Well this is a little bit about the Gary Goldberg story.
I was born and raised in New York, (Long Island-Graduated from Syosset High School class of 1983) I started out going to school to become an accountant. Well that did not last long. I had been interested in photography since I was about 8 years old. When the accounting thing did not work out, I took a year off from school, and worked. I mainly worked at Fortunoff’s, in Westbury NY for the better part of that year. At that time a friend thought my photography was great, and convinced me to pursue my art, and I decided to go to “The school of visual Arts” in NYC, and study photography. I graduated from school in 1989 with a BFA in Photography, my senior thesis was Portrait and Fashion photography, and I kind of minored in Psychology, you see you do have to take regular subjects in Art School as well.
Well if you’ve read this far than keep up the good work. After I graduated from school I ended up working a night shift at one of NY’s best labs at the time, which was NY Filmworks. My shift was 4PM-12:30AM. I usually went out for dinner after I got out of work, and than played some Pool, or would go out clubbing, those were the days, I would usually get home around 3 or 4 AM. This was a great job for a just out of school, young guy that loved to sleep late. I would sleep late, and than if I had something lined up I would usually do a fashion shoot or test with an up and coming model, and get back to work and start it all over again. I lasted at this job for about a year, and than I started working as a photographers assistant on a freelance basis.
This job earned me most of the skills that I have today, and if any young photographer was ever to ask me what is the best way to learn the business, this is the way to do it. I worked with all types of photographers for a period of about 5 years, and I travelled all over the country helping them out with jobs. The best part about this is that I learned my business skills from these folks, see they did not teach us, about business in Art School, and this was the one thing that I wish they has taught us more of. Anyway I have lots of great stories of traveling and working for other photographers, but as the years progressed, I started to get my own commercial work, my first big break was actually when my book got called in for Pepsi. It was definitely fate, because my portfolio, had got sent to Dallas, to go to an ad agency there. That same week one of the photographers that I used to work for, asked me to travel to Dallas with him to work on a two day shoot for a major hotel chain. So I called the Creative Director, and I told him I would be in town for a shoot, never mentioning that I was assisting someone else (you gotta do what you gotta do), and he actually invited me out for drinks, and than they bought me dinner, those Mad Men and there expense accounts. Well meeting with me clinched the deal and I got hired to shoot the job, which was for Pepsi, and I got to shoot Richard Petty, for a big promo they were doing with NASCAR this was a huge job, and required all of my skills, because I also had to get all of my gear down to North Carolina to do the job, and the other big problem was that I was still pretty much a starving artist (I like the definition). Well I got the job done and they liked it so much that they hired me again. Check out our website to see some of the photos, they’re on there, Fast Focus Productions.
I’m going to continue with this story a bit later, but if you have read this far congratulations, and come back and visit, and I will follow up with how I ended up living in Toronto.
Well shortly after that gig, I signed on to be represented by a photo rep. That was both a blessing and a curse. It was something that I had always wanted, but in the long run I felt that I was better off when I had been doing all of the work myself. My rep landed me a few good accounts, one of them was a national ad for Camel Cigarettes. At the time Camel had been running those funny cartoon character ads, and they had decided to switch to shooting actual photography. My agent got my portfolio in to the Art Buyer at Mezzina Brown. They had seen a test shot in my portfolio, that was very representitive, of what they were looking to shoot. I had gone in for a meeting, and we submitted an estimate and I landed the shoot. I found out that I was breaking this campaign, and there were going to be 2 ads and the other photographer shooting the 2nd ad was Ellen Von Unwerth. So I was in good company. To make a long story short I shot the ad, and it was major, the biggest ad I had ever done. It was on bus posters, all the mags, and it was on a billboard the entire side of a bldg, in downtown Manhattan.
Well I just had to show the ad. I got hired to do another ad after this one was shot, and it was a still shot with a rock and roll theme of a guitar. The image was supposed to represent rock and roll when a guitarist, used to smoke on stage, he would put the cigarette, up in the head stock. At this time in my life I was a smoker, so I had no problem with shooting these ads.
Okay I’m going to stop here again, and I promise I will continue this story, and tell everyone how I got to Toronto….
Well here we are again. I’m going to cut right to the chase. I was very sucessful in the commercial photography business right up until 9/11 happened. After I shot those ads above, I can honestly say that I always earned my living from my art, and there was not to many times, where there was no food on the table.
I lived downtown in Manhattan, and literally had a view of the Twin Towers from my balcony. After 9/11 I could not get any work at all. Business dried up completely, it was the worst time I’d ever had. I was also completely a mess about 9/11, and every time I looked out my window, I had this knot in my stomach, and I could not get rid of the feeling. I decided it was time to leave Manhattan. I put my condo on the market.
In this same time period in 2002, my brother dragged me to the Bahamas with him, on a vacation, I really did not want to go, but he was on a mission to cheer me up. Well anyway we went to Nassau, I was also single at this moment in my life. Well long story short, I met my wife while I was on this trip, and I owe my brother for dragging me away on vacation.
A few months later my apartment finally sold. I got talked into moving to Florida. So I rented a place in Fort Lauderdale, and moved down around October of 2002. At this point I was seeing Charmaine (who is in the photo with me at the top) long distance, she was from Toronto. I went to Toronto a few times and loved it there, and she came down to visit with me in NYC, before I moved, and right after I had settled in my FL digs, Char invited me up to celebrate the Canadian Thanksgiving, which is about 6 weeks before the US Thanksgiving. Well I was really nervous, but she took me to the Family cottage, which is on a lake, and her whole family was there, and everyone was so warm and inviting, I immediately felt like everyone in the room was my family. It was at that moment that I realized I was with the woman I was going to marry.
I went home and designed a custom engagement ring, Mom and Sis helped out with picking a stone. Char came down in November for her birthday which is Nov 20th, and I took her to Disneyworld. We stayed at Animal Kingdom, and had a room with a Safari view. It was amazing. I proposed on the night of her birthday, after we had gone to a Luao, at the Polynesian Hotel.
Well again I’m going to cut right to the Chase, we tried living in FL after we got married, but we hated it, and it was difficult to make a living. We decided to move back to Toronto, and we came back here in late Spring of 2004. I officially landed as a permanent resident in August of 2004, and will be here officially for 5 years, next summer. Charmaine and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this past summer.
We live downtown in “The Beach” with our 2 cats, Tigger and Casper.
It has been a struggle getting started in a new country, but it has also been the best experience of my life, and I absolutely love all of my family here, and all of the great friends I’ve made since living here.
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