377: Eduardo Pavez Goye – How to master the skills of photography and stay creative

377: Eduardo Pavez Goye – How to master the skills of photography and stay creative

Andrew Hellmich: Today's guest write scripts, directs plays, sings in a band and shoots film. He grew up in Chile and left in 2013. Since then he's lived in Germany, the UK, and is currently completing a PhD of Theater and Performance at Columbia University in New York. He was a wedding photographer for a couple of years, but that's not why I reached out to him for this interview. I stumbled across him on YouTube and I subscribed to his channel along with 80,000 others and love his approach to photography. In particular, his approach to personal projects. I'm looking forward to exploring more about his creative pursuits, the way he works at bettering himself and learning new skills - from learning how to shoot new cameras, creating zines and his YouTube channel. I'm talking about Eduardo Pavez Goye, and I'm rapt to have him here with us now. Eduardo, welcome.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Hey, hello. Glad to be here. So excited.

Andrew Hellmich: Look, me too. Me too. Look, first of all, you have to tell me and the listener why you started with wedding photography and why you got out of it.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Okay. So, I started wedding photography because I'm...here's the thing I was working on television back in the day. I was writing scripts for television and in television, when you start working in projects, at least in Chile, they don't hire you for the year. They hire you for the season of the project you're writing. So I was writing some TV series and the season was going to end, and I didn't have a contract afterwards because the contracts on television take a long time and you have to go through a lot of process and what not. So in between I was like, okay, I need to make money out of something. And I was taking pictures, mostly tutorials and product photography. I will say, even though I'm not a really professional product photographer, but I was doing mostly portraits and editorials and a friend of mine is a wedding photographer.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: And he said, "Hey, man. It will be amazing if you could do video with me." Cause I was, I had a 5D Mark II at the time and I've never shot wedding videos. I had no idea about the wedding business. And I said, "Okay, I can make a video. Sure." But I've never shot, you know, weddings. I was making videos for corporates back in the day. And I said, if I would make a wedding video, probably make it like the corporate videos that I do so will be like 10 minutes or something like that. And this is 2010. So wedding videos were not a standard. Like the standard at that time, at least in Chile was like the two hour long video of weddings. And when I said 10 minute video and I said, yeah, do something like a kind of more cinema approach. And you know, it carried some interest in clients and I started shooting videos. And then I realized I was working a lot on the editing side of the video. And I started drifting away from the video of moving into a shooting pictures, which was less work for the same amount of money. And that's how I got into shooting weddings instead of shooting, you know, video for weddings. And I did that for four years more or less.

Andrew Hellmich: And was it a profitable, successful business?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Here's the thing. It was what kept me afloat, when I was not working on television. And then when I went back and television, I just enjoyed shooting weddings so much that I kept doing it in the meantime. And in Chile those days, I mean, I'm talking 10 years ago. So I was making not much money for a wedding. I was like a thousand and five hundred dollars it was like, and that's what you get paid. If you are like a top photographer of wedding photography, you know, in those days in Chile. So it wasn't much, but by shooting two weddings, I was completely fine for the whole month and I could save money and I could do a lot of things. So I lived a pretty comfortable life shooting weddings in those days. So in a way, yes, it was successful business because I kept doing it for four years.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: But at the same time, weddings are really taxing on, you know, you have to be up to date, you have to be super creative all the time. You have to be challenging yourself all the time. And if you don't grow your business creatively, while you're shooting weddings, you might run the risk of getting stuck in some kind of ascetic or some kind of way of resolving the weddings. And yeah, I saw a lot of people coming and going in those four years that I was in the business. And eventually I left too. And there's people who are still there, like my friend, who is into wedding photography, he's still shooting weddings. So there's people who still do it, but it requires a special skill set of being, you know, I don't know, just reinventing yourself all the time, doing the same thing over and over. So it's a pretty, it's a pretty hard job. I will say. It's a tough gig for sure.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. I agree. So why did you stop? Is it because you moved overseas?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. I moved to Germany. I got accepted in a masters in screenwriting and I wanted to leave out of Chile. I wanted to leave the country for years and then this opportunity came about and I got married and my wife had an Italian visa. So it was possible for us to move to Europe and just live there. We just took the opportunity and just left. And when we were in Germany, it was impossible to shoot weddings. I didn't have the network to make it happen. I could speak German, but not well enough to, you know, be funny with the bride and the groom. So I couldn't really get into the business. And I think I fulfilled that kind of, I was happy where I was studying, so I didn't really need to go back and shoot weddings at that moment. I still, when I went back to Chile a few times, I still got some gigs and shoot a couple of weddings, but it wasn't my main job at that time. It was just the one thing that, you know, a couple found my work online. They really wanted me to shoot their wedding. So I will go to Chile and shoot that, and then come back. But it wasn't my main gig anymore.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So fast forward to today, you sound like you have these multiple creative outlets. So, where really, is your passion? Is it the writing? Is it the directing, the singing, the photography?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: I would say it's in theater. Everything that involves theater, but mostly writing and directing. That's my thing. That's what I love doing the most. Also because I try to be very politically active. And if I do something that is not politically active or doesn't have a political outlet, I tend to get bored with it. So theater is a really political or actively political work and it's an art that it's highly performative. You need to be there. There's a whole, it's counter-intuitive with the business because you can only admit so many people in a theater. And if you want to move your product, you have to move the whole cast with it. So it's a very unusual business to be in. There's not much glory in it, I will say, but I love it. It's just where my passion is. It's the one thing that I enjoy writing the most. It's the one thing that I enjoy directing the most.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: It's the one thing that when I see it perform, I enjoy the most. So yeah, theater is where my passion is, but at the same time photography fulfills other creative desires that I don't find in theater since theater is immediate and everything is in your face. Photography allows you to in-frame certain elements in the picture. And that is something that I have tried to emulate in theater. I put cameras in the place I've shot, live cinema theater, um, because I have a love for cameras at the same time or for the medium, like the act of using a camera to get in contact with other people and use it as a medium to connect with that person or reframe what is happening in reality. Yeah. I love that activity.

