.
1:04:37Because economically on that side,
1:04:41what people were paying in 2020 to start nonprofits
1:04:45cost us a fraction of the app part in itself
1:04:51is what got the Creative Healing Foundation
1:04:54off the ground and started into being a 501c3.
1:05:00And now this is part of it.
1:05:01This is part of that transition
1:05:05from being a creative to wanting to teach
1:05:09and show people,
1:05:12hey, photography saved me.
1:05:14I can show you how it saved me.
1:05:16I can point a finger at a picture
1:05:18and tell you the story about this picture
1:05:20and how this picture helped save me.
1:05:24Now let me show you how to take the picture.
1:05:28I have a camera.
1:05:29Don't worry about it, you can use one of mine.
1:05:32And then that's the part where it gets
1:05:35to sharing and caring.
1:05:38You know, a lot of times we wanna possess things.
1:05:42Mickey shared with me.
1:05:43Mickey shared his camera with me
1:05:45and it wasn't just one.
1:05:47But he let me know at the same time,
1:05:50hey man, I know how important this is with you.
1:05:52So for me running into,
1:05:55and I've always been,
1:05:56so I'm the oldest from my mother.
1:05:58So I've always been around older people
1:06:01and then younger people.
1:06:03And it wasn't never really people around my age group
1:06:07with my mindset that I had to communicate with.
1:06:12So I was either up here with them
1:06:14or I was down here playing with them.
1:06:17So bringing that together was kind of always tricky,
1:06:20especially when everybody wanna tell you
1:06:22how to do what's in your head to do.
1:06:27The seed was planted within you,
1:06:31but at the same time,
1:06:32you're sharing the information with others.
1:06:35And then they wanna take your information
1:06:38and tell you what to do with it.
1:06:41And it's like, come on, let's go back a little bit.
1:06:44Let's start back over again.
1:06:46Let's just learn how to work.
1:06:47The camera works.
1:06:49And now let's go take pictures
1:06:51because I'm explaining to you that you're gonna need to know
1:06:54how to put them batteries in there before we get out there
1:06:57and you're looking like an idiot.
1:07:01I did it, trust me.
1:07:03They all don't work the same.
1:07:06And for me, that was the biggest lesson moving forward
1:07:09where wanting to help,
1:07:13wanting to help those that didn't see what I saw.
1:07:20And I saw photography, I saw,
1:07:22my vision, my dream was shooting Polaroids was,
1:07:26man, I wish I can take pictures forever
1:07:28and didn't have to do one shot, one kill.
1:07:34So the testing that Mickey had for me in shooting was,
1:07:38there was this one bar that had mirrors against the wall
1:07:43and to take pictures in this bar,
1:07:44you had to know how to angle the light.
1:07:48So you were either bouncing it off the ceiling,
1:07:50bouncing it out of corners,
1:07:52without getting a reflection.
1:07:57And when I first seen it, I didn't understand it.
1:08:01But then I got a chance to try it.
1:08:03And when I had the hands-on part about it
1:08:05and taking the picture, it was,
1:08:07okay, I gotta take this picture
1:08:08and they're not gonna give me no money
1:08:10if I don't get this flash not in their eyes.
1:08:16So, okay, I saw what he did, boom, boom, boom.
1:08:19And the Polaroids, you just got a viewfinder.
1:08:25So you gotta frame everything up in this viewfinder.
1:08:28And it's not exactly what's gonna be on the picture,
1:08:32but every camera works different.
1:08:34So you gotta figure out how that particular camera work.
1:08:38And they didn't want their feet cut off.
1:08:40They wanted head to toe shots.
1:08:43Full body.
1:08:44They want three people in the shot.
1:08:46And you gotta, okay.
1:08:49And they don't even want the elbow cut off.
1:08:52So you gotta find out where those cut-off lines at.
1:08:56And you don't got the little cute stuff
1:08:58that you got in cameras and the phone.
1:09:00No, you don't got no bridge.
1:09:02Crosshairs.
1:09:03No, no, no.
1:09:04You gonna find that one by yourself.
1:09:06Yeah, okay.
1:09:08And learning that way,
1:09:10it taught me so much about photography.
1:09:13And then it helped teach me about people.
1:09:15It helped me learn confidence.
1:09:20Learn how to talk to people.
1:09:23Learn how to be a leader.
1:09:25Learn how to be in control of an environment.
1:09:28That's the worst thing.
1:09:28You had a birthday party.
1:09:29Everybody drinking except for you.
1:09:32You 17, 18 years old,
1:09:34and you trying to get 16 people together for a photo.
1:09:37Oh yeah, who?
1:09:38Even wedding.
1:09:38No, nobody want a car.
1:09:40And you always got the one asshole
1:09:41that just want to be an asshole,
1:09:43just to be an asshole.
1:09:44You know?
1:09:46But you got to get this picture.
1:09:47Everybody want to see everybody's eyes.
1:09:50You know, everybody's head got to be in the picture.
1:09:52You know?
1:09:53So all of that was interesting to me.
1:09:58I enjoyed it.
1:10:01I liked the idea of,
1:10:03after it was all sitting over with,
1:10:05they ate the cake,
1:10:06the food gone,
1:10:08the dress back in the closet.
1:10:11Yeah.
1:10:11But you got that picture.
1:10:14Made it work.
1:10:16And that's what it was all about.
1:10:18I didn't want to fuck up.
1:10:19Didn't want to fuck up the picture.
1:10:21You know?
1:10:21Cause I wanted you to have the picture forever.
1:10:24So when somebody else look at that picture,
1:10:26like I'm at a point now in life when,
1:10:28you know, we're doing these home going services.
1:10:30I got one of my brothers, he do obituaries.
1:10:33Shout out to Anthony.
1:10:36And you see people send him 20, 30 pictures.
1:10:42You see the Polaroids come through.
1:10:44Yeah, man.
1:10:45I wonder if that's one that I took.
1:10:46If that's one that I took.
