Mikhail Andersson - NYC's Most Wanted Tattoo Artist | From Broke Designer to $2,000/Hour Empire

Back in the day when I started it wasn't many shops, tattoos were mostly criminal culture, a lot of gangs involved. When I got my neck tattooed, I would get stopped on a subway by old ladies, they're like, oh you're gonna go to hell. Some artists paint on canvas, others carve and stone. Mikail Anderson chose human skin as his medium. From Moscow streets to New York's art scene, he transformed tattooing into a form of high art, fusing realism, geometry, and surrealism. You have to take it slow. I feel like I did mistakes when I was trying to jump into something to do a realistic portrait when I've never done one. My perspective when I started it was no social media, some mentors that I had. They said, your work is your business card. Anything you put out there, it's your business card. I think the more kind of open-minded and more things you know, it's easier to adjust and to pivot from one to another. He creates work, it doesn't just decorate, it tells stories. At first class tattoos, he built more than a studio. He built a sanctuary wash where every line, every shade, every image is a transformation. This is Mikail Anderson. Being an artist, you need to see the world. The more art you see, the better stuff you create. If you make certain amount of money, you not to put eggs in one basket. I think sometimes like little steps is even better steps forward. In the long term, it's gonna be better. So, tell me about being a tattoo artist in Russia. So, back in the day when I started, it wasn't many shops. So it was very few shops and tattoos were mostly criminal culture. It was a lot of gangs involved. With the tattoos, it was biker culture. There was a lot of beautiful tattoos, but it was still not recognized as a job, as a profession in the country. So, there is no code for it. So, if you say your tattoo artist, everybody looks at you like what, really? Then they try to enforce actually a thing. Recently, they are trying to put it as a medical procedure and make people do certification, but it's so stupid. Yeah, for tattooing, it's like why? But when I started, it was like a taboo. People who have tattoos, a lot of people do have tattoos there, but I remember when I got my neck tattoo, I was like 2008 or something, and I would get stopped on a subway by old ladies. They're like, oh, you're gonna go to hell and stuff like that. I don't know where you're just taking a subway to commute and somebody will come to you and be like, what the fuck is that? They're like, who just put the green shit on your neck? Oh, they're like, oh, it's tattoo, wow. So, why did you, if it's obviously not part of Russian culture? It is, but it isn't at the same time. It's like counter-culture. So, I feel like the way you're describing it, it sounds like when you started tattooing in Russia, it just sounds like Russia was like maybe like 20 years behind the US in terms of like tattoo culture. Probably yes. So then the question is, where did the passion for tattooing come from? What you grew up with was gangs and all these other things that were kind of like affiliated with tattoos. What made you want to sort of get into this industry and build a career in it? So, after school, I actually went to college for a graphic design and we had a lot of art classes, but I was also, I was hanging out with people, there were writing motorcycles and we're into all this like heavy metal kind of culture, but I was young, but it was, it was something, I don't know, I was like, my family was very strict and I remember when I first got a piercing, I pierced my ear and I came home, my mom was like, my mom saw it right away when I came home, it was probably ninth grade in school and she was like, all right, if you don't take it out, you can just leave outside, she like packed my shit, did she put it outside and she was like, you have to take it out, but I was like, but the other, other people, other guys have it in my school, like why can't I have it? But she was like, no, like you cannot have longer hair than this, you cannot have any piercing. So you did the exact opposite of everything your parents wanted, do you find that when you go to graphic design school, are there things that you've actually learned from design school that really, really help you in your job or is there a lot that you had to forget to become a good artist? So we've actually had some stuff like marketing and we had a lot of things like business related, but it was back in the day when there was no social media, so we learned, we learned things that do not apply to know what they, whatever, whatever we're doing, but I think in general once you, like if the school is good or if the college is good, if you learn different aspects from different things, I think the more kind of open-minded and more things you know, it's easier to adjust and to pivot from one to another, because if they just teach you like a standard one thing and that's what you know and then when things break down and you just being stuck because you cannot adjust your brain to something else, I think that's a thing, but I mean, I think nowadays or in general you have to learn by yourself on your own, like you have to find what inspires you, who inspires you, and like I always tell it, I even have a book, but it's actually funny, I've never even thought about it, but I always know in my head that the best way to learn something that somebody did is just to copy, and I always said it like the masters that painted like Carvaggio and stuff like that that would make their apprentices to copy their pieces or parts of their pieces and copy and copy over and over, so they can figure it out how they did it and learn, and then once they have that base they can do something on their own, is that how you, is that how you learn? No, but I'm in general like I think it really applies to a lot of things, I tell my apprentices like if you have somebody you really admire as an artist, I was like take a piece and just try to draw the same, like exact the same, I mean you first can trace and then you can try to put a paper there and try to copy it without tracing, and once you're doing it you figure out like you think what they thought when they created it, and like you see the lines, you see how they try to balance things, and it kind of imprints in your brain, and then you more, the more you do the more you understand that style or how they did it, I think it's like a good thing, and the same with like anything, video photography, like find who you like and who you admire, and what inspires you, and then try to copy, try to figure out why, and how they did it I think it's like a good thing, like it's so interesting when it comes to creativity because the first time you do anything creative, it doesn't even matter how passionate you are about it, it's always going to suck, like it will always suck, like if you're a graphic designer or you're creating video content which is sort of my world, or if you're writing, or if you're actually drawing on someone's skin, like the first, oh I don't know, I don't know, you can tell me if the first version of you as a tattoo artist sucked, it's very unforgiving, but I think that for most creatives, the first version really is not great, and the only way to get great is through just doing it again and again and again and again, but you made a good point, like when you're drawing on someone's skin, you can't really do a do-over, so how do you get the confidence as a tattoo artist to say, okay I'm not just going to be tracing and drawing on paper, I'm going to take my skill set and I'm actually going to draw on someone's skin which is going to be with them for the rest of their life, like do you remember your first ever tattoo? Yes, I do, yeah, well I knew in my head that I cannot do anything complicated, so I started, and I forced my apprentices to do the same, I started doing just black and then knowing that I can fill it with a black, so like any designs when I started I would do black outline and make sure that I can fill inside the lines with a black too, so it's like symbols or something small, but not small because small you can still mess up the lines and they'll be crooked, but like mostly like black symbols that you can do outline and then you can fill it with a black, and then if the outline are crooked you can just fix the lines a little bit, so I was doing that for a while until I moved to something and I was doing more like traditional Japanese for a little while too because you just do lines and the designs are pretty bold and big, so it's easier than to do something intricate and complicated, but yeah I mean you have to take it slow because I feel like I did mistakes when I was trying to jump into something like to do a realistic portrait when I've never done one, like if someone's faith, yeah yeah, and then we all see those those turning into memes on social media, yeah, but that was before social media, I actually, I actually have a portrait on my on my leg that I lazered, but it was like the guy at a shop was like I've never done a portrait, but he did realistic stuff like roses, animals and stuff like that and he was like can I practice on you, so when you're in a tattoo shop you're like why not this stupid idea, but I mean now thank God we have synthetic skin and fake skin that you can actually practice, which doesn't feel exactly the same as a human skin, but you can practice on it and you can figure out the way you approach things and your skill and then you can tattoo after on the skin on actual human skin, but I make, if I have an apprentice, I make them tattoo synthetic skin for a while if it's like complicated designs so they can build into it, but yeah it is like a tricky thing because when I first started when you try to move into something different and I feel like I got recognized on social media when did something different with the tattooing because I was like oh let me actually do watercolor on the skin and that was that drew some attention like a lot of attention when I posted on social media because it was something different from most people and I was like oh I can do all these drips and like splatters as the color because tattoo before it's like what I have it's like should be lines as black lines and like stuff that is like structural right so you can see what it is but to put the color coming out of the lines and forming like a dripper some whatever like a wash how you do on the watercolor paper not many people were doing it was like very few maybe two three people and when I was like let me do something I mean it's scary you try and we do some different but when you do it and then you post on social media it gets a lot of attention and you get a lot of attention people are like wow because it is different how did you know so taking back to like when you're first starting out in Moscow and and it's still kind of taboo but obviously you you love what you do how did you know that tattooing was your calling how did you know that this is something that you wanted to do for the rest of your life was there a moment was it gradual was it when you came to the you like what was the thing that was like this is it I need to do this for the rest of my life I'm so passionate about this and I'm assuming it was difficult at the beginning to make money like I don't really have any money at the beginning really difficult for a few years actually I think I was doing more money when I was doing graphic design and I also did freelance graphic design I was making a lot because each single thing like a website or branding for for a company was like a thousand bucks that you make out of it and tattoos when when you started and there was no Facebook or Instagram or like social media it wasn't like you have to do a tattoo and then people only recommend you if they see it on somebody and people will come to or unless you have a website and then you cannot charge much money because you're just starting so I literally when I tattooed first half a year I think I asked people to cover supplies so I would just do something and just ask them to pay and cover supplies so I literally from making decent money I went into sleeping on air mattress because I couldn't afford much but I don't know like I I really was drawn by like I've been around tattoo artists back then and my I had a lot of tattoo artists friends that tattooed and I just love the energy I love the people that did it it was like it was different