The Source: Rule Breakers, Lawmakers and Influencers | Ep 24 — Building a Photography Business & Mastering Visual Storytelling
There’s a moment in Paul McDermott’s story that captures everything he’s built his career on. He and a small group hiked seven and a half miles round-trip through triple-digit heat to reach The Wave — a rock formation on the Arizona-Utah border so protected that only a handful of permits are issued per day, some travelers waiting years for the chance. McDermott didn’t leave the timing to chance either. He deliberately planned the trip for the height of summer, betting on clear skies over the safer, cooler seasons that come with a higher risk of rain ruining the shot entirely.
“Pain is beauty,” he says of the experience. And in a way, that phrase sums up the entire philosophy behind his business, Paul Is Everywhere Photography.
On a recent episode of The Source: Rulebreakers, Lawmakers & Influencers, host Will Corrente talked with McDermott about the two intertwined sides of his work: capturing his own fine art images around the world, and teaching others — from total beginners to aspiring professionals — how to do the same.
From Studio Structure to Independent Entrepreneur
McDermott didn’t start out chasing solo success. After college, he worked inside established studios, where he had steady pay, mentorship, and — critically — exposure to the sales and marketing systems that make a photography business actually function. That structure, he says, is the piece most new photographers skip when they go independent straight out of school, and it’s often why the business side collapses even when the artistic talent is real.
Eventually, he built his own model, organized in layers:
- Walkabout Series — low-commitment, hands-on skills sessions (a recent one focused on food photography at a restaurant in Palm Beach County)
- The SEE Workshop Series — a structured, level-by-level curriculum starting at the Jupiter Lighthouse, designed to rebuild photography education for a generation that didn’t grow up on manual film cameras
- Private mentorship and coaching — for photographers with specific goals, including some who have gone on to build their own photography careers
- Curated luxury travel experiences — small-group trips built entirely around photography, to places like Croatia, Venice, and The Wave
Teaching Photography for the AI Camera Era
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One of the more interesting threads in the conversation was McDermott’s take on how photography education needs to evolve. He compares it to the shift from early computers, where users had to understand code just to operate the machine, to modern laptops that just work. Cameras have followed the same trajectory — shutter speed and film speed used to require deep technical knowledge; now AI-assisted systems handle much of that automatically.
Rather than starting students with manual controls, McDermott starts with intuition: composition, storytelling, and the same principles of visual perspective he explores on his companion segment, Perspective with Paul, which examines how images can be used to shape or manipulate a narrative. The difference, he says, is intention — using those same visual techniques to authentically translate someone’s real experience, rather than distort it.
He also built a practical tool for planning shoots: a free calculator at paulseverywhere.com/plan that shows blue hour, golden hour, sunrise, sunset, and lunar timing for any location — the same kind of research that helped him and Corrente capture two dramatically different shots of the same Venice bridge, one in flat morning fog, one glowing at dusk.
The Business of Selling a Feeling
McDermott’s approach to selling fine art is less about the print and more about the full sensory experience around it. He walked through how substrate choice — metal, acrylic, canvas, or wood — changes the way a photograph reads, how lighting can transform a piece from decoration into what he compares to a museum experience, and how he works directly with clients and interior designers to render pieces into a space before a customer commits to a large-scale commission.
His pricing philosophy is equally direct: “I know my worth.” Having watched clients spend tens of thousands of dollars on single studio sessions earlier in his career, he’s built a business where, as he puts it, the right clients find him — and the ones looking for something else find someone else.
Where to Find Him
Whether someone wants to sharpen their own skills, commission custom fine art for their home, or explore mentorship toward a photography career, McDermott can be reached directly at hello@paulseverywhere.com, or through his portfolio at paulseverywhere.com.
This article is originally published on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/source-rule-breakers-lawmakers-influencers-ep-24-building-srgde and aired as Episode 24 on August 5, 2026 of The Source: Rule Breakers, Lawmakers, and Influencers. New episodes drop weekly.