1:10:47And every once in a while you find something,
1:10:49you know, see something that you didn't took.
1:10:51And it's a good feeling that, you know,
1:10:53now it's like 20, 30 years
1:10:55and somebody held on to that.
1:10:59That feeling that it gives
1:11:01crosses into that feeling that I get
1:11:04when I go cut grass.
1:11:07It's not a job.
1:11:08It's something that I want to do.
1:11:10You know?
1:11:11It's something that gives me that inner glow
1:11:16where after I walk off this yard,
1:11:19I want to be satisfied
1:11:21that I put in not only my best efforts,
1:11:26but now I got something that somebody else gonna come.
1:11:28That's the best one when they ain't even home
1:11:29when you cut.
1:11:30And then they come home and then they roll up
1:11:32and you wonder like,
1:11:33I wonder if they passed they house
1:11:35cause they didn't know, you know,
1:11:36the grass was cut type shit.
1:11:39And all of that just, it's just,
1:11:43it's being creative.
1:11:45You know?
1:11:45Like I tow up my yard.
1:11:48You know, one of the first thing I called my wife one day
1:11:50I was like, hey, listen,
1:11:52let you know now,
1:11:53doing something to the yard.
1:11:55I'm putting these flower beds in
1:11:56and I just rented this,
1:11:58it's called a bed edger.
1:12:04I started where I was just going
1:12:05put this one little line in
1:12:08and then it got fun.
1:12:10I'm pushing the machine around.
1:12:12I was like, oh yeah.
1:12:14And I like, it was a corner lot.
1:12:16So it was a lot of land
1:12:17and you go back and forth so many times.
1:12:22You know, so I was like, yeah, okay.
1:12:24So I kinda, I created in my mind,
1:12:26which was racetrack.
1:12:29So I had my starting point,
1:12:31my end point and then even when I cut the grass,
1:12:33I'm riding it like this
1:12:35and then I'm going around this bed and all of that.
1:12:37But I had to tear all of that up
1:12:39in order to create all of that.
1:12:42And my wife didn't understand
1:12:45because that first season,
1:12:47oh man, the yard was terrible.
1:12:52I started letting it grow
1:12:53and then I started letting it grow
1:12:55and I got mad at something
1:12:57and I just said, fuck,
1:12:58I ain't cutting this right here.
1:13:00And then I would cut patterns in the yard
1:13:02and it would grow over here
1:13:05and snake through this.
1:13:07I just did all type of stuff
1:13:08because at that point,
1:13:09I was at a point where it's mine.
1:13:15I can cut my grass however I wanna cut my grass.
1:13:18Why do I have to cut my grass
1:13:20the same way everybody else cut their grass?
1:13:23Right, indeed.
1:13:23And that creativity fell into
1:13:28the enjoyment that I get
1:13:30from being able to create something
1:13:32and have that instant gratification from it.
1:13:36Landscaping as you work, cutting grass,
1:13:39it's the same as cooking.
1:13:41You have that instant gratification.
1:13:43It tastes good.
1:13:44Yeah, you happy.
1:13:46Cake didn't fall.
1:13:47You happy.
1:13:48You set the blades right.
1:13:51Blades were sharp.
1:13:52They wasn't dull.
1:13:54The grass wasn't wet.
1:13:56It all went up in the bag.
1:13:58You ain't had to get out
1:13:5950 times to unclog the chute.
1:14:03Now you get to edge it.
1:14:08Then you sit back
1:14:09and you get a chance to enjoy it
1:14:10and then other people get a chance to enjoy it.
1:14:14So now later it becomes a conversation.
1:14:16Why did you do that like that?
1:14:18Because Citi came and asked me.
1:14:20They said, yeah, okay,
1:14:22grass can't be over six inches.
1:14:25And I had shit that was three feet.
1:14:32Coolest thing in the world.
1:14:34It's natural.
1:14:34Let it do what it do.
1:14:36Yeah, like here.
1:14:38They said, no, because you remember
1:14:40Cleveland Heights did a thing one year
1:14:42where they had a no-grow season.
1:14:44They didn't cut the grass for,
1:14:47I think for like May and June
1:14:50or April and May or something like that.
1:14:52They didn't cut the grass.
1:14:53It was like a no-grow zone.
1:14:56And I seen what the grass was doing
1:14:58and I thought that that was just the coolest thing.
1:15:00And I said, okay, yeah,
1:15:01I'm gonna put some no-grow areas in my yard
1:15:03and it was an experience.
1:15:08Yeah, and going back to that experience,
1:15:12you got a lot of good memories
1:15:15that created those experiences.
1:15:19And that helps me reflect on
1:15:22kind of why I got into photography.
1:15:25And why I do what I do
1:15:26because I look at myself as a historian
1:15:29where a photo could just be
1:15:35documenting my first childhood home,
1:15:39which is now torn down.
1:15:42My house that I grew up in,
1:15:47kindergarten all the way to
1:15:50like a freshman in high school.
1:15:52It's just a lot of land.
1:15:54Elementary school, torn down.
1:15:58Hospital, Euclid Hospital, gone.
1:16:01Like I have no memories,
1:16:03like always envision it like MTV Cribs,
1:16:06like they go on past a old neighborhood.
1:16:08I used to grew up in that house.
1:16:10I can't say these things, it's just, it's gone.
1:16:14But if I had that memory, that photo,
1:16:17that video to visually show people, it'd be different.
1:16:22But I want to ask how important is a photo to you?
1:16:26Like not taking photos for others,
1:16:28but someone taking a photo of you
1:16:31or a moment in your life.
1:16:33So it was a very long time before I had a photo.
1:16:39Let me say it like this.
1:16:45I wasn't always crazy about having my picture taken.
1:16:49So getting behind the camera was a shield
1:16:53at the same time away from that.
1:17:03I noticed that when you go over people's houses,
1:17:16they got pictures on the mantle of people
1:17:18and pictures on the wall and stuff.