from corporate world I was I my parents were trying to push me to work in a corporate or work for a company and I did work for a company for a little bit but I I wanted that freedom of like making art on people and hanging out with interesting people you know because it was always in a tattoo shop so all kinds of people it's actors gangs drivers politicians all kinds of people in its stories it was it was really fun it was like almost a rock band on tour with like just people come together get drunk or go play with a strike ball or something or like and then do art at the same time and everybody had stories everybody traveled around and I don't know I was just drawn to it back then I didn't know that I would I'm gonna do it for rest of my life I just I don't know I was really it was something different and I wanted to literally live inside a tattoo shop I feel like first few years when I worked at a shop I was there every day like 24 7 I just wanted to be around people I wanted to see what they do how they do it and it was it was amazing I think and even after the shop was closed when I was here in Florida we would go hang out together and like skateboard and do some stuff like people from a shop it was like almost a community how do you define good work or a good tattoo like what is your litmus test for quality outside of it just not looking good that's we all we've all seen back that dude but what is your quality you're sort of gauge I mean I think a lot of aspects from it should be well done that it's going to age well it should be placed correctly and be flowy with the body because every single place is different and like for example I have certain parts of the arm when I twist it or when I bend it's going to disturb whatever I place there so if we put in a portrait or putting something we have to place that it's not going to disturb in a place that is visible and there's a lot of things that come to mind that I've learned for example if you're tattooing face and there's a shadow side and a light side and your arm the same when the arm is completely down when the sun hits the arm this will be a light side and this will be a shadow side you don't want to put a shadow side of a portrait on the light side and put a light side of the opposite way because anytime somebody's going to wear the work it's still natural light hits it that way and if there's a shadow side and the light side is going to look a little weird it's better when the shadow side where the arms shadow side is and then it's like that it's little things that I don't know I don't keep in mind it's more natural because I've done it so many times but and I don't think about it physically but those things make sense it's like art and whatever is in the world everything has laws and physics to it I think are these are these sort of universal art rules or are these more specific to tattoo I mean there's all universal art rules and like things as a color theory I think it applies to painting tattoos all kinds of stuff but I I think tattoo looks good in my opinion that it's well designed it placed well and that it's going to age well for at least 10 years at least 10 years and when you say a tattoo is aging well I mean it's not fading it's not looking like how how older the tattoos on on your arms because they look good um everything's pretty old I mean those are probably eight years that's not bad for eight years yeah everything like I lost tattoo I've got in my leg was in 2020 so I think if tattoo is done well it should look really good and I in my opinion a good tattoo should be once you go closer to a person it should look good but once you also step far away you should recognize what it is like if I'm further than you are and I see what you have on your arm it shouldn't look like a mess I should see at least that it has some flow or what it is that you have that in my opinion is a good tattoo when I was looking up some of your some of your past work you had a test for quality and I'm sure it's if it still applies because you would mention that if you remove the color and it still works is black and white then that's a very good indicator of a good tattoo is that still the case yes especially especially for color tattoos I think the color tattoo should have value because a lot of people would tattoo all these colors even if it's a flower for example they would tattoo all these colors but it doesn't have enough contrast so there's not enough black or it doesn't even have to be black I have actually a rose tattooed on me and a guy didn't use any black on it I don't know why but the color theory and the color balance works so well that there is enough from the light tones to dark tones uh which I I think for any tattoo especially color tattoos black and white you see um it's values that are from black to your skin and a lot of black and gray people that tattoo black and gray they use the skin as the lightest tone and a black as a darkest tone so they use when the light tones are they just use your skin so it's a contrast like that but when people tattoo color some people make it look a little messy because they put if you turn it into black and white there's a lot of the same gray tone into the colors with not enough values to it so if you turn black and white it almost look like uh like a muted paper that put over like almost like what you have a carpet it's like all the same tones but there are different colors they'll be red or blue or something else but they're all the same and it just doesn't have enough contrast so that's that's an indicator of a bad tattoo in my opinion because if you look at a traditional there's skin as left as uh as a light tone and it's even if it's a one bold color but there's still skin between the line and the color contrast yeah so it gives it that huge contrast from color to the to the skin but a lot of people when they do realism or they do something uh with the colors they don't have it in their hat they don't keep it in their hat to be uh to keep those values so you need to think like design you I like put in a design and looking in a mirror to see it flipped so I could see the issues when uh design is unbalanced because when you see it with your eyes you kind of once you're working on it you're used to what you see so much then if you go to the mirror it flips it it forces you to see it differently it forces you to see it differently and it was actually interesting I was uh looking at some photographers and I think it was Cartier Busson somebody with a big name he like was reviewing somebody's portfolio and the guy was describing he brought him photos and he just put the photos upside down he just looks at photos and the guy was like why are you looking at photos upside down and he was like I'm just looking at light and balance with the shapes I'm I'm not looking at photos is in a normal way but I want to see if it's all composition and balance if it's upside down so it's like trick your eyes with you put something or you draw something on paper and you just go in a mirror and put it in front of the mirror and look at it and then you'll see mistakes or directional lines or dag on the lines or imbalance with like sometimes if there's too much on one side you have to balance it somewhere an opposite way so it kind of has like a counterbalance inner things this is so interesting so I've also what you're describing I've experienced in a different context so it's almost like when you're a creative and you spent too much time on a piece and I write a lot so sometimes I've noticed that when I write Sam writing on my laptop and and I want to publish a piece I don't know if it's similar or different maybe it's the same mechanism in the brain but I'll actually read it on a different screen or on a phone or on anywhere else or I'll read it the next day I'll read it somewhere else so that I can actually pay attention to the things for some reason when I'm actually creating it in that first the first version of it it's like your brain is trained to skip over the problems but if you find a way to consume it in another way mirror flipping it upside down sending it to yourself for me and like reading a piece on a on a phone as opposed to on a laptop all of a sudden your brain sees all these problems for the first time that there were always there you just couldn't see them so I think that that's an interesting thing is a creative because you get so involved in your work and I think that there must be some psychology reason why your brain passes over these flaws when you're staring right at them because you should see them but you don't and this is a way to force recognize the flaws in the work I think it's the same like what you said is the same in art and I think we basically would just get used to if we would see it at first time when there is mistakes it would it would bother us but if you give it to somebody and they would read it if they are professional in that field it would bother them like I had people in a shop that work with me they usually especially people who did apprenticeship with me and they work they would make a design and they kind of were like stuck with something and they bring it to me and me like just briefly seeing it I see all mistakes right away and I was like just move this a little bit to the left and make this a little bit bigger yeah that what you said I think it's exactly the same as like if you type it on a laptop you put on a phone and you read it from your phone or in a different environment you start seeing other mistakes or other things who do you study because you've mentioned that you study painters not like modern painters you study Renaissance painters traditional who do you study that sort of influences you teaches you and why as painters or I guess well you you tell me I mean do you study classical painters do you study Renaissance art work do study other tattoo artists like who is your I would say mentor that doesn't even know you exist who's the person that you study I like a couple tattoo artists that I always watch yes and I maybe they do know you exist but yeah yeah and I I think in in my world the thing is if you want to see how somebody works just go and get tattooed by them it's like it's like the easiest thing it's the same with probably you if you want to learn how somebody does a podcast just go and get up in the podcast with them and you'll see the whole exact setup you'll you'll see what they ask and how they approach things and this will be probably expensive but the quickest lesson for you because you don't have to sit and figure things out with a trial and error you go to somebody who is established and very good in their style and I guarantee you they did the same like I know people that are top they usually hang out around the top and they usually hang out around the people or hang out before or grab together or something else that do things really well in their style that's what it is you have to be you have to be around something like that because figuring things out by yourself it's going to take years and I think that's the easiest way but I do study a lot of different things and I like to be diverse I don't want to be stuck just in art and I've studied art history actually in college and I had to pass an exam on it from probably icon paintings and you know the interesting thing is like we have in a regular paintings we have perspective and we have to follow perspective in a icon paintings the perspective goes in you in a in a viewer in their solarplex so the icon paintings as considered after all this rock paintings when the people start painting religious stuff the all the perspective from the painting goes inside you as as yours is center and it's very interesting no but like a lot of people don't talk about it but it is like that can you explain that because I want to understand this so what do you mean by perspective so once you once you draw a cube right yes the the lines that is the the sides of the cube they go and they come together as a as a perspective because things as further they are they're smaller and they go like this but when there is icons of like saying so something else if you look at the perspective their perspective goes into center of you as they would think that this is the solarplex as the center of the universe so everything goes into you interesting yeah I've never not not a lot of people talk about it but it like I had to study classical art and from phases from to modern art to pop art to all this stuff and no exactly this was like around