Smash Notes
Christopher Michel. Photographer and Entrepreneur
On this episode of the podcast we are joined by Christopher Michel to hear about how he went from being a naval flight officer, to working at the Pentagon, to Harvard business school, to creating multiple companies in the tech world, to his current life as a world traveling photographer documenting some of the harshest conditions on the planet and working…
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Notes
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Christopher Michel is a success photographer who had made several career transitions in his life, going from the Navy, to work at Pentagon, to then living the life of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, only to change it all again and to become a photographer, with the goal to make a difference by taking pictures that people would love and remember.
Christopher Michel has been all over the world, taking pictures from Antarctica to the edge of space. He has an open mind, and an approach which has enabled him to make money from photography, while still enjoying the craft, in a time when many photographers are struggling with their future.
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Fortunately for him, Christopher is not trying to optimize his new career for money at this point, but rather for a good life worth living. As the industry is changing and photos are becoming a commodity, one has to adopt to the current trajectory of social media and digital content, in order to continue getting paid for photos.
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Christopher thought he wanted to be in politics and serving his country was the right thing to do. Also Top Gun, the movie, was very inspiring on him as a young adult.
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Christophers Michel's mother and father were divorced by the time Christopher turned one. His mom remarried and the family moved to America, where his second dad took on a lot of different jobs in different places. Moving around a lot, Christopher was often an "outsider nerd kid", spending a lot of time observing.
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On Visual Revolutionary, Christopher Michel says he is happiest in faraway places, capturing stories. He traces that to a childhood on the move. He felt like an outsider in each new town, and he thinks a lot of photographers are outsiders who watch the world rather than settle in it.
He also comes from an artistic family. His mother is an artist, and her father was a painter and a professor at the University of Michigan. Michel calls himself a product of genetics and environment. As a child his creativity went into programming, on machines like a TRS-80, which later helped him start internet companies.
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Many think of the military as a great job for people with only a few options, but Christopher says military service could be an all-together really positive and memorable experience.
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It is not. Christopher says that while growing up a lot of people have idealistic views of their potential careers, which turns out to be different in practice. Much the same way, you are better off first succeeding in business, in order to become a politician, instead of starting your career as a public servant.
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On Visual Revolutionary, Christopher Michel says that working in Washington cured an old idea. He had thought a government job was the path to elected office. It is not. The more common path is to succeed at something else, then run.
What he saw up close is that politics is a job of compromise, and that the truth matters less than support for the party or for your own candidacy. Politics was not a life he wanted. He hopes the disillusionment sends more good people toward service, and that voters care less about party and more about the country.
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An MBA could be a great way to realizing your options in life.
Before going to Harvard Business School, Christopher did not know what he wanted to do with his life. His options only consisted of what he knew at the time, which was operations and aviation.
One day in 1997, while at HBS, Christopher heard the inventor of VisiCalc speak to his class, and that's when Christopher realized the life of an entrepreneur was the life he wanted to live.
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In 1999 Christopher Michel had an idea for Military.com as the first social network for military people. The military is a real community, with real needs, and that's why today, 20 years later, the company is still operational.
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Christopher Michel told Visual Revolutionary that Military.com raised a lot of money in the San Francisco Bay Area, then nearly died. In March 2000 the bubble burst. The company was burning about a million dollars a month. He was fired as chief executive, and the business was about to be shut down.
He came back, turned it around, and sold it to Monster. He then started Affinity Labs for nurses, teachers, police officers, and government workers, and sold that company too. In 2008 he asked what he actually wanted. He had been taking pictures for about ten years. The answer was the life of an adventure photographer.
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In 2008, after selling two companies, Christopher Michel realized he wanted to pursue the life of an adventure photographer as a way to live a good life and to preserve his memories forever.
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On Visual Revolutionary, Christopher Michel says the turning point was a trip, he thinks to India. A photograph of his won a contest for the travel company. Then the company offered to send him on trips for free so he would take pictures. He remembers thinking the offer was interesting, and the work grew from there.
He never really hustled or pushed the pictures. He wanted people to find the work and offer the jobs, and he gives himself low marks for that approach. He would not recommend it. He also says the money he had already made changed the stakes. In Silicon Valley, founders with no alternative will do whatever a company needs.
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When your life depends on getting something to work, you have no alternative and you need to survive, it's amazing how creative you become to get it done.
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When things become hard in big companies, they just stop doing those things. When things become hard for someone whose life depends on that thing, they work harder, and that's where innovation happens.
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On Visual Revolutionary, Christopher Michel says his challenge every day is to keep doing the best work he can. He knows how many extremely good photographers are working, and he says the bar for playing as a professional is very high. He works at it daily, and he calls it tough work.
He holds that bar next to what he calls an abundance mindset. He is friends with other photographers and wants to support them, rather than treat their success as a threat. The host of Visual Revolutionary says that attitude shows up in the pictures.
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On Visual Revolutionary, Christopher Michel says one of the most fun parts of being a photographer is the community of other creatives. In almost every case he finds people supportive and willing to help, and he feels sorry for photographers who do not see it that way.
He thinks the culture opened up. In the late 1990s and early 2000s it felt guarded, even though he had mentors. A friend later tricked him into his first real photo class, at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, with fashion photographer Kurt Markus and documentarian Norman Mauskopf. Spending time with people who had given their lives to film changed how he worked.
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Even though he was already pretty good at his craft, Christopher Michel says that taking a photography class from a professional was a transformation experience for him. He studied from an old-fashioned photographer from the analog age and learned a lot about the craft itself. Now that he's a professional, he is teaching workshops to pass it forward and to inspire new photographers.
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Sam Abell has been a National Geographic Photographer for 35 years and an inspiration to Christopher P. Michel. He is not just a photographer, but a philosopher who takes pictures.
Sam taught Christopher to make the best photographer he can, every time he picks up his camera. It does not mean you would always make the best photographer, but when you put your best effort, using all the right techniques, you increase your chances of getting the best image.
Next time you take photo, even if it's just with your iPhone, instead of taking 50 photos, slow down and take one or two photos, but visualize what you want to get out and get that shot.
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On Visual Revolutionary, photographer Christopher Michel says a good picture starts before the shutter. He is a mindfulness practitioner, and he argues that photography done right is a way of being in the present. If you are not there, you will probably take bad pictures.
He cares less about firing 20 frames in a row than about whether you thought about the photograph you wanted. Just pulling the camera out and shooting is not helpful. He points to Albert Watson, who would spend about three hours setting up a single picture, and to his own three days as the Dalai Lama's photographer.
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