1:17:21Like certain people's houses, I would go over
1:17:22and just have pictures of places.
1:17:25We grew up in the projects where we had this one wall
1:17:30where stepfather had all of these pictures
1:17:32on the whole wall.
1:17:34And it was like somebody did that.
1:17:39I want to be able to do that.
1:17:41And that double exposure picture,
1:17:44I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
1:17:46You had two pictures on one piece of paper.
1:17:49I said, oh man.
1:17:50And I couldn't draw.
1:17:52So that was my only outlet created.
1:17:58And the more I learned from the camera,
1:18:04the more I got interested in what else I could do.
1:18:10And then war came and I left and went to war.
1:18:162008, I was deployed and I got rid
1:18:18of all of my cameras and everything.
1:18:21Cause I wanted, unlike any other,
1:18:23every other deployment that I went on,
1:18:26I took my cameras with me.
1:18:28How many cameras did you have?
1:18:31At one point in time.
1:18:32I remember my first camera was a KRS Super from Sears.
1:18:37I got it from a pawn shop.
1:18:39Cost me $150 and I went to the pawn shop
1:18:42cause I heard that's where you gonna get
1:18:44a good used 35 millimeter camera from.
1:18:47And went down on paying to the only pawn shop
1:18:50that I knew of and walked in there
1:18:52and I seen the camera in there
1:18:53and it just looked like a 35 millimeter camera.
1:18:56I didn't know what it was named.
1:19:00Didn't have a price tag on it, which was my fault.
1:19:03I said, let me see that.
1:19:04And the guy pulled the camera out.
1:19:06I knew they hit the button
1:19:07to make sure the trigger worked and everything.
1:19:10Make sure the curtains stay open.
1:19:12These are all the things that I learned from Mickey.
1:19:15And I said, okay, I'll take this.
1:19:21And he said something, something, something.
1:19:23I said, yeah, yeah, I'll take the camera or whatever.
1:19:25He took the lens off the camera,
1:19:27put the lens back in the case,
1:19:29put the lens cap on the cover on the camera.
1:19:32He said that'd be $100.
1:19:34And I said, I can't do nothing without the lens.
1:19:37I need the lens.
1:19:39He said, that'd be another $50.
1:19:41And I said, ooh.
1:19:42And that was my lesson in photography
1:19:44that everything costs.
1:19:49From there to the light stands,
1:19:52to all of the different brackets and everything costs.
1:19:56And if you want it, you're gonna pay for it.
1:19:59Because it's the only way to get it.
1:20:01If you take anything,
1:20:02you got the repercussions that go along with that.
1:20:04And that ain't never cool.
1:20:06So you understand the value
1:20:10behind everything you purchase.
1:20:12I know you got little shit in your camera bag
1:20:14that's this motherfucking big that costs $80.
1:20:16Real small, yeah.
1:20:18And you might not use it, but twice a year.
1:20:21But when you need it, it's good to have it there.
1:20:25It's good to have.
1:20:26I use an ND filter.
1:20:28I was outside for a fest, and I don't ever use it.
1:20:33But I know it's good to retain the highlights.
1:20:36It's like retaining five stops,
1:20:38which is kind of an overkill.
1:20:40But I mean, it did what it did
1:20:42for what it needed to do and that purpose.
1:20:44But I do a lot of indoor events.
1:20:47So, you know, it got its day of time this weekend.
1:20:53Yeah.
1:20:54Yeah, yeah.
1:20:54And that costs me like 120.
1:20:56So use it like once or twice a year.
1:20:58But it's needed.
1:21:00And that's the tool that's in the toolbox,
1:21:03like the mechanic.
1:21:04The mechanic don't always use every socket on every job.
1:21:07But he gotta have all those sockets.
1:21:11Once you, I think once,
1:21:13as a creative who digests that part,
1:21:18the next thing that you need,
1:21:21it changes the game.
1:21:23Cause when you got the pieces,
1:21:26you can make something out of it.
1:21:28Yeah, that goes back to,
1:21:31I had my first camera and, you know,
1:21:33when we first met and I told you
1:21:36that I wanted to get into photography.
1:21:38I was transitioning from music and poetry
1:21:41into photography.
1:21:42I wanted to take it more seriously.
1:21:44And I told you, I'm like, well,
1:21:46I definitely got to be a man of my word.
1:21:50And I told this to somebody, my vision, my dream.
1:21:53And I was actively studying it,
1:21:56even purchased my first camera,
1:21:58practicing on my own,
1:22:00looking at different videos,
1:22:02just going to different events,
1:22:04practicing, doing stuff for free.
1:22:07And I remember you took me out one time,
1:22:09we was at the downtown arcade.
1:22:12And you was telling me, get this, get that.
1:22:14And I'm like, man, it's so much stuff.
1:22:16Go get the light, go get the 50 millimeter.
1:22:19I'm like, 50 millimeter?
1:22:21Do they say 50 on it?
1:22:22Looking at the, it's got 24, 50, it's Zoom.
1:22:26I don't know.
1:22:27Oh, get this, get that.
1:22:29Do B-Row.
1:22:30I don't know what B-Row is.
1:22:32It's video though, I just get video.
1:22:34Behind the scenes, B-Row, behind the scenes,
1:22:38same thing, right?
1:22:39But just learning and just really enjoying the moment
1:22:44and the relaxed atmosphere and having fun and creating.
1:22:48I mean, that's what you did too,
1:22:50is having fun, creating, directing.
1:22:53And I just seen that like, wow,
1:22:55it is definitely levels to it.
1:22:56And like you said,
1:22:57you never know what you may need in a toolkit.
1:23:03I mean, I've went through periods where
1:23:07instead of letting money burn a hole in my pocket,
1:23:10sit down with a piece of paper in the pencil
1:23:12and figure out what else I need
1:23:15and paying for things intentionally
1:23:19helped save the crisis later down the line.
1:23:23Because when it occurred, it was, okay, I got that.