Andrew Hellmich: What do you mean by theater is political?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: I mean, in theater you can do things that in cinema you can't. Like, for example, if you see a movie and the movie is just one guy speaking in front of a camera with nothing else for an hour, she will ask your money back.

Andrew Hellmich: Definitely.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: For sure. Cause that's terribly boring, but if you go to a theater and you see a guy just talking straight to the audience for an hour, it can be an amazing way. And usually theater tends to be, at least the theater that I comes to tends to be more politically active than, you know, cinema that tends to be like industry cinema, which is usually it has some kind of message, but it's less radical in a way, or it's not overtly calling for. What I mean by political, maybe I should clarify. Also it's not necessarily like artists and politics like, Oh, I like this candidate or whatever. It has to do with a self reflection of the activity of the people while watching the object.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: And that self-reflection forces you to think about, what am I seeing, why am I seeing this? Do I like this or not? Like the act of being aware of what you're doing while you're watching something. I think that's a political act in itself. And that entails different relationships with the object. And I think theater does that perfectly. You can be like alienated from what you're seeing and at the same time questioning why you're alienated. I think theater has a different relationship with the act of seeing theater than you have with watching a movie. The movie forces you or wants you to be lost inside the movie. And the theater that I like seeing is a theater that forces you to be present while you're watching the play, but you're never completely inside the play. You're always one step beyond or behind the play or watching it unfold, but you're still you, you're never lost in the illusion.

Andrew Hellmich: True. So do you get the same effect or can you get the same effect with photography?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: With theater?

Andrew Hellmich: That political, you know, where you're having the viewer of the photo questioning what they're seeing and being affected by it.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: That's an interesting question. I think what photography does better than theater in a way, or does it more efficiently is documenting. There is document theater for sure. But even documentary theater is linked to image or it's linked to some kind of register of reality. And I think photography since it's a medium that is forced to register reality because he's not creating reality since it's more linked to the real world. I think it serves a different purpose. I don't think you can achieve the same effect, but I think photography is, it's a highly political also work that you can do, especially with like photo documentary or you see like war photographers or photographing riots or marches or whatever you have in reality, that's happening. Especially now that it's unfolding so many things in this Corona virus thingy. There's so many stuff happening outside at the same time and you can be in relationship with that through the camera. I think it's a very interesting element you have when you have a device that can record reality and reframe it in a way.

Andrew Hellmich: For sure. So I'm looking at some of your photos now, and I'm talking about the protests photos on your website. Are they from the recent protests?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: No, those are protests from 2011 to 2013. Those were the protests for reforming the educational system. The president that we have now, Piñera, he was a president before once and those photos are from that period of time. Those were the last images I captured when I was in Chile. After that I left and I was very, very active in those years. I went to, not all, but almost all of the marches that were in those days. Like every week they were like at least two marches. So we marched a lot and I was in the front lines with the guys and, and with the anarchists and there were just, you know, fighting with the police and I was taking the pictures and I was forced to bring my film camera because a digital camera couldn't endure the hardness of the environment. There was a lot of water, a lot of tear gas and a lot of beatings that, we were forced to endure. So digital cameras wouldn't allow that. But film cameras, since they're old and I bought my film cameras for really cheap back then. Nobody was shooting film, nobody cared. So I could bring film cameras to the protest. And that's how that project came about. It was just the necessity of documenting something with some camera and film cameras were at my disposal. I was just learning how to develop film. So that's where it came from.