like so this this particular idea no no no no sorry I didn't mean when you study I mean this particular idea these would be paintings of like kings or religious leaders or things like that that would have this particular perspective yeah the perspective goes into you it's it's it's an interesting thing but then they switched to like how they see the world they would switch to the perspective as it goes like how we see with the eyes so you still I mean but when you study that when you study I first of all I think that art history is fascinating I don't know much I don't know much about it compared to to you obviously but when you study that does that impact like how you do your work does it do any of those themes actually cross over into modern day yeah of course but I don't think I've had it in in that deep but I've actually spoke or watched some seminars of like modern days like oil painters when they describe certain things like if they take the Renaissance painting and they just put it in Photoshop and the same with the with that black and white that I say but they would turn in and black and white the painting and then they would push the contrast to the max as possible right and they would say hey look the light shape frames everything is light and connected and the dark is almost all connected as well so if you push it so certain things once you study you start to understand how the contrast work how the light works and stuff like that it definitely helps with the tattooing and modern day tattooing even in any style I think do you think that okay so this is now fast forward to all the we're chatting with this for repressed record so now there's so many AI tools that help you create right and when the one issue with AI tools is of course for a graphic designer yes it could in theory replace their job but I made the comment for a tattoo artist I don't think that it's going to be replacing your job anytime soon unless there is some sort of automated device that can draw art on a human body without a human holding the pen or the uh but I think that the bigger issue is that the amount of knowledge that you have um I think that younger artists are going to outsource a lot of that learning to AI tools um I don't like for example somebody wants a tattoo do you see a younger artist going on like a chat GPT asking for a design they probably do and then yes can you trace that design but do they actually understand why that design is good I don't think that if they do that they'll know even a fraction of what you just told me I think the artists should know basics and should know the art history and composition and how the light works because I we actually do tattoo remove Photoshop and I just had it was actually funny the guy came in he just got a tattoo and it was a scorpion there was probably AI generated and it's been for a past maybe half a year to a year people would bring AI generated images as designs to get tattooed because they don't go on google and search hey I want a scorpion and find a photo of a scorpion they type in a chat GPT uh a scorpion tattoo and a chat GPT generates it but sometimes it generates it unrealistic so the guy came into an artist with the image and they tattooed it it was probably made in AI and one claw is different than another claw on a on a image and then the guy got tattooed super clean super nice and then he came home he looked at it he started googling and he didn't find exact scorpion he was like I've never seen scorpions like this and he was he came in and he was like hey I just got tattooed yesterday it was not in my shop he was like I just got a tattoo yesterday he was like I know you guys do laser he was like can we just laser this claw so like I mean like that yes so but the tattoo artist still but like is it is there no risk I like maybe you're gonna say well there you know if the client comes in with a drawing then we just do what the client wants but there has to be responsibility on the tattoo artist to be like okay maybe this isn't the best design yes it should be on everybody I feel like my perspective when I started it was no social media and what I've been taught by some mentors that I had they said your work is your business card you tattoo on somebody if I walk around and you see this and you're like oh my god holy shit this is amazing you're gonna be like hey who did it and I was actually flying to here and I saw lady in the airport with a tattoo and I knew who did the tattoo because some styles are recognizable and some people do specifically like I knew exactly who did her sleeve and the girl worked for me before I didn't say anything I didn't interact but you go especially now when it's warm you go and you see something amazing you're like holy shit who did it even if you don't want to get that tattoo but it might catch your interest so I think anything you put out there especially tattoos because it's hard to erase it's your business card at my business card and if somebody comes in there like hey this is an AI generated image or if there is especially with AI it has issues with hands I don't know why yeah so it's always six fingers always so if somebody comes with the image and I mean if I put it on somebody even if the person likes it what if other people are going to make fun of it and then the person just going to have a trauma you know and because of what I did on them do you turn people away no I try to suggest of to do something different I think it should be like a tattoo artist should be very good at psychology and they should be very well with the clients try to make them feel comfortable and understand if there's something that needs to be bigger if something needs to be changed I think the clients should see that perspective and tattoo artist should take time and show them or have some examples and show like hey this is not going to work because what you see online especially now with all this editing tools photoshop and all other stuff is sometimes it's not the same as what you see in person so a lot of people should be careful nowadays because things get suggested and then I've seen tattoo artists even post their work that never been done and they just throw Mike Tyson portrait and Chad GPT put there can you do this as a tattoo Chad GPT generates the image and then they post it on their social media saying hey I just tattooed that and it looks it looks real unless you zoom in and you don't see the lines it's too it's too real to be true like tattoo that's just that's just fake yeah that's fake but they uh for since the whole thing started with AI some people were keep doing it and they gain clients out of it but I I feel like more it goes on more people start realizing and they start doing research because there's things like reddit and all kinds of stuff when people post actual things and the more information is there or I would trust somebody like I said like I go to the gym and I see somebody's tattoo and I'm like wow and it's healed and I'm like wow I want a tattoo like that that's the person I would go to because I know I've seen something that I like and I want something similar instead of going into somebody's Instagram and seeing all these pictures that they tattooed but they can also use Photoshop or AI generative tools to clean it up and do all kinds of stuff to it which I think is going to turn more into stuff like that but I mean AI to be honest with you is great tool I feel like it helps to save time during the research so sometimes you need to put different things together and the client will come with like a huge concept and instead of just doing a research on your own and searching like some historical things I've had a client that came in he was like I want to have a battle that there's no photos or drawings from the battle from like between Irish and German from like whatever World War One and there's no no photos but he was like I want Germans to wear when it was World War One but it which was a small part somewhere that they fought and the same with the Irish and I just threw it in the AI and the AI helped to like generate and do research good for researchers with certain things and the same with like creating a concept if you're saying some people will come and be like hey I want like something as a mix like a stingray floating in a outer space or whatever I mean I can I can do it myself I've done things like that but I'm just saying for people that by having a hard time visualizing it or like you have an idea but you have a hard time you can type in me journey in different versions and see what it generates and I've seen photographers do it for concepts they just say hey I want a photo of beautiful woman as a renaissance painting standing in front of the castle with like this and this and this and this yellow dress and dress floating they put all these tags and it creates the concept with the light even you don't like the light but you can take the concept and then you can go to a costume designer and say hey can you make me something similar inspired by this as a dress and then you look for locations you start looking and you look for the light similar inspired on that and then you create your own you don't have to copy anything that AI generates but it it helps it's a tool and the same with marketing I think like you can I was flying on a plane I see people type like what's the I don't know the guy was doing some business and he was like typing what's the most unemployment states and he puts all this things together using AI like super quick for his company and I was like well I mean do research by yourself using google and reading articles it's harder versus you type it there and it net suite is a success story partner now what is the future hole for business if you ask nine experts you're going to get 10 answers bull market bear market interest rates are rising they're falling honestly at the end of the day we just need a crystal ball but until then over 42,000 businesses have trusted and future proof themselves with net suite by Oracle the number one cloud ERP bringing accounting financial management inventory and HR into one cohesive platform with one unified business management suite there's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control that you need to make quick decisions with real time insights and forecasting you're pairing into the future with actionable data and when you're closing the books in days not weeks you're 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according to indeed data sponsor jobs posted directly on indeed have 45 percent more applications than non sponsor jobs plus with indeed sponsor jobs there's no monthly subscription no long term contracts you only pay for results there's no need to wait any longer speed up your hiring right now with indeed and listeners of this show will get a 75 dollar sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility just go to indeed dot com slash clary right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed dot com slash clary terms and conditions apply if you're hiring indeed is all you need when did you start making money and also what was the thing that differentiated you or what was your what was the thing that you did that allowed you to make exceptionally more money at tattooing than the average artist so I feel like when I um after probably a year year and a half I started making some money Moscow in Moscow yes um probably two two about two years that I was being able to pay for my bills and put money in a savings and there was still no social media um but I wanted to spend money as traveling that was my biggest goal because I feel like being an artist you need to see the world you need to experience things and the more how I said the more soulful you are the more art you see the more different people from different countries you meet the better stuff you create so I was literally working to save the money to see other countries or go to other shops and learn live as much as possible and it was like my biggest goal um and then I feel like I started making decent amount of money when I moved from Florida to New York actually because New York was a turning point when I moved to New York the Instagram became as a thing and people started using Instagram as posting their portfolio and building their clients out and it was basically when it just started but um I remember a few times when I got reposted by uh big publics and I would get like ten thousand overnight just for tattoo I did and it was insane that I did something different