1:23:25Okay, I got that.
1:23:28Man, like that 70 to 200 lens.
1:23:32Yeah, wow.
1:23:33That is, boy, the story that goes along with that,
1:23:38it was, I paid twice as much as what it cost.
1:23:44Ain't that expensive?
1:23:44I mean, yeah, but I made it affordable,
1:23:51paid for it over time.
1:23:53And I looked at it and said,
1:23:55I'd rather have it now than need it later.
1:24:01And that one lens, just from the,
1:24:05just from people seeing me shooting,
1:24:08changed everything before they even seen my work.
1:24:11And that's what helped me into this realm of photography
1:24:20where I knew everything to get
1:24:23when I got back into photography.
1:24:26And I knew what it was gonna cost in order to get it.
1:24:31So I had to put a budget together
1:24:33and I had to explain that budget to my wife
1:24:36at the same time.
1:24:37Like, listen, I'm gonna spend a lot of money
1:24:39over a short period of time.
1:24:41You're gonna see a lot of things come in here
1:24:43and I'm telling you everything that I get,
1:24:45I'm gonna need.
1:24:47Why you need six bags?
1:24:51Wow, yeah.
1:24:54You got six different camera bags.
1:24:57What do you need six different camera bags for?
1:25:00Well, it depends on what type of shoot I'm going to.
1:25:03Different camera bags carry equipment differently.
1:25:08And when you show up,
1:25:09you always wanna show up as a professional.
1:25:12So you don't want a rinky dink bag.
1:25:15You don't wanna come in,
1:25:16instead of having a camera book bag,
1:25:17you just come in with a book bag.
1:25:21It changes the way people perceive you as a profession.
1:25:26If you walk with your chin up and your chest poked out,
1:25:28people gonna respect you and look at you different.
1:25:33And that's what I knew going into it.
1:25:36If you talk with a louder voice,
1:25:41no matter if it's deep or loud,
1:25:42but if you project, people gonna listen more.
1:25:46They gonna take direction more
1:25:48than if you whisper everything that you say.
1:25:50But whispering also has its own benefit
1:25:53when you're in small groups.
1:25:55Because if you want somebody to really pay attention
1:25:58to what you're saying, they gotta lean in.
1:26:02Now you know who's interested.
1:26:08It all comes kind of like full circle
1:26:11because you learn different things.
1:26:12And I'm quite sure in your walking life,
1:26:14you've learned things not necessarily
1:26:19that was photography related,
1:26:22but helped you in your craft and photography
1:26:26because of the skill that you possess from what you are.
1:26:35And I wanna ask you,
1:26:37what would you say to a young creative entrepreneur
1:26:43that wants to get in their field,
1:26:45whether it's acting or photography, video,
1:26:50or any other creative field and become an entrepreneur,
1:26:53what would you say to them?
1:26:54Get in it.
1:26:56Get in it.
1:27:00However it works for you, get in it.
1:27:04Don't sit on the sidelines talking about
1:27:06what you wanna do and you're not actively doing it.
1:27:11You're not actually pursuing it.
1:27:14Now you have YouTube University.
1:27:18You have so many places you can go to the library.
1:27:25It used to be the only place
1:27:25you can go to get information.
1:27:28Now you can do internships.
1:27:32Surf the web, chat GPT, Google.
1:27:40And learning isn't just consuming.
1:27:43I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna watch four videos
1:27:45about lenses and, okay.
1:27:47But what did you obtain from that?
1:27:50Where your notes at?
1:27:51What you gonna sit back when it's screen not there
1:27:54and you gonna go over and say,
1:27:56okay, yeah, that's what the triangle is.
1:28:03ISO, what is ISO, ISO?
1:28:06Oh, okay, okay, this is why ISO is one to 100, 200.
1:28:11That's the film speed, okay.
1:28:13Now you got the references to go back to
1:28:16and you're not just trying to hoard
1:28:21or download all of this information into you.
1:28:25Just because you watch it, you gonna remember it.
1:28:28Just because you watch it,
1:28:29that's not telling the culture
1:28:33that that's what you're interested in.
1:28:35If you wanna be a dancer, hey.
1:28:39Buy some dance clothes, you know.
1:28:41Don't be scared to say, hey, play this music
1:28:44and now people gotta watch you dance.
1:28:46Right.
1:28:48Yeah, so you gotta do it.
1:28:50You wanna, and it could be anything.
1:28:54You wanna be a doctor, you know.
1:28:57Get you a, get you a telescope, you know.
1:29:00Go around and anything.
1:29:02Hey, can I listen to your heartbeat?
1:29:05Yeah.
1:29:06I think we do it as kids
1:29:08but not necessarily as adults.
1:29:10Like, you know, especially Halloween kids
1:29:12be different things every other year
1:29:15using their imagination.
1:29:17Or even when they're playing together,
1:29:19or they're dinosaur, they be whatever they wanna be.
1:29:23But we get older and we kinda lose that.
1:29:25And that's the worst experience that we have as adults
1:29:27because we get pushed out to having to have a job.
1:29:33And for us as black men, having to provide.
1:29:38When you go out here and you've been creating life,
1:29:41now you're not only providing for yourself
1:29:43but you're providing for others.
1:29:46Now, you don't got the time for the imagination.
1:29:51Time or energy.
1:29:52Because you gotta produce.
1:29:55And in that producing, you burning that energy
1:29:57so now you don't have the energy
1:29:59to put toward the imagination and the vision.
1:30:04And when you, as humans,
1:30:08and we don't have humans around us
1:30:11to fuel our imagination,
1:30:14to ask the questions, to get the answers,
1:30:18to go out and experience it,
1:30:21then we have no choice but to fall in line
1:30:24and get a job, go to work, pay the bills.
1:30:27And after a while, from the experience of it,
1:30:30it's mind-numbing.
1:30:32I gotta get up again.
1:30:33Mondays, we dread Mondays.