Andrew Hellmich: Got it. So when you went into those marches and you created these photos for this project, let's call it a project. Then what was the mindset? Are you creating these images for yourself to document for yourself? Or is this to share with the public and get a response? Why were you shooting these images?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: I never thought about showing those images outside, you know, my Flicker account, which was the thing that was the hot thing back then.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: And I was forming myself. Here's the thing. I use those images to learn how to operate film cameras. I wanted to be better at composing. I wanted to be better at focusing with manual lenses. And I just got this Canon A-1 with a 50/1.4 for, I got it for, I dunno, 60 bucks or something. It was just basically free. So I got the camera and I was shooting it. My interest was getting better at the camera. But at the same time, I feel like it was such an important event in my country that was happening. And I felt it was like my duty as a citizen to document it. And I wasn't alone in that. Like many, many other young photographers who had never shot film or never used a camera before started going to the streets and taking pictures.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: So there was an Alliance of photographers who were not professional photographers, so we're shooting these things and they're just uploading them online. Also, one of the other things that would happen is that there was a very heavy, you know, wall of information from the official media. So the official media will never show images of the protest. They will only show, you know, the police being heroes and taking care of these evil people who want to destabilize our economy or whatever. And all the young people that I met were like, we need to go against this. And the only chance we have is to grab our cameras and show this to the world or document it, and then have some kind of archive. So I think it was, it was not only mine, but it was the duty of the photographers who were just of my generation, who wanted to have a say in that historical archive that eventually will be, you know, maybe it will become important, but we didn't know. It was just the thing that we were doing.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So, did you get involved or did you go and photograph the more recent protests and marches for Black Lives Matter and what's been going on in the States?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: No, no. There was a march the other day outside my house and I grabbed my camera and went out and took some pictures, but I took those pictures with a 50mm and like very, very away from the whole situation. Not because of the protest itself, but because of the virus. I don't want to risk it. I've been locked inside for four months and I don't want to risk everything for one march. So I haven't actually been active in that regard. If this wasn't the case, I will for sure be in the forefront, but the situation is kind of difficult. So I need to take care of myself. I need to go to study. There's a lot of things that need to be, you know, wait before going into that.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you think there's an argument to say that, Hey, you know, you're an amateur photographer, let's say that there was no risk of you getting the virus. Is there an argument to say, Hey, you're not a professional documentary photographer for the paper. You shouldn't be there photographing. That should be left to the professionals.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Like if, if there was no epidemic? If it was just like life?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. A protest against the government, for example. Like in Chile, but here in the States.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: I think the same that was happening in Chile, I think it applies the same element. If history is unfolding in front of you, it would be a good idea for you to document it. That's my take on it. If you're not putting yourself and other people at risk by doing so. So if there's some kind of protest and you can be part of it and document it and you know, help the cause that you believe in and for me, you got to believe in the cause in order to go and document it. If you're going to document it to undermine it. I don't think that's a very healthy thing. But if you truly believe in that and you want to take part of that and the way which you can contribute is by taking pictures, then by all means go and do it. I think you really don't need to be a professional. And in fact, I think the fact that you're not a professional and you're not paying the bills by doing it, gives you a lot of freedom that other people who are professionals and who need to grab the image that, you know, they are being mandated to capture. You don't have that mandate. You don't have a narrator. You're just you. You can capture whatever you feel like it. And I think that freedom is very beautiful to capture protests.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, where would you even share it to have any impact? I mean, on your Facebook page, on your Instagram account?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. On your Instagram, on your Facebook. What happens is also, at least in Chile, what happened with the protest is that a lot of activities started being organized by this...Okay. So I sing on a band. And my band is a hardcore band. It's a [inaudible] hardcore band. We're very into the DIY scene. So when the protest began and there was people taking pictures and whatnot. At the same time, a lot of groups were self-organized. They were making, you know, exhibitions. So the pictures that we're taking will be exhibited in the very South of Chile, or they will say, okay, we're going to make a independent scene and you will send those pictures. So it will be distributed. We didn't make any money. That wasn't the goal. The goal was to show what the press wasn't showing. And that could happen now via Instagram or Facebook or whatever, but it can also happen through other media that just circulate by hand. I think the circulation by hand is a very important circulation that is usually, it's more old school, but at the same time, it has that feeling of importance because there's an object that you're taking care of. So I think, I think that's also a mean of distribution.