somebody reposted it and all of a sudden my email is full I would get ten fifteen emails overnight and a day and it was it was like a ball rolling you know once you once you do something different once you hit a point then you all of a sudden have all these bookings because when I was here in Florida um so you went you went Moscow Florida first that was the first spot that you landed after I mean I was in New York first I for me when I first started traveling I went to Europe a lot I've been to Europe so much to different countries of course but not living not not living I stayed in Germany for like three months but I I've had friends there and been to Spain to Finland Sweden Norway all kinds of stuff but um I came to New York first because for me was like oh let's come to states and just by supplies and see the shops it wasn't I didn't want to stay here but I wanted to meet other artists and experience things and see how the shops are because in Russia shops were way different than here like here was actually some shops in Vegas or Miami it was like a parlor where people already had iPads as portfolios TVs it was like a sarabuth oh you said in Russia wasn't even a business yeah for for each thing and it was lines of people but it was because first I think Miami ink brought a lot of attention to a thing and it was when it was on a national TV and then it was distributed to the world people saw it I think that draw a lot of attention and back when I was in Florida Florida actually Miami was a number one city in the states or maybe in the world for the popularity of tattoo really yes I didn't know that so probably because of the show I'm assuming yes of the show and people who fly from South America we had people that would fly and when they got tattooed they're like oh my god it's like in Miami ink show like so many people said they're coming when I was tattooing them uh when you create something and like I watched the show but I I didn't watch everything because I didn't have time back then and uh when you're tattooing they're like oh it's like he's doing almost like they did on a show and it was like so interesting to see that but we had lines out of the door like I would make it was crazy because I would make like thousand dollars in tips back then and you were at this point this is not your own shop no no I was working with somebody but you like hustling all day and you working the shops was open like first we're open till certain time and then they decided to even keep it open all night too and you're like slam with clients you're like six seven ten tattoos a day and you keep doing it it was like tourists coming in people from all over the place which eventually oversaturated the market but um because people saw opportunity how it is and then everybody started opening shops here there's money yeah yeah and then it's it's like boom nobody has work everybody's like oh what's going on but um I mean I feel like New York was a turning point for me when I when I moved there and when the Instagram became a popular thing especially for tattoo artist it was a tool almost photographers and uh tattoo artist it's like a wall where you put your work and people can scroll and see or because website is one thing if somebody types uh tattoo artist in New York there's shits on a website that pay pay for ads google ads CEO like all that kind of stuff that pop up and if you make a website even you put the words there you're not going to come up on the first three four five pages nobody's going to find you but Instagram was like uh you post and you can get there from just one posting one work and I remember when I've had um it was probably one work just made me like really a lot of clients overnight I've start getting emails because I did some different than people are doing there and it was um it was like a bull roll and it started and I I have to keep going with it you know when did you open your own shops so this was first class uh tattoo yeah the shop I um I opened in 2016 I worked this was on Canal Street so when I when I first got the spot it was a cheaper rent because the area was basically all Chinese stores and it was warehouses there and I was looking for area that I can't afford myself even if nobody works for me if I work I can pay that rent a month and I still make money so that's why I got the shop there but then other people that own buildings they saw opportunity they're like oh the guy got a shop and there's people coming in and wealthy people coming in they were like instead of having their own store downstairs they're like I can rent this space to somebody else and they start renting space so it's almost became gentrified so you started the gentrification of Canal Street yeah pretty much so now that area is so much different that people who live there they know what I'm talking about people who just moved or never been to that area they don't they probably wouldn't say but I was one of the first businesses they changed and then also they built a hotel which was a place there was the first Chinese bank which is a nine orchard but for first I think five six years it was still in the construction it was all stuff there but now it's an open hotel and it's a lot of celebrities that come there and it's all like black cars and SUVs all over around because like I bump into Kylie Jenner I by bump into Jared Leto staying in the hotel it's all celebrities staying there and it's literally next door for us like literally next that's so funny so you so you were the first shop and then everything started to change and it it became like people would see opportunity they would open a coffee shop here coffee shop there I think four coffee shops opened in the last 10 years literally and it like floods the people there and people start renting spaces and this is all good for everyone whole orchard street like a street when you walk from my shop before 2020 it was all like shitty kind of small dirty stores because the whole area before it was Jewish like Hasidic Jews owned it and then they saw opportunity I've even had people like Hasidics would come to me and they're like hey do you want to open another store we see how successful you are they almost wanted to sell me a building there in orchard street they came in there like we'll sell your building for a million dollars you can put whatever you want there because for them they would have their own store and they would rent apartments but it's a lot of work but once if they rent it for somebody you have to take care of space you like take care of old maintenance and you attract also a lot more and they don't have to do anything they just make money so they want it like successful things so last four or five years all that stuff became like a completely different area that it was and I feel like me and maybe that hotel kind of people saw in the rent is cheaper because lower side was always more expensive rent I was looking for stuff there and when I when I went there I was like they started from 10 grand and up 10 years ago it was literally like 10 grand for like small space and it would go up how much is it now I don't know which in area where I had the store it was like five and up it was much cheaper but nobody wanted to rent there because there's nothing around because when I first signed a lease I would go and look for like a coffee or tea I got a store it was literally a sign was in Chinese I go inside and I was like can I get this and I like no no no speaking English and I was like okay it was like everywhere like that but now it's a completely different area but people who live there they would know what I'm talking about so I think sometimes you make something successful and like people around they see okay there's different class different people come in there and they're like maybe we can open businesses there too well so just to paint a picture people that are listening like again we're talking a lot about obviously tattoos and the tattoo industry but as an entrepreneur so you you spent how many years before you actually started to build your own thing like how many years have you actually done the math like how long you were like working mastering your craft putting in the reps before you actually built something successfully that was your own almost ten years almost ten years not like nine years probably yeah and when you did make that jump because now I know a little bit more because again we're talking about some of the other things that you you're you're working on you're actually very risked so I think you're very smart you do things very thoughtfully which I think is probably why you're successful at it but when you start something new even like some of this after you're working on right now like some of this sort of the not side hustle that's putting it lightly but like some of the other projects that you're working on you don't just you don't just completely forget about the main thing and then start something new you keep the main thing going and then you build something on the side kind of like and I'm curious how you actually started like your first shop you're working you're saving money you're learning and then you start the shop but you did it successfully so was it starting the shop while you're still working or did you save up a certain amount of money or did you understand how long it was going to take you to be successful at building your own company and like that's how you sort of modeled out how much money you needed in the bank or how did you actually start as this like that's the first time you're I was working yes yeah okay and I was building a shop as far as I was building I started researching just how to name it the brand and all this stuff I mean now there's more tools as far for AI to do all this stuff but I was just doing that on my own and like thinking in my head what will be successful and doing a website and at the same time I was working literally like every day and I was looking for spaces I would meet the brokers in the morning look at spaces see how much it cost and it was it was scary because I've had money in a bank I saved up probably a hundred K before I signed a lease and it's not much money to open a business but for me when you when you when you work for somebody back then it was a lot of money and when I got the place I didn't even have like I had ID in mind I put it kind of like I want black and gold as like design inside and stuff like that because the broker also when they rent a commercial lease and you never had a physical store or something like that they're looking at you oh you're gonna rent you're gonna fail so they're like oh can you send us PDF of what the concept is gonna be what the colors are gonna be what in terms of like the business plan yeah like a whole business plan even if it's just a small store so I've had to do all of that and I was tattooing it at the same time so it was it was like that and then when I first signed the lease I've had people doing constructions which was also bumps because I got a place and I was like what I'm actually gonna do with it because I was like you know let me do a research and find somebody who can put a design together I mean I have a concept but I actually need a designer because if somebody wants to build they want to see references and stuff like that so I start calling people and they're like well we're gonna charge like $40-$50,000 just to put a design together and rendering and I was like well it's like half of the money I have I was like no so like I asked the company that assigned me the place that gave me the lease I always like do know any construction workers so they gave me people and I was like okay talk to them what I want and I was trying to do like a cosmetic things and price was okay he was like I'm gonna charge you whatever 5,000 a week or like something without the materials for labor and me because I was working and I wasn't there a whole time when he started doing it they took another two projects on a side and they they would just literally work there a little bit and go somewhere else and work there which few times I took a break from work and I went there and I noticed nobody's there so we turned into a whole issue and I had to hire somebody else to do it because like those people they said oh we're gonna finish in a month or two whatever and they kept dragging it out to work with your project and they keep pushing and just doing like basic stuff that was taken forever because they took other two other jobs so I had to control that but I found other