Today we’d like to introduce you to Allan Spiers.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I started photography when I lived in South Florida. I was working at a local gay magazine publisher doing nightclub ads. I found I was spending a lot of money on stock photography so I decided I would try to get my own. I did my first shoot and got an amazing response from the photos so I decided to stick with it. I shot a lot of local men who were into fitness and in great shape but I didn’t consider myself specifically a fitness photographer.
Throughout the years I would do covers for a few local magazines and ads in Florida, and in Chicago, and had a small gallery in 2009. It wasn’t until I met my friend and fellow photographer, Pat Lee, that I found my calling in fitness photography. I got hired by a company called USA Muscle to do video in the pump room backstage at fitness competitions and started building my name in the industry. While I wasn’t as big a name as Pat I started to get recognized, and in 2010 my social media exploded while I was on a trip to California.
Overnight I got hundreds of thousands of new followers all over the world. It scared me because I thought my account was hacked, but I slowly realized that I was reaching a new audience who appreciated bodybuilding and fitness modeling. Since then I have worked with top athletes from all over the world and have explored many new creative projects such as ‘Legion of Aeons’ and my most popular project, ‘The Sabbath’ which centers around the folklore of male witchcraft utilizing the nude male form.
It has been an amazing journey and I have a lot planned for the future!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Starting out as an artistic nude male photographer almost ruined my chances in the fitness industry. When I first arrived, the industry standards were a lot more conservative than they are now. I had to in a way hide my own work and start from scratch. Some competitors wouldn’t shoot with me because of my past, and to this day I have guys refuse to shoot because they do not want to be associated with the gay community.
There is a lot of homophobia in the fitness industry, and being such a vocal and outspoken person, that often isolates me from some models because I will confront their intolerance very publicly unlike a lot of photographers who would sacrifice their self-respect to get a chance to work with these guys. This is probably the biggest struggle I face now.
Another struggle is self-publishing. I hope to release a large coffee table book for ‘The Sabbath’, however finding a cost-effective publisher to execute the vision I have for it has been challenging to say the least. With such a personal and immense project I want it to be done right. I am not willing to sacrifice quality to save a penny.
Please tell us about Allan Spiers Photography.
Allan Spiers Photography is one of a few businesses I own. With my husband, we own The Vodou Store which sells various religious and occult goods all over the world, and I own Digital Fuel Studios, a graphic design company.
Each of these companies has their own demographics and product, but every so often the three merge to create something unique. Take my project ‘The Sabbath’. I was tired of trying to hide my religious practices from my clients and models so I decided to showcase it. Fusing my knowledge with the occult, my graphic design, and my male photography ‘The Sabbath’ was born.
To date, this is what I am most proud of, and I feel as though this type of work is what sets me apart. The response has been overwhelming, everything from interest from models I would never expect to be interested in it, to interviews with magazines.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to do anything differently it would be to have never sacrificed or hid who I was for the sake of someone else’s delicate sensibilities. Other than that I feel as though my journey is happening exactly as it was meant to happen.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.allanspiers.com
- Email: allan@allanspiers.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/allanspiersphoto
- Facebook: facebook.com/allanspiersphotography
- Twitter: twitter.com/allan_spiers
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