How a NEW Photographer Became Usher's Photographer (INSPIRATIONAL!) #Best Education Page #Online Earning

- It was like so grainy and so contrasty,

I kept pushing buttons.

I turned everything black and white,

I sent them 10 images.

I get a call back, in under half of an hour.

Usher's manager's on the phone, he's like,

"I don't know what you did, but his whole thing

"is old Hollywood, (audience responds) and he wants."

(audience laughs)

I was like, "What?" (audience laughs loudly)

"And so, he wants this black and white,

grainy, high contras
t, thing and he wants to know

if you'd be open to going on tour with him,

as his personal photographer." (audience laughs loudly)

(clapping)

So!

That's how I learned photography, is--

- Oh my god!

- On YouTube.

- [Narrator] Meet Walid Azami, a renowned photographer

from Los Angeles, who has worked with celebrities,

like J Lo, Madonna and Usher.

His photographs are stunning!

But it wasn't always like that.

In fact, when he first started out, he bought a camera

and didn't even know how to use it.

- If you ever give a piece of a electronic

to a grandparent and you're like, "Here, work it."

And they're looking at it.

That's how I was with a camera.

I didn't know what an f-stop was, I didn't know,

I didn't even know Photoshop existed.

- [Narrator] But then something incredible happened.

Thanks to the power of--

- YouTube!

- [Narrator] And listening to his intuition.

- That gut feeling.

- [Narrator] He was able to land the job of a lifetime!

Here's the story, about how Walid,

became Usher's personal photographer.

- I would like for you to welcome to the stage,

Walid Azami.

♪ Hey I ♪

♪ I'll do anything, ooh ♪

♪ That you wanna do ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ I ♪ - I paid rent that month.

So I had no more money left and I had one more credit card.

And...

My mom and dad, also refugees, like they did everything,

from picking fruit to working in laundromats,

to washing dishes and no less than two jobs ever.

And I thought, how am I going to be a failure,

when they've worked so hard?

You know, and I have a college degree

and I have all these things going for me,

but I was really failing.

And, I had this weird feeling,

this thing that he's talking about, to buy a camera.

But I don't even know, like you know, if you've ever,

if you ever give a piece of a electronic

to a grandparent and you're like, "Here, work it."

And they're looking at it.

That's how I was with a camera.

I didn't know what an f-stop was, I didn't know,

I didn't even know Photoshop existed.

(audience chuckles)

That's how backwards I was.

- Something told you to get a camera?

- Get a camera and I kept suppressing that thought,

and it wouldn't go away!

But the next rent cycle was coming too,

and I thought, okay.

It kept, buy a camera, buy a camera, buy a camera,

so one day, I get in my car after two weeks

of this feeling not,

you know, silencing itself!

Like a dummy, I went to the camera store,

no, I mean I'm glad I went,

but I was like, "Hi!"

(audience laughs)

I wanna be a photographer and I have $2000.00

on my credit card, (laughing)

and they sold me like $1998.00 (audience laughs loudly)

and like whatever, right! - Hmm.

I bought batteries and battery chargers and everything!

The look that you have, I sat in my car

and I was like, what did I do?

Okay!

This story that I told you was going to take minute,

but it's like--

- No, keep going, please. - Coming in.

And so I went home, I'm looking at this thing,

what am I supposed to do with it?

(audience laughs)

Really, for real!

I did not know anything,

I had bought all these like weird arm extensions,

that they sold me - Oh my god!

- And like, yeah, it was terrible!

- They sold you them--

- They sold me yeah, yeah. (audience laughs)

And I had the kit lens, I had a prosumer camera,

which is a nice way of saying,

you're not really there with the professional camera.

It's just big body, small insides.

And (audience laughs) with a camera, that's what it is.

(audience laughing loudly)

Yeah, and (laughs) it was,

so about four or five days later,

now what happened in that one week

of staring at this camera, I ran out of money

and my credit card had like a dollar fifty left in it,

or something, and I was embarrassed to tell anybody,

even my best friend, he's here somewhere, Matt.