people that would do it and then I started based on the concept I started just looking online what I can buy in terms of furniture that would fit with the style because I was like I cannot afford somebody to put me like a list of what to buy and stuff together for like 20 30 thousand dollars so you have to bring people over you you start doing the tattoos in your own shop now you're making a hundred percent of what they pay you which is great be I don't what are the what are the normal splits like when you work in a shop so back when I worked it was 50 50 and now it turned more of like people doing 40 60 so it's paid more the the artist pays more okay so we're like some shops in California Florida probably certain shops chair rental a month or certain shops are like 70 30 70 to artist and 30 to the shop when New York because of the expensive costs it's very hard because here if I rent a space or buy space it's way less money than in New York for like for every every single thing for expenses but it is like a norm of like 60 40 split for 60 to the artist 40 to the shop and I also had people in mind that I work with before one guy was an apprentice another was a friend of mine that came to states a few times and he said if I open a business he'll come and join so I've had some people that had like an interest to come but it was mostly me just working and I remember when I first started a lot of things in terms of marketing was trial and error because like you have a store you you did a sign outside right but how to bring the people in like I put the Google ads I put the money into it yeah I put it in Instagram and then certain things came as like nobody was doing videos and I customary challenged to me which was a videographer and she was like I want to do a tattoo in exchange for a video and I was like sure and I was one of the first I think people first tattoo artist that ever posted a video of like an actual video not just a clip with a phone of like professional camera video shot on a professional cameras to post of the whole tattoo shop in a process and it brought a lot of attention because the person I worked for before actually after I posted a video he got pissed and he sent me a message because when I left he was like I'm happy for you like you did your own blah blah blah but when I did a video and I got a lot of attention on social media he sent me an angry message he was like oh fuck you like blah blah because nobody did it before I know I was the first person whoever did he ever try and sue you for anything no they actually stole an artist from you that was my apprentice but it's okay what was sort of like the the lowest moment or the one thing that was really something you had to go through as an entrepreneur that you hope nobody else would ever have to go through when you were building your shop I think the first worst moment when I actually had a few people working for me in the manager that was probably a really like a best manager but they started building in business outs out of my business but like what I did to somebody that I worked before they had a much bigger business that I have and when I left it didn't affect them but for me like if I hire three people and three people leave and there's only four people working for me that was like a big thing because they took a whole client base and they did that yeah and they and went and opened a space and took the best manager out of three managers I had they took a general manager and they took them to work for them because they offered her a commission or something more money that I was paying her and it was really that was like one of the first painful thing that happened to me and then certain other things like I hate to bring it up but I've had it happen multiple times when people make relationships inside the business like I would hire it's like multiple people working there like nine people but then somebody is like start dating somebody and then potentially concerning to a drama which few times happened that was like always a red flag for me always always an issue and then I feel like another thing we don't see ourselves from the outside right but if I would come here and I would be wearing like a medical stuff you would assume I'm a doctor right it's like cold power of authority so once you become somebody if I'm a boss people take me a different way so I felt like when I've had a few celebrity clients and I got a little bit of popularity some people come into the life just to try to use you but you don't see that way because you don't like I haven't had experience with that before like everybody that I consider that was wants to hang out or talk like personal things I consider as a friend but people were trying to use just to gain something for their personal stuff for their interest so it was a lot of those and I feel like my my last marriage was the same too because the I mean it's sad to say but the person came into the life when was working for somebody and like I built build the person up and she learned so much from me and is doing same things that's what I taught you heard like that's what I see through all the posts even if after we're broken up and all that stuff I'm sorry it's okay but it's like I've never experienced that in you I guess you learn a hard way with like walking with somebody that presents themselves as a different person they but they just try to use you in their advantage just to kind of I think it happens whenever you start to like build a little bit of fame or notoriety or you hang out with cool people it's weird it's a weird feeling I mean it's a very like listen it usually means that you're very fortunate and that you you know you built a great you built something that people actually admire because if not they wouldn't try and use you I noticed it sometimes with the podcast too because I get to introduce some very cool people so you just have to you know you just have to make sure that friendships are like honest and they're actually friends and yeah but I totally understand where you're coming from no but I think you need to be like I've had like I didn't have experience with it but now I have and I look at things nobody has experienced with that before the first time they have it like nobody has the experience of somebody using them before it happens the first time yeah for sure now fast forward to sort of where you're at now what are you doing to reinvent yourself now like what are you excited about what are you working on what are you sort of outside of just running the actual shop which is still obviously killing it but how do you keep reinventing so that you stay relevant you stay new you stay exciting well at the moment I'm basically I try to build in your business because I feel like and it's been always on my mind too when I've heard some people speak they say don't put all eggs in one basket and stuff like that I think entrepreneurship as a thing it comes to like this is the only country I think in the world where you can be financially free and you can build that as your future like you can make enough money that you can buy real estate or invest money somewhere where the money is can eventually be working for you and that's that's building on true well that's the ultimate goal and people that don't understand it they probably working for somebody or I mean you can work for somebody but I think in the future what what changed my mind when I said before about the surgery and stuff when you don't work you need something that will work for you because everything costs money everything is expensive anywhere you go like now in New York you go outside 100 bucks is gone or like three hundred bucks is how much better yeah yeah and if you just exchange in your hours into the money but what if you cannot what if something happens if you get sick or you're disabled you got a car accident which happened to like I hear stories like that because I have a lot of clients and clients are like hey I just got in a car accident I cannot hear like my I'm paralyzed or something else but if you're just working a job at a computer writing something or doing something exchanging you hours for the money what if you cannot do that tomorrow I think this is like everybody should learn and figure out how to make money outside of their job and figure out where they can invest or where they can do when the money is working for them and I've been even before I open a business I've been I've had an idea that are don't put eggs in one basket you need to have different sources of income and I have a little source of like a real estate and stuff like that where I put the money and it's passive income I don't put much unless something happens if a major thing happens like the roof's lid off of a house or something else like you need to put a lot of money into but you actually you own real like you've purchased real estate you get somebody to manage it for you or no I do myself but but it's better to get somebody managed like the ultimate goal to automate things that work for you they you don't have to work and that's like I think a lot of people should think that way and the same with like the industry if something is hot if you made something successful you cannot just be stuck with it because in five years or four years the economy can change people's mind can change everything's so dynamic that when I said in the beginning I said when I started marketing there was no social media and we started marketing as like doing a research sending mail or putting putting things as billboard and putting things on a billboard that's what I would learn but now it's completely different completely different animal and I think growing yourself in different directions helps with the business helps with the being diverse because sometimes like you literally have to pivot like companies think about company like Nokia it was a huge company with the phones but why they don't make phones anymore where the phones because I phone took over because they didn't want to adopt and create something different because maybe it was too much structure in a company and they couldn't agree to slow yeah move too slow whatever but billion dollars companies just like sometimes they vanish blockbuster that's so many things I mean you can bring up so many things like that but you have to pivot and if you made certain amount of money you need not to put eggs in one basket because if you if you sleep and fall those those eggs are all gonna break you need to put money in different things that eventually those things will work for you I think that this is the only country that allows you to do because where I'm from a lot of things controlled by the government a lot of things like if I go and open a business in Russia I mean I can be an interpreter to a certain point unless I hit it unless I make like two three million dollars and then the government gets involved that's not even by entrepreneurship it's not even a lot of money I mean like in the US I mean like yeah you cannot buy it's like a studio apartment in New York City as a million dollars it's insane so but in Europe or all other countries because they're small and they're so controlled by the government like if you make that money it's okay but if you make more the government is gonna come and be like hey you work for us now especially Russia like Russia is like that if you if you open a business and a business is popping and making a lot of money at a certain point the government is gonna be like hey you cannot own this business you're gonna work for us because for them if you gain so much popularity or something else you can overthrow the government to have some influence on people and they cannot allow that so this is what this is what happened with with Jack Ma and and and like the like the CCP or like the people's Republic of China right like that's like he was billionaire and he was too outspoken and they didn't like that and then he disappeared for a little while and then he came back and all of a sudden he's not so outspoken anymore so I get it like I think that I also think that you know we have to be very like we're so we're so blessed to have the opportunity that we have in the US and like the fact that you can really just do whatever you want to any significant degree as long as it's legal you can build whatever you want you can make any decision you want you can you can create businesses that have never existed before you can quit your job you can do whatever yeah for sure and it's just it's like it really