Interview (March 2024) in the Million Dollar Mastermind series where host Larry Weidel interviews award-winning photographer Thorsten Overgaard about becoming unique and elite in a competitive field. Overgaard describes discovering and leaning into his personal photographic style (Leica rangefinder, 50mm lens, local visual storytelling), making deliberate choices that clients sought out, and using simple, authentic focus to build a distinctive, monetizable practice.
Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidell and let's get started. One of the things about making big income, being financially independent, having the life you want is to become elite in your field. Finding a niche where you can develop a special skill, a special uniqueness that has value to other people. And so today we're going to talk about the secret of separating yourself and becoming elite. With photographer and award winning photographer, marketing genius in the photography and other areas. We're going to be talking to a man who knows how to get an idea, find something he loves and do great things with it by putting together products that inspire and energize other people. So let's go talk to Thorsten Overgaard. That was one of the questions I was going to ask you. Super competitive industry, how did you make yourself unique? How did you separate yourself as an artist and carve out and create your own business? And that's what you're talking about there. You just, everything you did, you tried to put your own twist on it. And what were some of those or what, what do you remember are some of the things that you did that worked for you?
Yeah, I mean you could say like, how do you become competitive? And if, I mean it's kind of like the same in photography that exists in life. And it is like that we are born unique, each person is unique and some of us even wake up and go to school this life and know that we have a mission or we are special. So that uniqueness, the more you tap into being yourself and being unique and believe in yourself, the more successful you're going to be. You could say like 95 or percent or more of people, they try to be like somebody else, you know. So when you are unique, that's what you should tap into. And when I say it's the same in life as in photography with me it met because when I started out in photography, I didn't, I didn't need to be a photographer to make money. I wanted to take photos, to capture the soul of people and have, and do storytelling and have photographs, portraits of people that told a story. So I was free not to ask anybody. I would just say, I'm going to use this equipment. It happened to be Leica lenses because that was the ones that could give the best and most clear photograph and the style I wanted. So I would use the equipment and the lenses the way that I wanted to use it and create the force that I wanted to see. And the interesting thing was that I did that for a while, and then that led into editors asking, can you photograph this? Can you do this? And they loved my photography. And I didn't really think that there was anything special about it, because I just did what was easy for me and what I thought was right. And that's usually what characterizes talent, is that when something is really easy and it feels almost like cheating, that is very much you. And it also means it's very easy. But it also is very unique for other people to look at it, you know, but you don't see how unique it is because that's the way you do it, you know, you think it should be different. So when you're doing the right thing, it's usually easy. It's like a walk in the park. And I had one interesting example of that, because I had. As I went on photographing, I thought, okay, this is interesting, so how do I do this? So I said, okay, I'm going to hook up with the world's biggest photo agencies. I hooked up with Gettys and Associated Press and signed up with those guys and see what do they want and how do they pay and how can I make money on having my pictures on Den works. And one day I had Adidas, the brand Adidas. They asked Gayety, can we hire Tos Norga to photograph the fastener for three days? Because we have all kinds of events we want to forecast. And Getty asked me and I said, no, I can't, like for the day raise, your offer was like €250 a day or something like that. I cannot do it. You know, I don't want to work for that little money and get him and says, no problem. Like we have, we have thousands of other foregrounds, we'll just find another one. But then they got back some days later because Adidas, they wanted me. They didn't want anybody of the other thousand photographs, they wanted me. And they said they understand. Like, it's. When I said, here, how much did they need to pay me to get me to do it? And I gave them the price and it was much higher, but they were like fine with it. And the reason they gave me was like, that they had seen an article on my website where I photographed with the Leica 89. This is rangefinder camera and a 50 millimeter lens from 1956. And that was the type of photograph they wanted. So that told me instantly, no, this is exactly. I don't have to bring 10 different cameras and 10 different lenses. I'm just going to bring One camera and one lens, because I understand what it is that they want. They want what I like to do. So I could just walk around there in the fast movie for three weeks or three days and just photograph my style. And it was very easy. Like I didn't have to try very hard, did whatever I thought was right because that's what they wanted. So that was an interesting learning experience into it. And then as I moved on, I was very, like, you could say I was stubborn because I didn't want to, for example, for newspapers, I didn't want to do news stories for newspapers, I didn't want to do news and celebrity for get image. So I would find I would stumble into people. And one of the people I stumbled into was an editor of the biggest newspaper in Denmark. And he really liked local stores and he liked visual stories. And what I wanted to do was I wanted to do stories from the local city. I wanted to just take a camera, walk down the street. And if something interesting happened, that somebody had a funny bicycle or some kids were stealing apples in a garden or something, that would be the story. So I made a deal with him that I would deliver a picture story every day with a little subtitle of what was going on in the city. And he loved it because he was tired of stories from political briefings and what happens in India and the us he was much more interested what's happening in my city, in my life, what can I go and experience, you know. And then later on we added, they did like a monthly magazine. So we would do something so unusual as we would do like 20 page articles about a building. So I'd go visit the cathedral in my city or the theater in my city, and I would photograph the whole place and the ins and outs of it. And then we would do a 20 page article with pictures and text about this building. Because he loved the city, he loved the architecture. And I had the saying. So you can say in that way, I got to do exactly what I wanted to do, get paid for it and get published. And nobody else was doing that. And nobody else can really copy it because we're all born unique. You could say that somehow I keep thinking about Steve Jobs because he was very special. He had a very distinct idea. How should computers be, how should they look, how should they operate, what should they do and how should they service themselves? Losers. And you could say it's. It's just that that's how it should be. But still nobody else did it and nobody else does it and. And nobody else does it today, you know, so that was a very unique vision on it. But, but it's almost like you feel like he, he was born and he just had this idea, okay, this is what needs to happen. And then that's what he went about doing, you know, and that was a great business for him also. And it was great for everybody else involved in that business and everybody, also the customers, you know. So that's. You said that's basically my recipe for anything is like just follow, follow what you feel is right. What you see could be fun to do. And that sounds incredibly simple. And it is very simple. Should be simple. I don't think anything should be complex. You know, the simpler is, the better it is, most likely.
Yeah, that's very well put. Thanks so much, Thorsten for sharing that.
Yeah, thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other Million Dollar Mastermind episodes and check out my Widel Academy YouTube channel and video. Visit us on wdlonwinning.com I'm the million Dooll Mastermind. And until next time, go, go, go.