But I couldn't ask anybody for help

and I'm trying to figure out how to go to the next room

and tell April, my roommate.

Hey, I can't pay rent, you know?

I get a call from a friend,

so I had actually called Trader Joe's and I said,

"Hey, what day do you guys throw out food?"

And the guy knew why,

I guess they were getting a lot of calls

as the recession was really hitting, you know?

And he told me, he's like, on this day, produce,

on this day, dry goods, on this day, whatever.

And, I went dumpster diving for food,

I didn't even have enough money for food.

And probably three, four days after that,

I get a call from a friend, of a friend, of a friend,

that said, "Hey Walid!"

So whenever someone says, Walid,

but whenever says, "Walid", they don't know me.

So I'm like, "Who is this?"

(audience laughs)

And they said, "Do you do behind the scenes video?"

And I was like, "Yes!"

And they said, "Okay, well Usher

"just fired his videographer."

(audience chuckles)

Okay?

(audience laughs loudly)

That's literally the look that I had too!

Yeah!

And I was so excited 'cause I could buy food!

I don't have to go to the back

of the grocery store next week.

And, I went out and as I was about to close the door,

this feeling came up again, and said,

"He doesn't know that you're here for video,

"grab that camera that you bought too!"

And so I grabbed that camera

and I had the little BlackBerry Curve, I think,

remember the one with the ball?

- [Audience Member] Yeah.

- Oh yes. - And if you had greasy food

the ball would get stuck.

(laughs)

Rub it on your shirt and clean it, and stuff.

And, I wrote on that,

f-stop means,

if you want the picture to be brighter, do the button here.

I googled this, right?

(audience laughs)

And I went, and I went to the Kodak Theater,

it was two levels underground, so there was no reception

and I had in this little BlackBerry notepad,

and I put the cast, literally I was on autopilot

with my instincts and I said, I'm just gonna go with it.

I've nothing else to lose right now.

I'm gonna go with it.

And I'm taking pictures,

and, so there's this thing called Kelvin,

which is light temperature.

They had fluorescent lights,

so my pictures are like yellow and blue,

and every color and they're like muddy looking,

'cause I don't know what I'm doing, right?

I've no idea, I'm pushing buttons.

- And you're taking photography of Usher while doing this?

- Pictures are coming out,

but it's not the pictures that I want, yeah,

and then like will.i.am comes in there and I'm like (gasps).

(audience laughs) - Oh my!

- What is going on, right?

And Usher, okay when I get nervous,

I look really, really, really nervous.

So again, kind of like this, you know?

Like yeah! (laughs)

(audience laughing) No, and so he asks me,

"What f-stop are you using?"

(audience laughs loudly)

And I had this deer in the headlights face,

and I'm telling you, the instincts were kicking in,

like times a 100 and I looked at him

and something in my brain said,

it's better that he thinks you're crazy,

than not having any idea.

I looked at him and I walked away.

(audience applauds loudly)

Yeah, and I did, and I, yeah!

(audience cheering)

(laughs)

I walked away.

And I went upstairs, two flights, to the Kodak Theater,

where that Forever 21 is and all the street performers,

and I'm like, f-stop, okay, f-stop was that.

Come back, you know.

(audience laughs)

And I'm taking pictures, I'm taking them,

the video camera, by the way, is on a tripod,

record, it's just like a wide shot.

Like a security camera pretty much.

And I'm taking pictures and I'm going on machine gun mode.

I'm like (clicks), like whatever.

I went home, completely, just shook up about everything.

I don't know what happened.

I went home and I looked at these pictures,

they're every color, but the color that they should be.

(audience laughs)

And I didn't know Photoshop existed, and probably out of,

oh, I had a 1 gig card by the way,

and I was shooting on it, if you guys take pictures,

on jpeg small.