is a blessing I think that people sometimes forget how the rest of the world works but um yeah I've been um so I've had some investments in the production equipment and stuff like that and it was basically you're in the photography as well yeah I started doing photos because I've had a base of photography in a college when I studied and then I took the different path but then I think 2020 when we're closed for I think it was four months or five months we're closed I started kind of watching YouTube videos because everything became so content related right so it's like let me watch some YouTube of how to make videos how to make some content because before I would hire people and I paid people a lot of money to do some stuff so it was like a thousand dollars for a video for one small video um and then I was like what if I buy a camera and just learn some stuff and start doing it myself just for a shop related and there's more as I got into it more I dove in into learning about it and like I feel like if you want to become good you have to get inside the industry to be good like yeah you can't just get a small camera and be like okay you're good but I always I always raised the bar I always um compare myself and I see somebody who's doing it better I was like okay how did they actually did it so I started watching all this um watching YouTube videos about videography and content creation and even like I don't want to mention but I did a I did a course for my ex which was initial I wanted to make a course into tattooing and running a business as a tattoo shop which was idea in 2020 but I did as a trial something for somebody else just as a course and it worked really well and we posted it online and she was making sales like a couple hundred bucks a month just out of like a small short course but um it was for me like a learning path and then I kind of dove more into it because everything is more content created creation and then you post on social media and you're like buying all this equipment and doing all this stuff so eventually I was like oh how do I actually I want to have something so cinematic I was like how do I actually get that so I purchased like an expensive camera um and kind of got more and more interest into it within the last five years and now you have one of the like now you have a massive collection of lenses too yeah this is not like you're you're putting it very lightly when you say you do it like most people most people when they say they go into it they buy a couple cameras they learn how to shoot they learn lighting and learn aperture they learn all the different things that are important for it but you have now a collection of vintage lenses so but it's for me it like it makes me money now because the initial idea was I start researching and you you look at the movies and you're like oh how this is actually shot and you you start reading and figuring things out um so when I was doing some rentals um I was trying to get stuff that nobody has but it's actually very valuable and I think in the last few years people are looking for something different because when a camera started developing it was better sensor better quality but everything became the same so when you look for the same when there is no imperfections and stuff like that it just looks the same and then people are like let's actually go back to 50s or 60s and take something from there and shoot on that and then see you do that and see how it looks it's so popular because on one side is AI which makes everything so plastic and so rendered on the other side people took lenses from 50s 60s 70s rehoused them in a new housing because the other housing wouldn't hold it and they should movies on it like a lot of movies in the last two years are shot on film why because the film it just looks really good and then the technology actually when we shot on film in 90s there was no scanners that we have now so when you shoot on film you scan it after but you can scan 16 millimeter film which is the half of the 35 millimeter into a 4k which before couldn't and then it's much better quality than the camera like this I mean it looks much better and then they should movies with that because film itself looks better it reacts different on the light so and you know like once I dove into something start researching you start seeing okay this looks good but how it was actually made and you see that a lot of movies and commercials right now they shot on film and they put in big budgets because film cost more but it 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credit card required cancel anytime that's shipstation dot com code success story hub spot is a success story partner now the future of business is happening right now and you don't want to miss it that's why you have to be at inbound 2025 they are bringing together the brightest minds in marketing sales business entrepreneurship AI for three incredible days in San Francisco the global epicenter of innovation and technological disruption picture this you are learning directly from Amy Poler about creative leadership you're getting AI insights from Dario Amote who's literally shaping the future of artificial intelligence here's what makes inbound special it's not just the great keynotes you're going to dive into breakout sessions where you can immediately implement what you learn and plus San Francisco's legendary startup ecosystem provides the perfect backdrop for networking with all these great entrepreneurs decision makers industry leaders peers who are actively shaping the future of business from September 3rd to 5th at the Moscone Center you're going to be surrounded by forward-thinking professionals who turn insights and ideas into breakthroughs don't just watch the future unfold be part of creating it visit inbound.com slash register to get your ticket today what do you think is so what you're sort of talking about is more of an analog world in terms of like photography like it's like film as opposed to digital what do you think we lose as creatives when we move from sort of legacy product analog to digital to I don't know how to describe it like with with film every single shot you have to pay attention to because it you because you only have so much film and it costs a lot of money digital it's almost like you can be wasteful we can shoot as many times we want it doesn't really matter so what do you outside of that idea what do you think we lose when we move from analog to digital so I can start from far away when I was in college it was still film photography and then I feel like after first year when I was in second year in college the first digital cameras were introduced and people switched to it because on film you have to think so much it was also expensive but you you need to know so much just to shoot something decent which like you can shoot a lot of film but to process and all that stuff is going to look like shit if you don't know exposure the rules the laws how the light works on digital when we got the digital cameras when I first got a digital camera shoot everything like I would whatever I see I'm like oh let's take picture of this let's take picture of your own vacation you should everything the same with the iPhones but look at my camera roll it's garbage there's so much weight but then I don't look at those like I don't I'm not gonna scroll through all of this and find something be like well this amazing once I started diving deeper in photography in 2020 once I got a first film camera in 2022 I start shooting less but I start thinking more and it was almost like I would go somewhere but I would shoot one role and it's only like 36 shots but each single shot is meaningful like I would go have the scans put on my phone and it brings the memories back because it was probably the best best one memory out of the day that I've shot or I've seen somebody or I've been to this amazing sunset and I've shot it and it's just one photo instead of if I would go and I've been there and I would shoot 200 photos on on my digital camera and I have to scroll through and be like okay one is amazing and then once you switch to that once you go back to digital which I try to shoot more digital right now if I do stuff but I start thinking about it more I'm not gonna shoot like 200 from each around the subject I know this looks good because if I would have film I'm not gonna shoot 10 shots of just of this I'm gonna shoot one and I'm gonna make sure it's good I'm gonna make sure the emotions are good I'm gonna make sure it's valuable it's almost like memories become disposable to a degree because we don't pay attention to what we're actually capturing now yeah so I I think it's switched my perspective to with because with a film each role is like 20 bucks 23 dollars to buy and it's only 36 shots and to process the roads about 20 dollars to process and scan the shots like 40 dollars for only 36 shots it I mean it's it's money but you know people should film because it looks different and some people would even say it looks amazing and but once you switch to that to that mentality you go back to digital and digital could be even better than the film but once you start thinking about it because you turn that in your brain because you have all that card space and you're like okay I can shoot every single thing I can pick the best photo but once you have a thousand photos or two thousand photos for you to go scroll through especially everybody the more right now everybody's so busy with everything like it's more and much more busy a world that it was even 10 years ago and I feel like for me because I'm so busy with business related stuff something else related stuff I want to have something valuable as a memory and I like I bought a lake a camera like in 2022 and I was like okay if I shoot I'm going to shoot the best memories and I actually start shooting and printing stuff and putting my walls people come to like oh my god this looks amazing because it also it scan really well and then it it looks more natural than a digital because the digital has so much more in a sensor like I've shot with the studio lights and stuff like that and I printed it still looks very plastic but once you print from a film from an actual negative it looks really really good it looks like magazine quality and I've had pictures like this printed on my walls in my apartment which I look and I was like sometimes a few years passing and I'm like them I did that well it's amazing I mean but I do think it's switch my perspective of and I think it should apply to everything I mean like everything should be thoughtful even in tattoos my friend said a while ago when I was when I first opened a shop was taking a lot of clients and he said just think about this once you do work each work in the end should be photographed and be worth to post on your wall that's what he said he said to me don't just do work to have a quality work try to do work aim for better and I actually I had a book that I just I just bought somebody said like what look at this book and it's photography I don't like that style but it's set in the beginning of the book aim for the moon and you'll end amongst amongst the stars so it was like almost try to strive to create something better even if it's a small symbol but you can think okay what if I do it to be put on a wall I can do better do it to be put on the wall do it so that you can yeah don't just create to create create with like purpose yeah and I think that changed my perspective with with work in general I think like you can aim for better and and plan and as well like people say when you live with no plan for the business for yourself like you can have a plan doesn't mean that it's gonna end up to be that way but even if you decide to go for a mile if you even go for 20% or run for like five miles even if you run first time as 20% you already ran something yeah it's better than not but if if you don't have that plan it's better then you don't have a plan you can wake up and you don't have anything in mind where you want to be and you're like just stuck floating around I guess do you feel like well I was gonna ask I was gonna ask what are the lessons from photography that have impacted your your tattooing but I guess that's the answer it's like be purposeful I think also photography itself and tattooing is seen the light is very important to see the light see the shapes see the composition complementary colors how colors work in nature because it applies for tattooing because certain stuff I