Andrew Hellmich: I like that. I want to come back to your projects in just a second.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Sure.

Andrew Hellmich: But I mean, you're busy. You sound like you're busy. You're doing your PhD. You're living in this new city. I know you're married. Do you have a child as well?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: No, not yet.

Andrew Hellmich: No kids. So what are you doing for an income?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: So as an income right now, I have a fellowship from the university. So that's the reason why we moved. We were living in the UK and I was working as a playwright and screenwriter in the UK. And I have my YouTube channel. I was selling my scenes. I have my online store. So I had a lot of small pockets of money that were like organized incomes. And when we moved here, I had to like, let many of those buckets go cause they had to focus completely on the PhD. So right now my income comes from the fellowship. And sometimes, you know, they're constantly staging my plays in Chile and in Mexico. So that's another small pocket that I have. Sometimes it gets some kind of, a friend in here or somebody needs to have a photo shoot. Or I know a lot of musicians, cause many of my friends are jazz musicians. So sometimes they're going to release an album and they need somebody to take the pictures for the album. There I go. I take their pictures. So that kind of things are mostly my income, like the fellowship and small works.

Andrew Hellmich: So lots of little sources coming in here and there.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. Yeah. Not a main source. I've learned to run away from main sources and have many buckets.

Andrew Hellmich: I like that.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Because then if one bucket fail, you can just create another one.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes. Well, let's dive a little bit into your YouTube channel. And is it a profitable pursuit? Is it something that the listener, a photographer should consider starting?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: That's a very good question. The size that I have is not profitable as a channel.

Andrew Hellmich: But you have 80,000 subscribers.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. But, okay. So maybe this requires a little bit more explanation. If you make a YouTube channel with the intent of making money out of the YouTube channel, I can't ensure you, but you will need to make a lot of decisions that will put you in that area. And what I mean is you need to start doing some more catchy videos and things that are more click baity and, you know, cause with 80,000 people, you can make a living. You need, I dunno, 150 or 200 or 300,000 people to start making some kind of money that will make sense.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you mean from ad revenue?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So you can choose whether or not to show ads on your channel and you get paid every time an ad gets watched or clicked or both?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Watched, if I'm not mistaken because the Google algorithm puts the ads and then you watch the ad and you're forced to watch the ad actually.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: They put it like a five second and there's some horrible ad and you just skip it. That's why many people who have channels my size or smaller get deals with brands. That's why you have so many audible and you know, Skillshare and whatever you have, like those kinds of advertisers on the channels, because that's the only way you can actually make some kind of money out of your channel. But the other option you have is the option that I've taken is to make another source of income by having a Patreon, for example. And Patreon makes a lot of sense if your channel is aiming towards creating some kind of community, or if you're not trying to make deals with sponsorships, if that's the case, nothing wrong with it.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: I don't mind watching an ad for a channel. If that ad makes the channel going. Like I'm happy for that person. But for me, I'd rather have some kind of Patreon and I have more control over my constant revenue of income, even if it's not huge, but at least I know how much it is. And at the same time, what happens is for example I'm selling zines or not now, but I'm going to start reselling zines. Oh, we're selling zines before. And I'll start doing again. And that's another source of income. That's another way in which people who watch the channel say like, Oh, you know, I like this guy. Maybe I can, you know, buy a zine and support this person. Like I don't want to be a Patreon, but I can buy a zine. Sure. That sounds fun. And there you go. So that, it's like a tip jar. That's how I see it.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes. Got it. Got it. So for the listener who's unaware, what is Patreon and how does it work?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Patreon is a platform in which you subscribe to some kind of content creator and you pay. There are different ways you can pay by creation or monthly. So they creation. For example, if you follow somebody who makes YouTube videos, you can say, okay, every time this person makes a YouTube video, I'll give him $1 or $5. Or you can say every month I'm going to give this person $1, $5, $20, $50, whatever you want. And in return, that person gives you certain things. It can give you access to the videos early. It can gives you access to behind the scenes. It can give you podcasts or private to the Patreon. Like every person has different options for that. But Patreon is a platform that allows creators to make a living out of people who follow them. And the creator gives them more content. So people not only support you, but also have more stuff that they like at the same time. So I think it's a win, win situation. If you want to support creators.

