The Next Wave in pictures: How one emerging photographer represented these new stars

To capture some of the most-promising people in business for LinkedIn's Next Wave list, we turned to someone who is himself a new star: Ryan Lowry.

PDN picked the 25-year-old as one of its emerging photographers to watch for 2015. His work — shooting everyone from rappers to CEOs — is so versatile that he's frequently appearing everywhere from Bloomberg Businessweek to Rolling Stone, The FADER, Fast Company and Esquire. 

For LinkedIn, he had a new challenge: visually represent a group of professionals 35 and under, scattered across the U.S. and all doing vastly different jobs. He traveled to eight cities in two weeks to shoot the honorees, sometimes getting as little as 30 minutes from start to finish to work.

I caught up with him on his way to a shoot in Cleveland to ask him how he approached this project — and who would make his own Next Wave list. Highlights from the conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity:

You're used to shooting musicians and celebrities. How do you get people comfortable who aren't as used to being photographed? You just find a way to connect with them, some common ground. You just have to find a door and open it; kind of just vibe it out. 

But you only have one or two photos to represent someone. How do you do that? It's kind of just vibing off what you're given. You have to learn as much about them before, during and after the process as you can and relate them to whatever environment they're in to tell the story.

 So talk about how you got to this point. I started taking photos when I was 12. I got into photography looking at skateboarding magazines, developed an interest in it, and then my parents bought me a really basic 35-millimeter camera for Christmas, and signed me up for darkroom classes at the local art center. From there, I built a darkroom in my parent's basement with equipment that my high school mentor gave to me and continued taking classes. 

I grew up going to punk and hardcore shows; I started taking my camera to those places and making photos of the personalities. I went to art school. Then, when I was out of school, I was freaking out about what I was going to do, started assisting for a friend and started shooting for magazines. That's expanded into bigger things.

So what was your big break? Probably the PDN 30 thing that I got. 

Why was that a big deal? It made my parents proud, which was the most important part. Even though you're getting assignments from magazines, this is the actual validation from the photo world that someone believes in you in some way and trusts that you're doing an important thing. The validation feels nice.

How did you start breaking into magazines? I'm kind of relentless with calling and emailing people. Eventually they'll pay attention. 

Who did you find yourself being particularly relentless with? Most of my clients are like that. [Laughs.]

So what's your pitch: You find a photo editor and start sharing examples of your work? The first time I went to New York for meetings, I got maybe three meetings — not that many. I'd sit in parks in the city and try to trick photo editors into meeting me.

You call the front desk, you ask to talk to the photo desk, since it seems important — like you have something to do. Sometimes they'll connect you to the photo editor without asking any questions.  

Then I'd give them the spiel: 'Hey, I'm a photographer from Chicago...' Sometimes they'd be like: 'Who is this?' But then other times, they'd be like: 'Oh, what is your website?' It's just a good opportunity to force someone into looking at your stuff and having to have a reaction to it. It's just like hustling; you have to be relentless all the time. There are a million other people trying to do the same thing, who are just as good or better or different. 

We're at a time when everyone has a great camera in their pockets. So what does it take to make it as a photographer today? It's really about having a vision: being able to translate your unique view on things into images is important. Anything like that, paired with hustling. 

Right, so equipment isn't the differentiator for a photographer. No, I don't think equipment matters at all. I'm a nerd and like equipment, but it really doesn't make that big of a difference. It's really more of a brain thing.

So let's go back to this idea of hustling. You told me when you got your first big magazine assignment at Bloomberg Businessweek, you were surprised. I was confused by it, for sure. The guy I was working for a while (Daniel Shea) was shooting for Businessweek all the time. I was like: Why are they calling me instead of him? 

And what's it like being a photographer based in Chicago and not on the coasts? It's kind of nice because there aren't as many people shooting in the Midwest, working in similar industries as I do. I guess I have opportunities to shoot a broader range of stuff; it's not as specialized. But then I'm also near one of the most-connected airports, and it's cheap to live here, so I was able to take risks early on.

This Next Wave list is forward-looking. So where's your career headed? I'd like to shoot a few bigger projects a year, and have more time to work on what I'd like to work on. That's the ideal for me. 

Say you're putting together a Next Wave for photographers. Who's on your list? I really like Molly Matalon. She's a millennial who makes work about what's it like to be a female millennial. She's very smart and makes very smart, good portraits. 

Final thoughts: What do you take away from the list members? It was inspiring to meet so many people who are going for whatever they want to do. It made the world seem more limitless, I guess, which is good.

All photos by Ryan Lowry.