mean unless it's a traditional tattoo or it's like three colors years they're black and white it's one thing but once you do something color realism you need to know color theory and people always say and I always say once you do shadows you mix the tone with opposite on the color wheel tone to create shadows like that looks more natural it looks it's sometimes scary to mix orange with a purple but it it neutralizes it creates the gray and the same for everything for photography too like if I would set lights if I would set complementary colors how we say in a lot of movies it looks really good because it's orange teal it's two colors complement it's colors opposite on a car wheel when we put the background as a teal color and and your skin can be pushed a little bit to be more orange or to orange it looks very it looks pleasing to the eye so there's there is laws with that so I think a lot of things like that it applies and the same for the lighting like if you take the Renaissance painting how they call it a Rembrandt lighting or Hollywood lighting they call it right when there's a triangle on the shadow side and the light is from the single that goes to you and they should usually from a from a shadow side but there's always like a triangle they call it Hollywood lighting but look at Caravaggio's paintings that's how he would set up the lights to paint all these scenes like everything is like comes from somewhere everything has like a whole path of all those things you know do you feel like photography's made you a better tattoo artist and vice versa I think so yeah do you think like other artists should I guess the question is if you're a creative or an artist doesn't make sense for you to expand into different mediums to to learn new things and new skills I think it's hard to sit on how they say don't sit on futures at the same time I think it's better to focus on one thing and try to make everything to be better at it so if you do tattoos is good to make art paint on a side got all art seminars but photography right now it applies to tattooing because first we take photos of our tattoos because before we didn't now we have to take a good photo of tattoo and to take a good photo you need to understand the light you need to understand how to set up the light because you want to present that product and then even more to the advance with all these reals you need to be a content creator to the point that you need to be able to make the video or understand what people would watch in terms of what kind of video they watch so it's a lot of things right now involved but I think it is hard to be maybe a really good photographer and good tattoo artist at the same time because I feel like you need to constantly do the same they need to put that 10,000 hours that you need to put the consistent work because I do shoot photos in a studio and I should like once a month somebody asks me but I feel like if I would just shoot a photos at a studio every day I would be so good at it I would like just need to hit that point of just the hours and that experience that little things like you see once you work more you see okay like I can ask to turn the head this way I can put the light that way it's it comes more subconsciously when you're in a stressful environment I think whatever we put it more like in prints in our brain that we do it with hands without thinking about it but once we got thrown in in that environment in this stressful environment if we don't have that enough of like learning that thing we're gonna fuck it up we're gonna we're gonna mess it up the same with like sports too like I've done jujitsu for a while and I think once they make you do one move constantly just one move or one escape for like a whole class or like 30 minutes and you come back after a week and you have to do again or they they have to review how you learn because it has to be a muscle memory in the things the everything I think even writing books and doing anything is like a muscle memory you just have to build it up to the point um when you know the basics you know the laws and then you can create something yourself I love that and also like once once you know the bit there's a difference between learning something so that it helps you with your other parts of your work versus learning something to be a master at it like for example you can learn photography you can learn how to paint you can learn all these different art other sort of artistic mediums and it can help you as a tattoo artist but it doesn't mean that you have to become the best at that thing you're not gonna be I don't know I don't know the names of big photographers I'm sure you do but you don't have to be that person who's like who does this for a living do you think that technology is good or bad for art I feel like technology is good for art because if you if you take historically people they were really good artists they were not recognized or uh some people would literally paint amazing things or photograph amazing things like a Vivian Meyer took photos and then when she passed somebody discovered all these photos and the apartment she became famous but that's many artists but yeah and then and it's many artists back then and I feel like now with the technology and just becoming viral or being able to post something and people can see in other parts of the world that is amazing I feel like before was like a label to an artist that artists are alcoholics artists are always broke they always starving it's not like a good path the parents will uh would take it that way hey like you need a real job you need to be a lawyer doctor something else to make the money but because we have so much tools that are free to be exposed to big audience we can hit that big audience painting something and we can self-prince we can make art gallery we can go to other country and make an art show where where before when there was no technology people even wouldn't know like um it was only if it was spoken or newspapers or people if people if people start talking about something there was people that got known but there's so many artists back in a day they just paint it in their house and whatever they died nobody they died alcoholics they died broke and nobody knew and then somebody discovered and they're like holy shit and it all there's stuff sold for billions of dollars after their death yeah but it would be beneficial if those people wouldn't have to live like that which maybe I don't know there's always like you know a fight of your flesh and your soul like the artist has to be uh spiritual in a sense to be able to create something bigger so I think maybe being in pain or struggling push people to create something yeah I was curious if you think that like people become less proficient at their craft if they're if life's too good because even nowadays like you think about martial arts uh people like Conan McGregor once he got what he wanted he got the money he doesn't train as hard he cannot fight anymore uh to a top level but if you take back in a day when there was no social media and you cannot get that fame like my Tyson or somebody else when there was no money that you can make right now based on social media or like who your chavez when he had like 200 whatever fights uh now it's like two three fights and then if your character if you're good you can become so famous that sponsors will pay you so much money that people never made before um so that's beneficial of technology but it also ruins probably the passion because once you have that money your lifestyle changes your patterns change you do other things and maybe you want to do other things because like if you just have to hustle just to pay the bills even if you're amazing and what you do it's like one thing but once you have an access to all of this then you can do so much more you can learn something else and i mean personally have you ever lost your edge because of success no i never did but i i also don't know what it is to like if i whatever make like 20 million dollars i don't know what it is to to fill that way i mean i was working for somebody in barely paying bills and then i i made this amount of money that i uh had some real estate purchase i bought a house for my parents like stuff like that but it's it's all it was like a hard work for a long period of time that i feel like i deserve there's never actually never work again money it was never f you like money one check that yeah if i would even have an opportunity like that that's that's different i don't know how i would feel where the person i would be but i i do know that when people get into that position their surroundings change the people how they take them like it change everything changes around them so i don't know did your did your parents ever come to terms with what you do for a living my parents hated it first my parents were making fun of it and uh when i first started tattooing i was still doing graphic design on the side i uh was building websites i worked for some companies i actually did a website for uh formula one racer like i've had really good clients that would pay me a lot of money but um my parents were like oh you're just doing this just as a hobby you should get a real job you should maybe get another degree and my until i moved to New York and until i made the money that i bought a house for my parents it was like in 2015 i think once i did that and once i start like sending money to support my mom or my dad uh they were like hey you have a good opportunity you live in states it's good uh good education you should maybe the money you make you should invest in like on the free time just get another degree that's what they they would tell me like so they still can't get out of there the way that they look at the world because even if you're making money they're still thinking no but now they don't because like after i bought a place for myself and all of their stuff i own the business but for a long time even i was making decent amount of money the steel were like hey why don't you get a stable job and some something that you can rely on for a rest of your life and then retire um i mean i got never through that never threw you off them not sort of uh being okay it did throw me off for sure but i i don't know i always i feel like when i was still in a high school um i wanted to live on my own because i've had a big family and it was like a lot of people in a household and i've always tried to hang out people that are successful i always hang out with people that are older i've had people that own businesses their friends and i was in like 18s or 20s and people will take me on the trips and people who own construction companies or something else and made like i don't know a million dollars a year back then and like with considering me a friend because i knew certain things uh that they didn't have anybody around like i knew like how to do web development how to do graphic design and certain things about the marketing so they were interested in that skill because they didn't have it so i was helping them uh to do those things but they wanted to hang out with me just for like maybe like a helpful exchange but i've been around those people and seen uh different type like different success from early age because my both parents like my dad worked as a professor at the university he worked as a teacher and then worked as a professor at the university uh teaching technology and math uh for all his life for like 50 years uh until he was pushed to retire but um he never did stuff for himself he just worked for a check and got a check and then and then that's it and then get pushed out and then my mom because there was three kids that she had she couldn't work for a certain time and she had a really good job uh before my younger sister was born but when my younger sister was born she was like all i have three kids i i don't have any time so she had to quit the job and when she tried to go back into thousands to get a job back it was a completely different world everybody was already computers it was everything in a system automated and she worked as an accountant before uh for a huge government thing uh for the spaceship company um and then once in 2000 she tried to go back they're like sorry we kind of take you even you have experience with working this they're like you have to go and get at least four or five years of education to catch up to catch up and then you can go back and she was like holy shit four or five years i have to pay for education so