So you can't even make-- - Oh my god!

- More than an 8x10, at best!

And I kept shooting and shooting, and I went home

and I was like, okay

And I, if you guys use Mac, I'm sure PC has something too,

the preview thing,

like you open a PDF in?

I went into settings and I was trying to retouch on that.

(audience laughs)

- So the monitor changed,

but the actual photo did not, kinda thing?

- So if I was to send you a jpeg, you can double click it

and then on a Mac, I don't know what PC has,

but you can...

What is it you guys?

It's like you can change your contrast and the saturation.

- Oh okay.

Like vibrance and all that?

- That's it, you know.

So they called me, after three days of me going,

what just happened?

But I was getting a paycheck for food,

to buy the next month's groceries.

And Benny Medina, Usher's then manager, called

and he's like, "Hey, where are those pictures?"

And I had to open the folders and I pulled out,

maybe 10 that you can tell that that was Usher.

Okay? (audience laughs)

And something told me,

I'm literally on autopilot of instincts,

something told me, you know what?

(sighs)

Just go black and white,

because your pictures are right now, blue and yellow,

and everything 'cause of light temperature.

(audience laughs)

And because I didn't know how to brighten a picture,

I kept pushing the ISO all the way up, so it was so grainy,

and so contrasty, I kept pushing buttons.

I turned everything black and white,

I sent them 10 images.

I get a call back, in under half of an hour.

Usher's manager is on the phone, he's like,

"I don't know what you did, but his whole thing

"is old Hollywood, (audience responds) and he wants."

(audience laughs)

I was like, "What?" (audience laughs loudly)

"And so, he wants this black and white,

"grainy, high contrast, thing and he wants to know

"if you'd be open to going on tour with him,

"as his personal photographer." (audience laughs loudly)

(clapping)

So!

That's how I learned photography, is--

- Oh my god!

- On YouTube and I would type things on YouTube,

like how, I would, the first searches were like,

how do you take off a lens, on a camera?

(audience laughing)

You know, it was like that!

And-- - Oh my gosh!

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it was really rough

and I would go, and he loves to party,

so we would, and record real late nights.

I would follow him everywhere and we would get home,

or to the hotel room at three in the morning,

and then I would sit 'til five or six,

'til I would fall asleep sitting up.

And I would learn one new thing, on YouTube.

- Hmm. - And I promised myself,

I was gonna learn one thing,

every single day and the next day Usher would be like,

"Let's do this?"

I'm like, "Well let's not."

Because I had learned, (audience laughing loudly)

I had learned, yeah, yeah!

I had learned, window lighting and so I was like,

"How about this window here?"

'Cause that's all that I knew.

But I knew one thing more than yesterday.

- Hmm.

- And then on Tuesday, I would know three things.

And I kept going and at some point

I discovered there was Photoshop, you know? (claps)

And I discovered, so that's what I would do

and I would just make things up,

and so that's why I was so nervous to release the book,

to answer your question from 35 minutes ago.

(audience laughing loudly)

That's why I was so nervous.

'Cause I was learning things on my own

and I was making lights with Home Depot stuff,

and everything and then, I don't know,

I guess people just started calling after that.

Like I did, I did a lot of things and yeah!

Now there, here I am!

FlynnCon 1, (clapping) yeah!

(audience applause)

- Wow! (audience cheering loudly)

- So!

- You got people standing up for you.

- Oh, thank you!

(audience cheering)

Thank you.

- Thank you!

(audience applause)

- Wow! (audience laughs)

- Long answer!

- I didn't know, - Yeah.

- That he was gonna tell that story.

- Yeah, yeah! (audience laughs)

- [Audience Member] That story needs to be a book!

- [Audience] Yeah, yes!

- [Audience Member] Your life story needs to be a book!

- Thank you. (audience clapping)

- Thank you.

(audience clapping)

There is, there are so many. - Thank you.

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