MAKING DREAMS COME TO LIFE, ONE VIDEO AT A TIME
Where’d you grow up? Whats your story? If you weren’t born in the city – how’d you get here?
I grew up in Ajax Ontario for the majority of my life. Living in the suburbs, I moved a lot with my mom, but I was primarily an athlete, a gamer, more focused on the social side of things growing up rather than the art. I played a lot of sports, I was always outside, I was always active and I was always in shape. I never really spent much time in Toronto or outside of the suburbs. I started frequenting the city about two years ago and that was through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Who or what got you into the scene?
What got me into Camera work in the first place just because I started out primarily as a photographer was when I went on a date with a girl. This girl brought her camera and we vibed out, spent a lot of time together, listened to music, took a lot of photos and it was just such a mesmerizing experience. I always say to this day I fell in love with the camera not her, but I do owe it to her. She’s the reason that I got interested in the craft, bought my own camera and started shooting every day for the next two or three years. It was a visual diary, basically of whatever I saw, and I just shared it to the world.
What inspires/motivates you?
It’s definitely tough to stay motivated when you run your own business creating content because you have to balance making content that is true to you and content that is also successful for clients. What I mean by that is if you only do work for others, you’re basically suppressing that creative vision that you have in your head that you want to let out and then your work starts to feel more like a job than your passion. Keep a balance between doing work that satisfies your mind and pushes you while also doing work that appeals to clients. I say always do one personal project a month and share it to the world if you want to. At least one project that is entirely dedicated to you. It’s your vision, it’s your dream and work on it and work on it and work on it.
What do you represent, why are you doing the things you’re doing?
I always tell people that I do what I do because I want to bring people’s visions and dreams to life and if it’s not for others, it’s for myself. I started this because I wanted to capture what I saw and be able to create and tell those stories that I envisioned, and people started asking me to do the same for them. I’m motivated intrinsically by building dreams and creating and making them a reality but at the same time I’m also motivated in helping others bring life to their dreams through the lens of a camera and through I guess my perception of artistic vision and taking their visions and my eye, and making something beautiful.
What are your goals?
With it being a new year, I think this is a perfect time to discuss goal setting. The biggest thing for me this year is going to be consistency in not just shooting, it’s going to be consistency in outreach, in editing, in education, physical and mental health fitness. There needs to be consistency everywhere and I am convinced that if I do everything that I need to do on a daily basis, I’ll be so much more successful than I have been in prior years.
What are you proud of? Whats one of your biggest accomplishments
One of the biggest accomplishments I think I ever achieved was being told about a year after a shoot that I finished. For me, the shoot was just another regular day. It was a music video and we went through the usual process of conception to finishing the project & it came out great. The artist was very happy with it released, and then I went about my day and a year later, probably over a year now actually, I was talking with the same artist and they said in the midst of doing that video they were like “I think I can really do this” and I’m glad that the work that I do and the professionalism that I bring to sets allow people to really believe in themselves. I’m there because I believe in you so I would hope that you believe in yourselves, but just to get that reaffirmation that you know they went all in knowing that they can do this for real. It was probably one of the best feelings that I ever had.
Do you have a quote or proverb that you live by? And maybe if you want, explain what it means to you and how resonates with you.
It gets easier every day. It gets a little easier but you gotta do it every day. That’s the hard part but it does get easier.
The quote that I live by is from Bojack Horseman, phenomenal show. I believe if I do that if I live by that mantra every single day Ill get to where I wanna be.
If you had the option to restart your life, what would you do different the next time around?
Oh, this is a wild question. Overall I guess if I had the option to restart my life and do everything differently, I wouldn’t play it so safe I think I would do a complete reshuffle on life. Growing up, instead of playing a ton of sports and video games, I probably would’ve been a musician and learned the piano in the guitar but at the same time it all depends on how you were raised in your upbringing so that’s something I cannot control. I would say that the second I turned 18, I would get the hell out of here and figure out how to work and be successful overseas and abroad. I would probably just live life traveling and just doing what I can in that aspect. I always felt like I would be a traveling, professional, or an expatriate. That was the original goal before I got into content production and media production or I would do the 9 to 5 lifestyle, get married at 22, have kids early like you know the American dream see what that’s like cause I’m definitely not doing that right now.
If you could give any advice to your younger self what you would tell them?
What I would tell my younger self is just fucking do it. The worst thing that happens is you face rejection or someone says no and you’re back to how you were before you attempted it in the first place so it’s better to live a life full of rejections, and a life full of regret, because not everything will lead to a rejection and you will probably learn more from those rejections then you would being in your own head. So just do it who cares what other people think, don’t be so attracted to the masses and what the world thinks about you, just fucking do it.
Give yourself a plug (Events, Merch, etc. Promote yourself)
I don’t do any events (anymore), I don’t have any merch, I just make content and I make great content. If you want to tap in, just hit me on my Instagram which would be linked below and just feel free to reach out whether you want to shoot, want advice or you wanna learn or something like that. If you’re just curious about my process, feel free to ask anything you want I don’t bite, I’m not mean, and the big goal is just to unite Toronto. If we can all unite, we would become an absolute global force because we have the most talented to people on the planet. I say it all the time nothing can stop us. www.primarimedia.art for portfolio.
Anything else you want to add? Feedback? Shoutout? Recommendations?
I just wanted to thank y’all for giving me an opportunity to share my story. Share my goals my aspirations I think what you guys are doing for the city is amazing and I hope a lot of people tap in and if you guys want to turn this into a podcast or something like that you already know who to hit up.