1:30:36Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
1:30:39hope it's a three-day, four-day weekend.
1:30:42Now go back to work.
1:30:44And we grow up in an environment that teaches
1:30:49this is sad.
1:30:54Yeah, like the hamster will of life
1:30:55is keep going and going and going, nothing changed.
1:30:58You're not doing what you wanna do.
1:31:01You're doing what you gotta do now.
1:31:02Doing what you gotta do, yeah.
1:31:03And now let somebody step on your toe.
1:31:06Or now let somebody bump into you.
1:31:09Or now let somebody talk to you any kind of way.
1:31:14You know, you're having these dreams,
1:31:16but you're living in somebody else's dream.
1:31:19Thought you gotta pay the bills.
1:31:21So what I try to tell the young men,
1:31:24hey, first thing you need to do
1:31:27is you need to provide,
1:31:29learn how to provide for yourself.
1:31:31Once you learn how to provide for yourself,
1:31:35learn the responsibility.
1:31:40And the first responsibility comes shelter.
1:31:44I don't care if you're living in your car,
1:31:47but you have to have that shelter.
1:31:50You gotta get to the point where you have the ability
1:31:53to move in this realm, this world,
1:31:58the way life pulls you to.
1:32:00Everybody gonna go to sleep, everybody gonna wake up.
1:32:02What time you gonna get up?
1:32:04The military taught me,
1:32:07listen, your day can start at 3.30 a.m.
1:32:14And it's a full day.
1:32:17And when you lay down at 8 p.m., lights.
1:32:26If I never would've left Cleveland,
1:32:30never would've experienced that.
1:32:32Never would've experienced that whole,
1:32:35I joined the military when they,
1:32:36we'd do more before 6 a.m.
1:32:38than most people do all day.
1:32:39Yeah.
1:32:40Wow.
1:32:41Yeah.
1:32:42But some people, they don't get up until 11, 12 o'clock,
1:32:47one o'clock, and they wanna make it sound
1:32:50like it was exciting that they slept all fucking day.
1:32:55Yeah, I ain't get up to 12 o'clock.
1:32:58Yeah, I ain't get up until I was,
1:33:00I ain't get out the house til 1.30, man.
1:33:02Yeah, and that's exciting.
1:33:05I'm supposed to congratulate.
1:33:09Nah, you missed the whole damn day.
1:33:12Oh yeah.
1:33:12Life just passed you by.
1:33:15I had one young cadet with me, he's 17.
1:33:19We out at seven o'clock in the morning.
1:33:21I picked him up about 7.30.
1:33:23We riding around, going to a cut.
1:33:28And he's seeing people working for the city.
1:33:32He's seeing traffic.
1:33:33He's seeing people moving, doing things.
1:33:36And he like, man, I ain't know there's too many people up
1:33:39this time of the day.
1:33:41Yeah, man, there's a whole world out here.
1:33:44Whole world.
1:33:45And you ain't left off the east side of Cleveland.
1:33:50So let me explain to you, get out here.
1:33:52I tell them, get out here and experience it, man.
1:33:55Get out here and learn that life is a lot.
1:34:05It is what we making.
1:34:10You know, we spoke on imagination.
1:34:12Imagination is definitely big.
1:34:15It's going back to camera having that image.
1:34:18But as we sit here in this room here,
1:34:22shooting the podcast or filming the podcast,
1:34:26I know this space will be transformed
1:34:29to a podcast space and location people could come to.
1:34:34How soon can we expect that?
1:34:36I'm looking at, see, October.
1:34:39It's in like, we here now.
1:34:42It's available now.
1:34:45It's just not the way I want it to be.
1:34:47It's not where my imagination has it at.
1:34:52Those are foam panels in those bags right there.
1:34:57Those go up, you know.
1:34:59This just got tables and chairs sitting around the place.
1:35:01And we came and we put some lights up and, you know,
1:35:07so it's a...
1:35:09Just doing it, you know, no excuses.
1:35:11Just doing it.
1:35:12You know, this setup right here,
1:35:13I just set this up last night
1:35:15because I wanted to see what the space will provide.
1:35:17Could I set three tables up in here?
1:35:21What would it look like?
1:35:22What would it feel like, you know?
1:35:24It was just me in here and I'm moving this stand around
1:35:26like it's a person.
1:35:27Like, okay, I want to see what that space looks like
1:35:30for somebody sitting across the table from.
1:35:33So this right here is a setup
1:35:36that wasn't even part of the idea of the setup,
1:35:40but it's being used within that setup, you know?
1:35:45We just came.
1:35:46Hey, I told you, go in here.
1:35:47Hey, go, make yourself at home and find a spot, you know?
1:35:50You ain't come in and say,
1:35:52hey, let's move this right here
1:35:53and put this over here.
1:35:54I want it done.
1:35:56Pulled up the chairs, sat down and said,
1:35:58all right, boom,
1:35:59this is where we're going to do this.
1:36:02That's the biggest part of starting.
1:36:05You know, a lot of times we want it to start for us.
1:36:07We want somebody else to get the momentum going.
1:36:11We want somebody else to have the vision
1:36:14and we want to come take their vision
1:36:18and now do something with it.
1:36:21And it's like, don't work like that.
1:36:31It's a nation.
1:36:33And when we can come together and we can create together,
1:36:36it's like, when we go out and we shoot,
1:36:39we can take pictures of the same exact thing.
1:36:42But when we sit back and now we're critiquing our work,
1:36:46damn, that was a,
1:36:48you saw that Gatorade bottle from that angle?
1:36:51Right, perspective, yeah.
1:36:53What was you shooting that with?
1:36:56Cause that made a difference.
1:36:59That depth of field, oh man, wow.
1:37:08But you take all of that and you bring it together.
1:37:11And then when you have people,
1:37:13see another thing I like about photography is,
1:37:16when you have people who have never worked together,
1:37:20but know what they're,
1:37:24you don't even have to know what you're doing
1:37:26half the time,
1:37:27you just got to know some of the terminology
1:37:29and be willing to help.
