Meet Mike Glatzer | Photographer & Biomedical Engineer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mike Glatzer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mike, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I grew up in a family of business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs, so it was never a foreign thing. There were always conversations about the businesses they ran, what was going well, what wasn’t, lessons learned, etc, and I heard it all growing up. Being exposed to those conversations and feeling like it was “normal” helped me feel like it was something I could do.

It took a long time to realize my hobby was a viable business venture. Sure, I was getting paid a little in the early days, but I always thought photography was a hobby that occasionally helped pay for the gear itself. But, when I managed to pay off over $ 30,000 of my student loans in a single year? That was the lightbulb moment.

It also helped that I was frustrated working for someone else and struggling to find meaning in my day job while also paying bills.

So I got an LLC and went “legit.”

Starting my own business checked multiple boxes: I get to set my own schedule and work days, if there’s an issue or something goes wrong, I can take full accountability for it, and do what’s right by my client to solve it, and I get to choose what projects to work on. People don’t start their own businesses because they want to do something they hate – it’s because they want to make money doing something they love. That’s why I can work crazy hours and be happy every second of it.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
It took me a long time to truly embrace what is my current work. I grew up performing in musical theater – singing, dancing, acting, and even doing tech and building sets. From that medium, I fell in love with stories and how lighting and composition can shape the telling of those stories. Theater especially uses both nuanced and dramatic lighting to craft and shape a scene, pulling audience members out of the black box for a few hours. As such, theater is a major source of inspiration for my approach to photographing people. I can do a classic sit-and-grin photo, but people have depth and often some element of self they are hiding or masking — and that’s what I try to bring out.

It’s what makes my work stand out. I use color, composition, sets, and props to help people show that they’re secretly a sports fan, or always wanted to be a pilot, or believe they could have been a Viking in a past life. Other images explore abstract ideas, such as using multiple colored shadows to represent different aspects of their personality. Sometimes, it’s just about showcasing a big personality for a freelancer or small business owner to help them attract the right audience.

I started with sports and wildlife photography before moving into portraits, then weddings, and then back to portraits. I loved exploring each niche because I learned so much that I still apply to my work today. Weddings taught me high-stakes client management and capturing fleeting moments. Sports and wildlife showed me how to plan ahead for the shot I envision with subjects I can’t direct. Portraits helped me learn how to connect with people to bring out their authentic selves.

Creating creative and conceptual portraits is a fun adventure because there’s no cookie-cutter approach. I can’t just reuse the same setup because each shoot presents a new challenge. That’s part of why I love this niche; I enjoy solving each new lighting puzzle that complements an incredible human being whose story I’m learning, and trying to tell. To me, the process is everything, and I want my clients to feel that too during our shoots.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I feel like you could spend an entire day on the Eastside Beltine Trail and still need more time just to sample all the food. It’s vibrant, active, and great for people watching. Ponce City & Krog Street Markets are great food spots as well. There’s always something going on at Piedmont Park, and if not, you can still enjoy the park itself and the Botanical Gardens’ green views with the skyline backdrop.

They may be tourist spots, but I still love the Aquarium, the Zoo, World of Coke, and Oakland Cemetery for my out of town friends to visit.

I’ll always recommend catching a show at the Fox Theatre, or checking out the High and Fernbank Museums.

If you’re a sports fan, you’ve got so many options. Atlanta United, the Falcons, Georgia Tech athletics (I’m an alum, so a little biased), the Braves, the Hawks, and if you want to see pro box lacrosse, AKA hockey with a thrown ball, check out the Georgia Swarm!

Some of my favorite food spots include Fudo, Whiskey Bird, Eataliano, Kitty Dare, Poor Calvin, Cooks and Soldiers, the Optimist, and Lee’s Bakery. Atlanta is a wonderful food town – there are so many hidden gems all over! We’re spoiled.

There’s something for everyone in Atlanta.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My family. My parents and relatives have always been incredibly supportive, giving me the confidence to pursue all kinds of crazy things.

My uncle is also a professional photographer, and he has been a mentor for both technical skills and business conversations, which have been invaluable over the years. But he’s also responsible for giving me the initial motivation. If he hadn’t pushed me in the sand to capture a shot of an osprey flying by with a fish in its talons, because I would have missed the picture, I never would have said, “Damnit, I’m gonna nail that shot!”

Website: https://mikeglatzerphotos.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeglatzer/