I wasn't meant to be a professional photographer.
How a college dropout became a photographer for some of the worlds top brands and celebrities. This is my story.
Hi, my name is Corey Tenold, and I’m an accidental professional photographer.
I say that because photography isn’t what I was really meant to do. Photography was nothing for me, until it was just a hobby mostly because I liked fiddling with electronics.
I got my first camera back in, shoot, let’s say 2005. I think it may have been a Canon PowerShot. To be honest, I think I still have it in a box somewhere. I don’t even remember what I took photos of back then. I would venture to say macro would have interested me the most. Maybe a blade of grass? Maybe photos of other electronics?
Anyway, at that time I was a 19 year old college dropout who moved halfway across the country for a girl. My mom cried as I drove off that day. I had to print MapQuest directions for that 1,500 mile road trip (Google Maps wasn’t a thing yet). It also wasn’t common for someone my age to have a cell phone at the time. As scary as this sounds now, somehow this trip was a no brainer. I was ready to leave the house, ready for something new, ready for change.
I was actually going to school for Civil Engineering at a major university when I dropped out. Despite how strong love can be at that age, something else was pulling me away from home. I was unconsciously listening to the universe. This was a very clear fork in the road as I look back into my past, and I eagerly took the fork.
Once I landed in my new world, I ended up attending a technical college and learning to code. I soon landed a job at a local ad agency building websites for Fortune 500 companies such as Dairy Queen, Target, and American Express. The tech sector was where I was really meant to be.
While working at this ad agency, I got into the local fashion scene. Fashion, you say? How so? Honestly I grew up with 3 older sisters, and they taught me how to be stylish. I’ve always had an interest in and an eye for fashion. In 2009 I started a men’s fashion blog in my spare time that gained local attention – it even got into the local newspaper. That got me invited to local fashion shows. A blog needs photos, so I would bring my camera with me to these events. This was my first introduction into photography in any sort of “job” aspect, even though this blog was 100% a hobby and I wasn’t making any money on it - but this is how it all started.
My local recognition as a fashion guru of sorts made it’s way to the company I worked for. This led to the most bizarre lateral promotion anyone has ever heard of: I went from a web developer at the ad agency I was working for to an art director overnight. That’s an interesting one on the résumé. The reasoning behind this move by my boss was that we were taking on fashion clients, namely, Forever21 and Guess Jeans, and I had the most fashion experience in the company.
So, back to the local fashion scene. I became friends with someone high up at Aveda, and Aveda happens to be the makeup sponsor of many New York Fashion Week shows. Since at this point I was falling bass-ackwards info fashion, I figured why not try to go to the definitive source, New York City. I asked my friend if I could attend some shows they were sponsoring, and just kinda take photos (for free) and see what the hoopla was about. This was September of 2013 – my first real backstage access at New York Fashion Week.
NYFW is one big networking event. Once I was backstage, I met so many people, including photo editors, who would help push me in a direction that I unknowingly was headed. During that first trip to NYFW, I met a photo editor at Flaunt Magazine who needed coverage of some shows – right then while I was there on this exploratory trip! This was all happening so fast. Flaunt is a major fashion publication out of Los Angeles. I honestly cannot remember how I bumped into this editor and how they instantly trusted my work (I didn’t even have a photography portfolio at this time). I must have showed them my fashion blog, because that was the only body of work I had.
I was now shooting backstage at NYFW for Flaunt, and one of my most famous photos from early on was shot for them at Diane Von Furstenberg, seen here in September of 2015:
This photo wasn’t supposed to happen for me. What most people don’t realize is that at fashion shows, backstage access doesn’t mean “all access”. There are multiple types of access at a fashion show. There’s what’s called Front of House (FOH) - meaning you don’t go backstage at all. Typically you are on the podium crammed in with all of the press photographers on the side of the wall where the actual show is happening and the models are walking down the runway. Then there’s Back of House (BOH) - which includes everything behind the scenes. But it gets more complicated than that. Within BOH there are typically two or three types of access. There’s beauty access – where you only have access to the room where hair and makeup is happening. Then there is what’s called “first looks” – which is access to a (typically) designated area that the models go after they are fully dressed for backstage press photographers to take photos of them. A lot of times it’s just these two types of access, but occasionally there is a third access called “lineup”. First Looks and Lineup sometimes blur into the same thing. The reason they can be different is that, as you can probably imagine, a fashion show is stressful. Lineup happens in the moments before a show starts when everything is boiling down to one moment, when the first girl walks out from backstage and onto the runway. The designer, as well as others who are heavily involved in that moment such as the lead stylist, lead hair stylist, and lead makeup artist, along with casting and production, need this area to be as free from unneeded people as possible in order to facilitate a smooth show. With that being said, typically access to the lineup is very restricted to maybe only one press photographer and then the “house” team. The “house” team is any photographer or videographer who is working for the actual brand - the “house”. As you can imagine that one press photographer is typically going to be for a big outlet - such as Vogue or the New York Times.
Anyway, back to that photo. I was shooting for Flaunt Magazine. Yes, they are a well known fashion magazine, but I didn’t have first looks nor lineup access. I was meant to leave after my beauty access - which I hate. I’m here at a fashion show to shoot fashion, not models in their street clothes with a half baked beauty look. So, I stuck (snuck?) around. I’m not afraid to admit this and I’m not the first to do this. People backstage bend their access all the time. Some go so far as making fake passes (which I never did). Everyone wants a piece of the cookie. Somehow I was able to skirt production, PR, and security to make my way from hair and makeup to lineup. I’m a firm believer of asking for forgiveness instead of permission. The fruits of my labor included the photo above which I was able to snag backstage in the final moments of the show. This photo was later was noticed by none other than Vogue Magazine.
The photo above was shot on September 12th, 2015. On September 18th, 2015, I received an email out of the blue from a photo editor at Vogue Magazine, asking me if I could shoot backstage at shows for them. At this point, there was a very real shift, and I was now a professional photographer shooting for the most famous fashion magazine in the world.
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