1:37:32Willing to do something
1:37:34that you don't always got your hand out for.
1:37:36Cause in this field I learned,
1:37:40it's like, it covers the same thing
1:37:43with cutting grass.
1:37:45I can't take every picture.
1:37:46I can't cut every yard.
1:37:49But if I know enough people that have lawnmowers,
1:37:54I know enough people that have cameras,
1:37:57when they come down to when the phone ring
1:37:59and somebody say,
1:38:00hey Sean, can you come cut this?
1:38:02Can you come take this?
1:38:03And I can say, no, I can't, but alien can.
1:38:08No, I can't.
1:38:09But this young dude over here,
1:38:12I know he need to make some money
1:38:13and he been in the house for two days.
1:38:16He need to get out.
1:38:24I want him to do.
1:38:27I ask all my creative people this question.
1:38:35You know, thinking of your creative process
1:38:38as a weather forecast, what would that be?
1:38:43Create, say that again.
1:38:45So we all have this thought process
1:38:48and this creative process.
1:38:51Throughout your creative process,
1:38:53how would you explain it if it was a weather forecast?
1:38:59In the morning,
1:39:02sun might come out with a rainbow around noon.
1:39:05It's not promised.
1:39:07Like if you look up, you just might see it.
1:39:12Be ready.
1:39:14Cause the weather gonna change.
1:39:16Like Cleveland.
1:39:17Like Cleveland, yeah.
1:39:17The weather, you can prepare
1:39:19for what the forecast say is gonna be,
1:39:23but be prepared for if it's not.
1:39:27And that's pretty much landscape
1:39:29and photography the same thing.
1:39:30I wake up some days and I have a shot that I did.
1:39:41Cause the shot, it burned the,
1:39:44I say it burned the image in my brain
1:39:47over the course of time.
1:39:49Where I saw the shot before I went and took the shot.
1:39:54And when I got there to the location,
1:39:56it was a certain time of the morning
1:39:58that you had to get there in order to get the shot.
1:40:01So you had to backtrack to prepare
1:40:03to be there before the sun came up.
1:40:10When I got there, everything,
1:40:12the ride there was great.
1:40:14You know, I'm always excited about the transition
1:40:19from point A to point B
1:40:21because we spent so much time doing that.
1:40:23Why can't that be exciting too?
1:40:27Enjoy the journey.
1:40:29And in the journey to get there,
1:40:35birds flying all over the place.
1:40:37I didn't see the birds in my vision.
1:40:40So the anxiety set in,
1:40:44the stress set in.
1:40:49I got tools in my toolbox now,
1:40:50so let me deal with that.
1:40:52Yeah, and some breathing exercises.
1:40:58I'm still gonna take this picture.
1:41:00And like how you said with the filter, the ND filter.
1:41:04I had the variable ND filter on there.
1:41:08So now the sun is starting to come up.
1:41:10I'm in location.
1:41:12And now I'm twisting this filter ever so slightly.
1:41:16I'm shooting digital raw, so I can just keep.
1:41:24You know, when you get the shot
1:41:26and you know when you hit it and it's the one,
1:41:28you say, ooh, the light did something
1:41:32where it didn't came and hit something
1:41:35and it didn't, something that happened
1:41:37and you just say, ooh, and you just, and it's bird.
1:41:42I was comfortable with the shot,
1:41:46but I didn't expect the birds.
1:41:48And when I printed the shot,
1:41:53when you look at the picture,
1:41:55you can just never stop counting the birds.
1:41:57And it's so relaxing.
1:41:59It's like the shot for me is just so cool.
1:42:03And it's all of these birds in the shot.
1:42:06And when you first look at it, you don't see the birds.
1:42:08You see the sunrise, you see the lake,
1:42:12you see the silhouettes of the building.
1:42:14And then you say, hold on, that's a bird.
1:42:17That's a bird, that's a bird.
1:42:18Then you start counting the bird.
1:42:20I've still yet to count all the birds
1:42:22and I've counted a lot of birds.
1:42:28I was saying, did I ever see that one?
1:42:30I don't know, no.
1:42:34I took it to my-
1:42:35Did you print that one?
1:42:36I printed it.
1:42:37I posted it before, I know that.
1:42:39But when I printed it, I took it to the VA.
1:42:40It took it, I'm hanging in my counselor's office.
1:42:44And that was a transition for me
1:42:46because that gave me the ability to shoot for me.
1:42:52When you're shooting pictures of people,
1:42:53you're shooting for those people.
1:42:55Because I want to take a picture of you
1:42:56that you gonna like.
1:42:58And that's how I got into photography
1:42:59because you gonna pay me for the picture
1:43:02that I take of you.
1:43:04But now if I can take a picture of something,
1:43:07a flower, a bus,
1:43:10you know, six, seven people might like that picture.
1:43:15Sunrise, sunset, you know,
1:43:17some more people might like that picture.
1:43:19And if they like it enough, they'll pay for it.
1:43:23And now you've created a whole nother revenue stream
1:43:26because you have pictures that multiple people like.
1:43:32Taking pictures of other people
1:43:34would call me be so, you know,
1:43:36to that person or the family
1:43:37or people that know them directly, so.
1:43:40But like you said, the iconic shot, Count the Birds,
1:43:45you know, that could be thousands, millions.
1:43:49I kind of, the strangest photo shoot I ever did
1:43:56was I took a wedding photo to blind people.
1:44:03Their reasoning for wanting to have pictures
1:44:08of the wedding was they had a daughter
1:44:13and she was a little infant kid at the time,
1:44:15but she wasn't blind.
1:44:17And they wanted to have that memory
1:44:22for her to see when she got out.
1:44:31So this, you know, this,
1:44:34it can take you some places.
1:44:39Me, yeah, man.
1:44:42It's been an experience.
1:44:44I've enjoyed it.
