Dustin Cohen

Dustin Cohen

After featuring the first episode from Dustin Cohen‘s “Made in Brooklyn” series on luthier Sam Zygmuntowicz, I decided to dig deeper. A West Coast transplant who’s called Brooklyn his home for the last seven years, Dustin got into the biz after a college internship at Rolling Stone gave him the bug. Like many photographers and filmmakers, his work is created out of his curiosity for people and a love of storytelling. Wonder how he got where he is today? Hear it from the man himself.

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How To Make It: I know you’re based in Brooklyn, but you grew up in the Bay Area. How did you land in NYC?
Dustin Cohen: I was born in L.A., grew up in San Jose and then went to college at UC Santa Barbara. I interned at Rolling Stone while I was in school and spent a summer here in New York. One year later I picked up and moved to NYC to work in the photo department at Rolling Stone.

How To Make It: As a photographer and a filmmaker, what is your objective when you pick up a camera?
Dustin: The goals are always different, depending on what the assignment is, but I always try to tell the best story I can.

How To Make It: What is the first photograph you can remember taking?
Dustin: I remember playing around with Polaroid cameras as a kid, but didn’t pick up a real camera until high school when I took a photo class. My mom gave me her old Pentax Super Program 35mm SLR.

How To Make It: You’ve shot for everyone from Kodak to XXL. What was the moment when you knew that you’d made it?
Dustin: (laughs) Wow, I wish I could say that always felt like the case. Something I’ve learned over the years is that there is nothing easy about this business. It’s a constant grind, you always have to be hustling to make things happen. I’ve had some great opportunities come my way and I’ve done everything in my power to make the most of them. It’s fun to watch things start to fall into place. I moved into a great office/shooting space at the beginning of the year and that’s been pretty amazing.

How To Make It: Did you have any mentors along the way? If so, what advice did they give you?
Dustin: I worked as a freelance assistant and lighting director for a number of years with a lot of amazing shooters. And then I spent three years traveling and working with Peter Yang and definitely took a ton away from that. Deb Dragon, the Photo Director at Rolling Stone, has always looked out for me too.

How To Make It: What advice would you give an aspiring photographer or filmmaker?
Dustin: Shoot what you love and shoot a lot. Find subjects that are interesting and inspiring and go out of your way to make it happen. Get out there and hustle and make things happen, because if you just sit and wait, you have no one to blame but yourself. You have to constantly create new content – everything else will fall into place over time.

How To Make It: As an artist, what’s something you wish you had known before you started?
Dustin: Being a freelance artist is a really tough gig; there’s so much uncertainty. It definitely gets easier over time, but makes planning anything incredibly hard. I’ve made some mistakes along the way, but I’m incredibly happy with where I’m at right now and where my energy is going.

How To Make It: How important was college to your career?
Dustin: While I didn’t take away too much technical skill from school, I learned how to think – which at that age is way more important. I was also a writing minor and took so many different classes. All different mediums of art and art history, religious studies, business, global studies, it didn’t matter to me; if it was interesting, I wanted to take it.

How To Make It: Which do you prefer: documentary photography and filmmaking or a produced shoot?
Dustin: I was originally drawn to documentary photography, wanting to be a photojournalist. And after I moved to NYC I was really drawn to portraiture and magazine work. That said, the most important thing to me is being able to tell a story, so whether I get to do that via a highly produced studio shoot or a documentary setting, I’m a pretty happy guy.

How To Make It: You’ve shot guys like J. Cole, Rick Ross and Chris “Birdman” Andersen. Any funny stories from the set?
Dustin: The first story that comes to mind was when I went down to Miami to photograph Rick Ross for the cover of RESPECT magazine. I landed and went to scout locations, and on my way I found out Rick was in L.A. – even though we were supposed to shoot in less than 24 hours. And no one knew exactly when he would be back. Lucky for me, he jumped on a flight first thing in the morning and made it back for the shoot. He literally partied in L.A. and then flew straight back. Definitely made for an interesting 24 hours for me.

How To Make It: Tell me about your “Made in Brooklyn” series. Where did this idea come from?
Dustin: The project is about makers, craftspeople and creators who are based in the borough; almost an homage to Brooklyn. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for seven years and it’s amazing how many people are creating, innovating or producing things here. Right now I feel like there is a big draw to goods that are being made by hand, locally, where you can purchase the product straight from the person who actually made it. That said, the project is still young and I’m exciting to see how it all develops.

How To Make It: What can we expect in future episodes?
Dustin: There are several new episodes coming up. Episode 2 and 3 are ready to go, and most likely we’ll launch one next week and then another the following week. Without giving too much away, we have some really fun, interesting, sometimes quirky portraits lined up, ranging from picklemakers to a metalsmith/jeweler, to a watchmaker, to an amazing florist couple.