Today we’d like to introduce you to Arash Afshar
Hi Arash, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Born and raised in San Diego and really proud of it. Well – that was interrupted with a short stint in Tehran, Iran. But not long enough to lose my SoCal street cred. To be honest I’ve tried to escape the clutches of this paradise on many occasions but (in my best Al Pacino) “San Diego kept pulling me back in!”
I went to art school at SDSU and dove into event planning in downtown San Diego’s nightlife while directing zero budget hip-hop music videos in SD’s alleyways and train tracks. It was while working for the Port of San Diego, first in Park Permitting and then as a Graphic Designer, where I stumbled into my photography career. The Port had a full time photojournalist who was retiring. This is, of course, not a common full time position for most agencies as it’s typically a project that would be outsourced to a marketing contractor. But as chance would have it, I was asked to go snap some photos of Broadway Pier’s then recently completed improvements, which I went and snapped with my personal little Canon Rebel. The images caught a lot of peoples’ attention and my marketing director, Jenny Windle, championed creating a full time position for me as the Port’s in-house photographer. Artists, you see -we wanna do everything. But once you start paying your rent regularly by doing a particular thing, you get labeled that thing. So henceforth, I became known as a professional photographer.
Working for the port was amazing because that’s where I got to put in my 10,000 hours. Every day it was a wildly different photographic need. One day it was products, the next day it was an event, the following a portrait session with the CFO. So I got to to cut my teeth with a ton more varied experience and develop relationships with everyone from local business owners to mayors and city council members. A funny thing I noticed was how the mayors of various cities staff made it a point to come say hi to me. ‘Make friends with the photographer,’ I learned, was an unofficial part of any media savvy politician’s staff work.
In my late 30s I discovered our Burning Man community, which had managed to hide right under my nose, and that’s when everything changed. For the past decade I’ve been hosting Burner Podcast, one of the longest running projects in the global Burner community. Burner Podcast opened the world to me in ways I couldn’t imagine. I recorded episode 100 in South Africa and number 154 just went live.
My roots in San Diego run deep but these days I consider myself a global citizen. I love connecting with people in different cities and exploring new places on foot.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As much as I love SD, it’s been harder to get traction here in some ways. We’re a beach city. I’m gonna leave it at that. It may have been a blessing. I’ll have to look back with new perspective in the next couple of years after my book projects are released. I’ve certainly had my struggles. And I’ll save my more detailed trauma stories for my books. But overall – even with having experienced life through the lens of a middle eastern war – I’d have to say I must’ve chosen the ‘easy mode’ for this particular round in the grand life video game simulation.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My professional tagline is “portraitist at heart; lifestyle, tourism and marketing photographer by trade.”
After leaving the Port, I was a little perplexed as to how to focus and market myself. It was an actress friend in LA who casually dropped that I’m a “portraitist” at a party. That suddenly lit the light bulbs. She’s right. Everything I do starts with the emotional human connection. Regardless of if it’s an advertising gig or a cruise ship ad (by the way those massive shots on the side of the Cruise Ship Terminal are mine) I start with the human being at the center of the shot and work outwards from there.
I often say I can take pretty much any gig except nature photography. The technical stuff does’t much interest me and I absolutely don’t have the patience to sit in a bush for three hours waiting for a bird to do bird things. But I can work with pretty much any type of person. I’ll channel my 13 years of podcasting experience and connect with the people in front of me and we’ll make some magic right there on the spot. I’ve driven by my photos on bus stops and what pops up right away in my head is the personal connections I made with the models.
All of this experience has yielded a portfolio of really crispy clean glossy imagery, which I got kinda bored of. I’m interested in creating work that punches the viewer in the guts. That’s the next step in my work; to break away further from the shiny blue sky imagery. I’ve always quipped that “I’m an expert at capturing non-threatening ethnically ambiguous people pointing at things in front of perfect blue skies.” Right now I”m working on a photography book, which is a retrospective of the past decade of my work. It was inspired by my two week photography show which was held at Seaport Village a couple of years back. The book will be entitled Mildly Threatening Ethnically Ambiguous (mtea.life).
By the way – sdvoyager.com is like absolutely littered with my photos!! I had no idea how many of my shots were on this website! That’s been a really fun discovery.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Jeez where does one even start??
Have you caught The Invisible Ponchos perform in San Diego? Go do that. Also Kahlee and Ric Scales. There is some amazing talent in SD’s hip-hop scene. I had the pleasure of catching Miki Vale and Queen Kandi Cole’s 2 RAPPERS 2 PLAYS last week and was just blown away. This is barely scratching the surface, but SD’s hip-hop community was instrumental in helping me find my voice.
Professionally, these days I work often with Axiom of Purpose. We just recently had a great photoshoot in San Luis Obispo. I continue to feel supported by friends from my Port of SD days. Mike Watson from Video Approach has been such a great business mentor. Sharon and Chelsea and the Port Tenants Association crew and extended community have been amazing. And through my dear friend, Sheila Kanoya, I met Ron Troyano of Alchemy San Diego. Ron’s such a champion of artists and his support has truly meant the world.
I really don’t know where to start and stop. It’s honestly for this reason that I started permanentvacation.directory. There’s very little in there right now but I’m (very slowly) populating it with my network of amazing service providers and business owner friends.
And of course shout out to Deepti, San Diego’s first Bollywood DJ, for poking me for this interview. I’m so proud of her and it was such a pleasure photographing her.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://arashafshar.com
- Instagram: mrarash
- Youtube: mrarash
- Other: For booking and inquiries please contact Patrick Dylan Riley at Proper Concept – properconcept.us