1:44:45I'm excited about the next phase of it.
1:44:49I'm excited about what this is gonna do.
1:44:52I'm excited about what that's gonna do.
1:44:54I'm excited about what that's gonna do.
1:44:56You know, it's just exciting, man.
1:45:05It's to be, for me, to be 51
1:45:08and be in the position that I am in
1:45:12is so inspiring for me to keep moving forward
1:45:16because I see what I see
1:45:20and I learned that trying to get somebody else
1:45:24to see what you see is hard as hell,
1:45:28but I can show you.
1:45:30The only way I can show you is if I do the things
1:45:33that it does in order to get to that point,
1:45:35like coming in.
1:45:37And I believe that life put things in front of you
1:45:40to help make you understand
1:45:44that you're on the right path,
1:45:46just like it can put things in front of you
1:45:48to say you're on the wrong path.
1:45:51You know, I woke up this morning looking for a door
1:45:54to build a wall and coming here today,
1:46:00I was late because I saw a door on the side of the road
1:46:05and said, okay, let me backtrack around
1:46:07and pick that up because that was there for me.
1:46:11That wasn't just there.
1:46:13That was there for me.
1:46:18How it was placed there,
1:46:19even the person that put it there
1:46:21don't even know and understand.
1:46:24But I would have been foolish
1:46:28to ride past that door and not stop to check it
1:46:33to say, okay, I wonder if, guess what?
1:46:35Is this intact?
1:46:37Because we throw things away all the time.
1:46:39All the time, you know?
1:46:41But we don't want it no more
1:46:42because we got a stain on it.
1:46:45But guess what, I can put some paint over that.
1:46:49Is it still in one piece?
1:46:51You know, is the hinges broke on it or something?
1:46:54You know what, they just threw this door away
1:46:55because it didn't fit the new look
1:46:57that they was going for.
1:47:00And that door was there for me and I got it.
1:47:07After hearing you today,
1:47:09it's definitely a story of, you know,
1:47:14executing off creativity
1:47:16and then also it's that layer of resilience.
1:47:22You know, also here, you know, you're always learning.
1:47:26You're always growing.
1:47:29Even through me, you know, you say you learn things
1:47:33and that's, I think exactly one,
1:47:35one and a half years in age difference.
1:47:40Maybe exactly, wow, 30, 34, 17, yeah, 51, wow.
1:47:49Like I said, you always learning, always growing.
1:47:51How important it is always learning
1:47:54no matter how old you get.
1:47:57Cause if you stop, it stops.
1:48:01If you stop learning,
1:48:02just think if I never would have learned
1:48:03how to use a digital camera
1:48:05or I was never interested in figuring out
1:48:07what wifi was or if I was fixed on,
1:48:10I mean, when I got my first cell phone.
1:48:13Oh man, this is, now I have a history with cell phones
1:48:18that go back to the nineties
1:48:20when we didn't have cell phones.
1:48:24We were still running through pager.
1:48:27But my experience with cell phones,
1:48:30when I went to Germany in 99,
1:48:33they didn't have house phones.
1:48:34They had cell phones.
1:48:36And it was like, wow.
1:48:38I was-
1:48:38Was it a satellite phone or?
1:48:40No, these were cell phones, cell phones.
1:48:42And it gave me the information
1:48:45on how fast technology was for them.
1:48:49I got introduced to the internet in Germany.
1:48:53I got my first Yahoo account in Germany.
1:48:57When I came back home,
1:48:58I was already familiar with computers.
1:49:02But at the same time,
1:49:03I didn't know what they were gonna do.
1:49:07But I was interested enough to say, ah.
1:49:10And then I was around enough people
1:49:12that I was interested in them to say,
1:49:14hey, this is what this is doing right now.
1:49:17Cause I remember Photoshop 5.0.
1:49:217.0.
1:49:22I had another photographer friend tell me,
1:49:24he said, listen,
1:49:26I'll teach you how to use Photoshop
1:49:27if you buy the disc.
1:49:29And the disc was $749.
1:49:32Yeah.
1:49:35You can't go get a bootleg copy of it.
1:49:37You gotta buy it.
1:49:39That's the way it was explained to me.
1:49:43And it was, it's just always been,
1:49:49if you want it enough and you understand
1:49:54it's not gonna happen in your time,
1:49:57but if you stay after it, yeah.
1:49:59It's like Lailaway.
1:50:01I don't gotta tell you I want this
1:50:03and give you $10 and you go put it in the closet
1:50:06and tell me when I finish paying for it,
1:50:08you give it to me.
1:50:09I know that's what I want.
1:50:11I know it's gonna cost me.
1:50:13I know, okay, when I do make some money,
1:50:15this is what I need to do with the money.
1:50:18Cause if I don't, guess what?
1:50:21Everybody else got something to tell you
1:50:23what to do with your money.
1:50:26Everybody else got a reason
1:50:28that your money is so important
1:50:32for them to have to pay a bill,
1:50:36to get what they want,
1:50:37to do what they needed to do.
1:50:40And once you learn how to say no,
1:50:43it changes all of that because it's yours.
1:50:48You earned that.
1:50:50Now what you gonna do with it?
1:50:52And that's the hardest thing,
1:50:55I think we have to learn in life
1:50:58and it's a time thing.
1:51:00You have to get that time behind you
1:51:03to understand and being put in the position
1:51:11so that you can get the information the right way.
1:51:14Some people go to jail to figure out,
1:51:17hey, that's not where I wanna be.
1:51:21Why do you gotta go there to find out
1:51:22that's not where you wanna be?
1:51:25Every story that I ever heard about jail
1:51:29told me that's not where I wanna be.
1:51:32Exactly, yeah.
1:51:33So why do I have to put myself in a position
1:51:36to be there for me to understand and realize
1:51:40that's not where I wanna be?
1:51:43Not that curious.
1:51:48And that's the part of it.
1:51:50I do right because it's right to do right.
1:51:52I do right because it feels good to do right.
