Today we’d like to introduce you to Anthony Castro.
Anthony, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m a poet turned photographer. I came to photography late; I didn’t pick up a camera until my late 20s. If you were to ask me when I was younger what I wanted to do, being a photographer was not one of my answers. When you are a poet the only supplies you need are paper and pens, photography is much more expensive.
The digital age made it more affordable and gave me access to cameras and lenses. I tell my clients that I’m still writing with the same words but now I’m using a different pen. I knew I had a creative spirit and that I am sensitive to creative energy, but so was everyone else in my household. I was raised in a low-income Mexican American household from La Puente, California. While living in a low-income household, you do not have cable TV and Xboxes for entertainment; you find other ways to pass the time. I had a sister who sang, an aunt who was an oil painter, and a grandma who was skilled at arts and crafts. I tried my hand at everything and was not particularly good at any. There were no writers in the house, so I said “okay, I’ll be the poet.” What I did not see in my house was anyone trying to make a career out of their creative passions. My family reduced their creative passions to pastime hobbies. They taught me to work for a job you hate and when you get home use your art to decompress.
Disowned for being gay by my family, my teenage life was rocky; I was homeless with few options. My favorite poet at the time was Anne Sexton who was from Boston, so I decided to move across the country to be a poet in her hometown. Coming from a family that has never left Los Angeles, I didn’t know what to expect. In Boston, I made friends with the students from Emerson College fast. I lived illegally in the dorms and took musical theater and writing classes off the books. Emerson taught me two things; the first was that you can make a career out of your passions and the second was that it wasn’t enough to just write poetry, it should also be performed. I started doing performance poetry.
Boston was short-lived. I came back to Los Angeles and through spoken word open mic nights, I made a great friend who was an opera singer. At the time, my two favorite poets were Sandra Cisneros and Nikki Giovanni, two poets who put their poetry out as audio. I decided I was going to collaborate with my friend and make a spoken word poetry album, thankfully he had a home recording studio to allow me to do just that. This was my first time seeing myself as a serious artist. Unfortunately, I was only able to record half the album with him, due to his unexpected passing during our recording sessions. I was devastated and to make matters worse, his family refused to give me my recordings. We were good friends and we didn’t have contracts. Losing him and my work resulted in me falling into a deep depression.
When my family disowned me, I had a weird justification for it. Poets experience pain and I was asking the universe to make me a poet. I felt I had to go through those trials to give me the pain to write. When my friend and collaborator died, I just couldn’t make sense of it. Suffering from my depression, my boyfriend at the time suggested for me to take photography classes to get me out of the house. I did and it helped me get out of depression. Photography took off really fast for me. My talent as a photographer emerged quickly. So fast that I didn’t recognize myself for quite some time. I was like who was this person and where did this person come from? I had prayed hundreds of nights to be a successful poet, so my success in photography was authentically mystifying. Photography is just like poetry to me. Photographers must start with a blank page just like writers do. We must decide on a format. The lighting is our grammar, we must decide if we are going to be strict and traditional or inventive and sloppy. Our subjects create our tone and narrative. Props are our metaphors and similes. Everything I was learning to this point, I was able to incorporate into my photography.
Has it been a smooth road?
As a first-time business owner, I was able to overcome my first obstacle which was learning to be a professional and to successfully manage my own business. When it comes to the creative part of my job, I have my hands in everything. I paint my backgrounds, handcraft my own props, and design my own lighting modifiers. The creative part of my job is what I find to be the least challenging. Ensuring that I received compensation for my talents had a learning curve. I made frustrating mistakes at the beginning; I wasn’t using contracts and sometimes I would let customers talk me down in my pricing. At times I even had to unfortunately send customers to collections. And when it came to taxes, I did them incorrectly. Thankfully, I had joined a business alliance looking for a mentor to help me through these obstacles. Through the alliance, I learned that your business would have its own experiences that are unique to it. The navigation of your business is your own responsibility. Another agency that was helpful was the Long Beach Small Business Development Center; there I learned that to be successful I had to learn as I went along and the biggest factor to success was that I kept going.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Anthony Castro Photography – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
My photography business has two focuses, commercial and fine art; thankfully, both keep me busy. When I’m not working on one, I’m working on the other. I consider myself to be a portrait photographer. My strongest images are of people, yet one of my proudest achievements is my travel work in Cuba and Colombia. A company asking me to travel and shoot was a welcomed surprise because at the time I was working and focusing on headshots and environmental portraits. I didn’t expect my work, my talent, to take me to another continent at this stage. I am ardent about my photography; I believe my passion gives my clients the confidence to do business with me.
Recently, I’ve had an opportunity to diversify my services. It’s not enough to be a photographer, today we are digital content creators. My commercially-focused business helps brands develop the creative photo and video marketing content that allows them to maximize their strategic efforts for their targeted audiences. Whether the content is to highlight and market the brand, expert interviews, corporate events, and/or personalized messages, I bring the authenticity and creative quality that businesses want through my camera lenses.
Artistically, I enjoy taking part in community art walks, as well as exhibiting in galleries like the Palos Verdes Art Center. One of my Cuba images placed fourth in a national photography contest. I am constantly challenging myself as a fine art photographer too. I look at photography like being a poet. When a poet gets his heartbroken, he authors a book of poems. Even a musician gets to record a “breakup album.” I want to create the photography version of that, that’s one of my goals. I think what makes me different from other business photographers is my sincerity, I’m really in it because I love what I do. And being a gay man of color, it has always been my motto to photograph as many gay people of color as possible. We are some of the world’s most beautiful and interesting, yet the least photographed.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I live in Downtown Long Beach; I’ve lived here for about 12 years now. I love living close to the water and walking the beach path, which is meditative and relaxing. My favorite thing about Long Beach is its community. I went to Long Beach City College for my Certificate in Photography and I’m still friends with the students I’ve met and my instructors. My relationship with my classmates and instructors is great. If I need an assistant for a gig or visa versa, I know I can depend on one of them to help me out as we support each other to get the job done. Long Beach’s culture, diverse community, beautiful landscapes, and art community makes Long Beach a great city to live in.
What I like least about the downtown area of Long Beach is that it’s becoming increasingly expensive to live in. I have moved often throughout Downtown to keep my rent costs low. The new developments are great and beautiful for the city, but I know the cost of living in Downtown can be a struggle for Long Beach artists. I don’t let it get me down though; it just means I need to be more creative with my business approach. With the increase in residential and retail properties come greater opportunities for networking and the sharing of my art.
Pricing:
- Pricing will vary and is dependent on your digital media needs. Anthony Castro Photography is known for pop-up shooting styles, where I bring the studio to you. Rates starts at $350/ hour for studio shoots. Larger projects require quotes.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: thesaltypoet
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anthonycastrophoto/
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