Andrew Hellmich: I like that. Do Patreon take a cut from you?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. I actually don't remember right now. How much is the cut, but it's not like a big cut at all. I'm a big Patreon fan basically because they know this. I mean, I've seen him, the CEO is Jack Conte, but I've been following Jack for a long time on his YouTube channel and when he launched Patreon, I was like, yeah, that's a great idea. And my wife got a Patreon. I got a Patreon and I've been in meetings with the people who are like organizing the whole thing in Patreon. And they look like nice people. It doesn't seem like a company that will take advantage of the creators at all. Like it's a company that has the creators in mind. They want to make the best out of it. So that's why I like it. I think it's a good thing. I don't know. I like it a lot.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. I agree. And I know there's some podcasts that's using the same platform for their subscribers who don't want to monetize with advertising or sponsors.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yes, that's correct. And they make some kind of networks of podcasts. Like sometimes I've got group of podcasts, organize themselves and be like, okay, you talk about this. I have my podcasts about this other topic. And then they make like collabs and they made like a big Patreon and you have access to, you know, five podcasts or whatever. So it's, I don't know, there's people organizing in different ways.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I like that. And you also mentioned zines, which is, I guess, short form magazine, but it's a photographic, what would you call it? A photographic magazine? Small scale.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. Small scale magazine. Do it yourself vibe. That's printed in a, like in a good quality, but it's not like photographic photo paper quality. It's mostly recycled paper, but nicely printed. It has a independent feel. So it's a small-run kind of magazine and it serves a purpose of showing the work without pretending to be a proper photobook.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So bring to mind and share with us one of your most successful zines. Is there one that comes to mind?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah, for example, the first one that I did, it's called A Parade of Strangers and it's based on the project that I did in which I shot 30 rolls in 30 days with a Mamiya C330 and I just bought that camera and I wanted to use it. And I said to myself, the only way I can get better with this camera is by using it every day. So why don't I make a project out of that? And that's what I did. And I shot 30 rolls in 30 days and I just share all the images on YouTube. And then I chose the best ones. And I compiled the scene in which I explained more or less the feeling that I had with the images. And it was a very beautiful time in my life because I was living in London. Then I moved to Hastings, which is a city in a beach in the UK. It's a small town. It's a very lovely small town. And the scene shows you that process of going from the city to this small town. And it's me discovering the city through the camera and yeah, that's a small project and a small scene and it's still there. And I still like the pictures that I got.

Andrew Hellmich: Let me just swing back really quickly to zines because there's one question I didn't ask you that I wanted to is what do you use to design your zines?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: My wife.

Andrew Hellmich: Is she a designer?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. She's a designer and here's the trick. I am useless in Adobe InDesign and all that thing. I have no idea how to use it. Like my wife, she's an illustrator and she designs my things basically. So she's using InDesign?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. She uses InDesign. Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. Got it. Got it.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: What do I use? I use my wife. That's that's the real reality of the situation.

Andrew Hellmich: That is the best application ever. Your wife.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah, yeah. She's great. I just, I watch her do their magic and I'm like, yeah, I like this. That's my whole contribution to it.

Andrew Hellmich: Very nice. Eduardo, where is the best place for the listener to learn more about you and follow you? Is it YouTube? Is that the best place to follow along?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah, for sure. YouTube. That's where most things happen. I have an Instagram account too, but I basically post the pictures from the videos on YouTube and some other things. But YouTube is the main thing where you can follow what I'm doing.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. I'm going to add links to your YouTube channel obviously to Instagram and your website as well. I don't think you're active on Facebook anymore by the look of it. I think it was 2018, your last post.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Yeah. I know, I just. Facebook's dead.

Andrew Hellmich: If I was talk to you and the listener was to follow along, where do you see yourself in the next three, four, five years?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Finishing my PhD.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: That will be amazing. Yeah. It's a seven year program and I'm entering my third year. So in four more years I should be finishing, getting my dissertation and being super happy.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. So where would that lead to once you have your PhD? What's the plan?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: I'm taking over the world? No, probably what I'll do is, I'll probably be teaching theater and playwriting. That's what I want to do. I love teaching. So, and still staging plays, writing, teaching, basically one foot on the academia and one foot on the creative side. And I'm happy with that equilibrium. If that happens, I'm set.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. And where do you think or where do you see yourself settling down, staying living?

Eduardo Pavez Goye: For now here? Like since the program is seven years. Probably here is fine and I have many friends here, so it makes sense to stay in New York. But I don't know, like I've been moving around so much for so many years that I don't know what's coming afterwards. For now I'm happy where I am. I tend to enjoy where I am and if the possibilities arise to have a change, I usually wait them. And if it's good enough, I take them. But for now, I'm really happy here. I'm having a blast over here.

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. Eduardo, it's been a real pleasure mate to have you on the show and thank you so much for sharing everything you have.

Eduardo Pavez Goye: Oh, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. That was real fun. I had a blast. Thank you.