IG @emmett_sparling
577K Followers
Emmett has partnered with Samsung, Qantas Airlines, and more!
Tell us a little about yourself and share something cool!
My name is Emmett Sparling. I’m 21 years old from Vancouver, BC Canada. I am a traveler,
photographer and videographer. I’ve been doing this full-time for the last three years for a few companies and mainly for myself. The coolest thing I’ve done so far was taking the default photographs for the Samsung Galaxy S10.
When did you first discover your passion?
It all began as a hobby, when I started creating short films since I was a kid, filming videos in the backyard with my friends. As high school started to get more time consuming, it got tougher to film and edit. I picked up the camera, maybe in grade 9 and started taking photos here and there. Fast forward a few years, I took a gap year before university and decided to just travel, take photos and see where it’ll take me. But then, that one year turned into three or four gap years and here I am today.
When did you first experience growth in your following?
By the time I graduated high school, I had 10,000 followers. I made myself a rule in grade 12 to post every single day on Instagram. This made me do a lot more photoshoots, so I got a lot better really quickly. If your content is good on Instagram, the followers will come organically. I think those two factors in combinations played a major role in my growth. I went from 20K to 100K in one year, and then 100K to 300K last year, and this year I’ve reached 570K so far. Overall it’s been very consistent.
Do you see this more as a hobby or a career?
I think it’s still a hobby for me, more than a profession. I’d say 90% of the shoots I’ve done this year has been mainly for fun. Last year, I spent the whole year doing 20 mini jobs and I was all over the place. It was five-day trips regularly, and I felt like I was in a rut prioritizing quantity over quality. This year though, I’ve only had four jobs, Samsung being one of them. I was able to most importantly enjoy it more but also make more money which is always a plus. I was able to choose my travel destinations and choose who and what I wanted to shoot, which allowed to me much more creative and have more fun.
Walk us through your day-to-day!
Depends where I am really. I spent six months this year in Bali so I’ll kinda go over a day here. I get up around 8AM and go to the gym before breakfast. Then I eat and basically either edit all day or sit by the pool or enjoy the day haha. Since food is cheaper to buy then cook, I go out for dinner on most nights. A lot of my friends are here so we are either planning future trips together or recovering and catching up on sleep. It’s important to take breaks in-between trips to not get burnt out.
But if I’m on a shoot it’ll be different. Sunrise could be anywhere between 4:30 to 7AM, so I get up some time around there and shoot sunrise. We go back to take a nap and then basically wake up and try to find a spot for sunset. Usually it’s a bit of a drive to get to our sunset location. If you’re in the tropics sunrise is 6AM and sunset is 6PM, so there only a small window of opportunity. Usually, everything revolves around sunrise and set, so it gets exhausting doing this every day for a few weeks.
Where do you see this going in the short term versus long term?
I see Instagram and all of this travel photography mainly in the short term because I don’t think it will be around forever. So.. it’s important to me to build myself up as more of a photographer, than an influencer. I see photography more applicable as a long term career. In a few years I would love to do short film and feature films again and eventually take on directing.
Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?
Probably a 100 duck sized horses because you can just kick ‘em pretty far. I feel like you can just.. ya you’ definitely win because we’re so much bigger than ducks. No chance you can punt a horse sized duck though. That thing will mess you up pretty quick!
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