she never did she did a little bit of like half a year or a year and then worked jobs here and there but um it's still a mentality i think if you're gonna just walk through so i want the audience to sort of they've learned a lot but i want them to learn sort of uh say a lesson or a failure that you've experienced that you wouldn't wish anybody else would ever have to go through but it was a very valuable lesson for you what would that what would that moment be and it can be it doesn't have to be in business it can be but something that you think you learned quite a bit from the you think somebody else hopefully will never have to experience firsthand i think in life everything should be balanced like sometimes um and in me personally i have a lot of issues with that um i would basically throw myself into work and i just overworked myself like i i would get into something and i know that i could do more um so i i could basically go and work seven days a week but it does huge impact on a mental health i think everything should be balanced why why start doing photography because i needed something to take my mind off and once your mind is into a business if you want a business to succeed you just put all your resources all your energy into it and there is a negative impact into your body from that which you might not feel in the beginning but in a certain period of time it's going to hit you and it can hit really hard and some people that did jobs for many years sometimes they just fall sick and then they cannot work anymore or something else so i think that's the biggest lesson i've learned from own in a business i think you need to balance things and sometimes going less is going more in a long term uh sometimes like pushing pushing more or going forward more can end up that you wouldn't be able to do that anymore and um i think balancing your life if you have a family or if you have in a hobby it's good to take your mind off if you try not to do a business i think some days you just have to be completely off the phone you like my why i started doing photography like street photography that i really enjoy i would take a camera i just go outside i'm not looking at a phone i'm not doing anything i'm like okay for three four hours i'm just going to walk around and find something interesting and take photos because um i was working so much first few years then i started getting sick a lot and you noticed your body shutting down yeah and i was like when i first started happening i was like okay i just go take antibiotics because i was like getting sick with like a flu or cold like consistently but i was putting so much work because i was like oh i'm here but i can do even more so you're like i'm the only me i have that's this time but it also i think it should be that everybody needs to learn that you can hire people to do the jobs that they can do but you you pay them less money because your time is more valuable for the money that you make so you don't have to clean your house when you can hire somebody for ten dollars an hour to clean your house because if you clean your house unless you're enjoying it if you clean your house you're gonna take half a day to do it but at the same time you can do something more valuable or spend time with your family and i think i think in your life should be very balanced that way i think if you just throw yourself into something and even if it's going well it can end up like hurting yourself or doing something something bad yeah because you kind of just get distracted by like the short-term wins yes and i i think sometimes like little steps is even better steps forward because in the in the long term it's going to be better but i also think like if if there is opportunities and you see opportunities it's better to take them because you like you can regret them later and somebody told me a long time ago i mean if you don't knock on the door i've had a guy when i met i was like in my 20s and he was very successful he did construction and he told me it was a long time ago but it's stuck to me he said that he was trying to do business and he he was from poor family he was trying to make a lot of money and be rich and he tried many things and he said it's better to ask because of like if you if you have ideas it's better to try and to ask people and to learn from people because if you're afraid like you're just going to be thinking about it that you never tried but if you try even if you fail you failed but sometimes you you try and you succeed and he was like when he finished his university he said i was just knocking on everybody's door because i want to be successful he was like i got into this i was selling elevators it's failed i was doing this it failed i was doing this it failed and then he did construction company got a lot of connections and he was doing a lot of money i was making millions of dollars off that but he said i failed so many times i had debt i had people there pissed off i had this and this but you learn from your mistakes and i think like in my life a lot of stuff was like learning here and there from different people they've been around and i think it seems like an early age i kind of seeing how these people because of what they're successful the patterns and all other stuff but i also i also think you can hire people to do other things for you and like for people don't spread themselves then like you you can if you want to do marketing research if you want to do something else you can hire people to source them from other countries you can learn a little bit yes so you can learn a little bit fail but also at the same time you have to balance that two things can be true at the same time it's good for you to learn and fail at the same time it's also good for you to delegate responsibilities you don't do everything yourself it's a balance i think that also i think that also like for entrepreneurs it's important to to try and learn and if you do fail at least you've learned a little bit so that you can now when you hire people to help you make a better hiring decision you see what's good you see what's good and i also read a thing when you hire somebody to do the job it's better to write the steps exact steps they have to do to make that happen to make the product or to make the job because if you say hey create me a website or like hey write this write this article that i need to post on a blog but if you put the exact steps if you put i want to write this blog but for me if i would do it i would go and do a research on the internet based on this topic and based on another i would put every single step and they would do a good job that you would do but if you just write a task without explaining it or without the steps to to make to create that task that it wouldn't be valuable or wouldn't apply to your business because you see it a different way but you cannot express yourself you cannot explain how you want it to be and sometimes you just throw it out there as a as a task and you hire somebody and they do a shitty job and you're like shit i paid this person money but i have to redo it and do it myself which like i learned sometimes it's better for me to do it but it also i don't have much time but it's you have to find that balance and try to explain it better for people like education is huge yeah that are they're doing it what would be the most important thing you've had to unlearn i try not to attach myself to things it's it's like a hard thing but we get attached to people to have it's to something else i try not to think that's human nature to be honest yeah i try i try not to attach to things because like pets will die and you know we love them so much but it's it's like a thing but like i think switching up like you literally like if you have a same pattern of something i think switching things up is a good thing like you have to kind of learn to fall in into the same pattern of life because you would learn and get comfortable somewhere like i have friends that i i just see maybe because my brain works differently but i see people that are like they try things they find what works for them like even food like they would find a restaurant and it would go there because they eat the services good it makes them feel good but they're like fall into this pattern that they're scared to try something else because life with people with relationship with press everything yes agree and then they're they're like they're everything as well everything is is good for them they feel comfortable but they're just going with a flow i guess and if in my like in my experience i just seen it because i've been to different countries people like that when something happens it could happen as like an accident or they can get sick or something else like somebody dies it throws them off they're not resilient but yeah yeah they cannot adjust to that situation and they end up not not well or they end up go into therapy or something else for a long time or something happen they like get on drugs or whatever because they don't know they don't know how to deal with it but once you once you unlearn that once you just try to like detach yeah you detach detach from things but you kind of you can't adapt to anywhere or to anything i think it's a good it's a good thing it's a good skill especially for me like i come from a country where i feel more comfortable in being here like i still for i've been here 15 years i still feel like if i go back there i feel more comfortable like i know the culture i understand the people i know how the food i know how the system works i know how everything works and i have less stress as like the mental stress that is isn't my head than being here because here i feel like i don't have any family and i'm always attacked that i have to pay the bills i'm like something can happen or this and this and this and 10 million things but i think it changed me as a person and the same with the business like maybe it's comfortable for me to go and work for somebody because if i own my own business i have to pay rent which is way more than i if i'm working for somebody or way more than i'm paying for my apartment and then i need i have responsibilities of having employees that i have to pay and i have to provide the people who work for me work and find the work for them so it is more comfortable for me to go for a company and have stable money that i know maybe build my name and work there but once i throw myself into uncomfortable into this crazy waterfall and i kind of readjust and learn how to swim i kind of feel less scary with other people like i go into something that is unknown and i don't feel scared or i go meet somebody or i speak with somebody who can be i don't know a billionaire and i mean i feel comfortable speaking with them because it changed me as a person and i think i approach things different way and i have that experience in me which i think it's a good thing if people want to connect with you if people actually want to go to the shop uh where should they go so socials uh everywhere you want to send them so shop is called first class tattoos uh it's on 52 Canal Street in Manhattan um they can go follow us first class NYC on instagram we'll also have a website where we have some works and my personal instagram was me kale Anderson uh with the two s's you can see it's like tattoos all over my page so they can i'll put everything in the show notes too so people can just click through but sounds good then the last thing that i always like to ask so you've given over like a lot of different bits of wisdom but say out of your life you can only pass on one lesson to your kids it's the most important lesson what would that lesson be and why i think the biggest thing is not to um like take care of your health from the early age i think that's probably the biggest lesson i want the kids are everybody to learn yeah and i think that teaching that the kids because the school or anything else it doesn't teach the kids that but i i think uh if you want your kids to live in the world i think teaching them the finances and the money is a big thing but i i think the most important thing is health because uh once you don't have health every like it becomes the the main problem for anybody like that's the main focus you cannot enjoy your life you cannot do many things that you could have done so i think uh taking care of eating healthy exercising taking care for yourself or your mental health and all that stuff uh i think it's the in my opinion is the most important advice