Dan Martensen, Photographer

How did you get you started?
When I left RISD, my friends and I thought we were going to come back to New York and the whole city would be sitting around waiting for us to show them how great we were. Flash forward six months—a gallery show in Chelsea, a piece in Art Basel—and I was broke. Like broke broke. So I had to get a job, and I started assisting and working part time at Milk Studios as an intern.

Over the next four years, I spent my time hustling my ass off. I was always looking for assisting work, and eventually I linked up with a few photographers that had me working on all their jobs—some of them big names, some not. As time went on I became more confident in my knowledge not just of lighting and photography, but of on-set politics and production; in general, I was just kind of growing up. When it was time for me to leave I got really lucky. Alexander Wang was just 24 years old and in his second season as a designer. He had seen some of my photos on a blog or something, and called me to discuss a look book. When I realized that one day of working on a look book was equal to 15 days of assisting, I took the opportunity to pursue more jobs like it, and I was able to turn more and more assisting work down until I was “on my own”. The rest is history I guess…

Name one quality that contributed to your success.
I’ve always been opportunistic. I say that with a straight face because New York is the only place in the world where the word “opportunistic” doesn’t have such a negative connotation. When you’re young and trying to get noticed, you have to hustle. Put your best foot forward and always be ready for whatever opportunities may come. If you don’t, you’re wasting your time overpaying your landlord, and you might as well move to southern California and get a nice tan.

New York is a town full of hungry people, that are brilliantly talented, unique, and determined, who came here with voices that want to be heard, and you have to believe that they’re all working much harder than you are. My point is if I wasn’t hard working and ready for the opportunities I’ve been given, I’d have missed them, and I’d probably be waiting tables somewhere in order to pay my film processing bills. Regardless of where you are in the world, you can’t expect things to come to you, but when they do, you better pay attention and grab them because they don’t come often.

I’m blessed with amazing people surrounding me in every direction. I’ve got a support team that I couldn’t have put together better if I tried. I wouldn’t have made it six months in this town, or any other town, if I didn’t have my friends and my family’s support. That’s the biggest contribution to my “success.”

What’s the best piece of advice you can give to a young photographer trying to make it in the industry?
I don’t think there’s any way to plan your career out, especially at the start. You need to be proactive about shooting, testing for free, going out and documenting. It’s really simple—just keep shooting. I think the mistake that most photographers make when starting out is thinking that they need to hold out for dream jobs, turning magazines down because they want to be in “better” ones, and making excuses why they’d rather not shoot at all than shoot for something that isn’t part of their dream. This just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s important to keep shooting, regardless of what it’s for. No matter what, you need to keep working.

I shot for a ton of magazines that I’d rather not mention, work that I don’t show a soul or even want to burn! But it was because I kept working—regardless of the “cool factor” of the client—that I was able to evolve and hone my craft. After a while I guess I started to stand out, and people started to notice. What everyone—from magazines to commercial clients to agencies—is looking for is progression. Anyone can put a photo shoot together. But if your images and message improve over time, that’s what really turns heads. So it doesn’t matter who you shoot for, make the mistakes while you’re still new and nobody’s watching.