1:51:55I sleep better at night.
1:51:57When I do right, I ain't saying I always did right.
1:52:01I did some wrong shit too and I don't sleep well.
1:52:06That wasn't a restful night when I fucked up.
1:52:12I made that decision and I didn't,
1:52:15no, I didn't, no, no, no, no, no.
1:52:17I shouldn't have did that.
1:52:23I lived and I learned, man,
1:52:25and I'm at a position in life now
1:52:28where life is the lesson.
1:52:31I'm not just telling people anything
1:52:33that this is how you should do it.
1:52:37I've lived this 51 years, 14 before.
1:52:42I know what 14 feels like.
1:52:45I still know what 14 feels like.
1:52:48I know what 16 feels like.
1:52:52I know what 17, 18, 21, 25, 32, 33, 35, 41, 40s.
1:52:59I know what that feels like and I don't mind sharing.
1:53:09With it all being said, as we wrap up the interview,
1:53:15what would you say is your legacy
1:53:20for everything you built business-wise
1:53:23and then you individually?
1:53:28The legacy part is I want everything
1:53:32that I've become a part of
1:53:33and the things that I'm gonna become a part of
1:53:35in the future to continue to exist,
1:53:38to continue to grow.
1:53:41This flesh, this body,
1:53:44all of this one day not be here.
1:53:47But because of technology, now we have things like this.
1:53:50Somebody somewhere might hear this video
1:53:53and it might help them in life.
1:53:56I had a chance at the end of the school year
1:54:00to go to Daniel Morgan and talk to,
1:54:05man, I talked to some five-year-olds.
1:54:09They wasn't even born in 2020.
1:54:12These are the COVID babies.
1:54:15And I talked to first graders, second graders,
1:54:18third graders, and I couldn't wait to get
1:54:21to the eighth graders
1:54:22because that's who I was there for.
1:54:24And they were the last ones for me to talk to.
1:54:27And that kept me there
1:54:30because I remember when I was in the eighth grade,
1:54:33I remember when I almost lost my life
1:54:37and I remember the things that led up to me
1:54:41almost losing my life.
1:54:43And that experience in itself was something
1:54:46that I wanted to talk to an eighth grader about
1:54:49because, hey, man, listen,
1:54:50I know this summer is about to happen.
1:54:52I know next year you're going to high school
1:54:54and guess what?
1:54:56I know the things that you wanted
1:54:57and things that you want to do,
1:55:00but I can tell you, guess what?
1:55:03This, doing it like this and doing it like this,
1:55:05it ain't worth it because time,
1:55:10it's not standing still for nobody.
1:55:15And just like you're going to go to the ninth grade,
1:55:16you're going to go to the 10th grade.
1:55:19But if you get stuck on this stupid right here,
1:55:25I can be the rest of your life.
1:55:27I seen a video on YouTube
1:55:29and I think I let you go on this one
1:55:32where this guy, they pushed him through,
1:55:36he climbed through the window to open the door
1:55:39for a house that they were going to break into.
1:55:43He was the driver, not the doer.
1:55:50A man and his daughter lost their lives
1:55:53through this craziness.
1:55:57But when he sat in there with the police,
1:56:00he explained to them,
1:56:02and if you listen to the interview,
1:56:04he was really, man, listen,
1:56:05I didn't want to, they made me.
1:56:11That wasn't what I was,
1:56:13I didn't have nothing to do with them killing them people.
1:56:18But you didn't already made yourself complicit
1:56:22to the actual act
1:56:24because now you've given them the information
1:56:27that you didn't know not to give them
1:56:29and now this young man doing 50 years of life.
1:56:35And you didn't even do the crime,
1:56:36you was just there
1:56:38because you wasn't strong enough to say,
1:56:40no, I'm not climbing through that window.
1:56:46Life gone.
1:56:54I had someone that had a similar thing,
1:56:59no lives were lost though.
1:57:12Caught up in the wrong environments,
1:57:14caught around the wrong people
1:57:16or people that don't even have a legacy
1:57:18or that vision or that good direction in life.
1:57:21Like you said earlier,
1:57:23getting caught up in something that's positive,
1:57:26doing stuff that's good for the environment,
1:57:29doing right,
1:57:31which is needed.
1:57:33And I just applaud you
1:57:35and thank you for being that example.
1:57:39As we wrap up,
1:57:41how can everybody find you,
1:57:43locate you if they want to book you
1:57:45or reach out to G6 or Liquid Vision Films?
1:57:50How can they do that?
1:57:50G6 No Gas,
1:57:53that's the tag,
1:57:56Instagram, Facebook.
1:57:59I'm working on a YouTube page now.
1:58:01YouTube, okay.
1:58:04Underscore Liquid V Film on Instagram.
1:58:09It's where I post some of my work at.
1:58:12But other than that,
1:58:13I mean, it's really just stay tuned
1:58:16because it ain't even started yet.
1:58:18It's just getting to that point.
1:58:22And I just hope that I can help somebody
1:58:27down the line,
1:58:29make better decisions for themselves
1:58:31as life move forward
1:58:33because we need something to do.
1:58:38And if this is something that you enjoy doing,
1:58:41you just gotta get around the right people
1:58:43that's doing what you enjoy to do.
1:58:47And they gonna feed you
1:58:48and they gonna teach you how to feed yourself.
1:58:50That's the most important part.
1:58:55Yes, yes.
1:58:56And there you have it.
1:58:57This is photographer Jackson,
1:58:59Steve Jackson of Alienize Photos Media
1:59:02bringing you another episode
1:59:04of Alienize Photos Industry Talk
1:59:06with Mr. Sean Lee Jones, my mentor, my brother.
1:59:11Hey, taking this one to the top.
1:59:14And if you wanna find me and book me,
1:59:16visit alienizephotos.com
1:59:19and follow me on all social media at Alienize Photos.
1:59:24All right, till next time.
1:59:26Peace.
1:59:27Peace.