What did greatness mean to you as a child? 

As a child greatness was just accomplishing any goal I set for myself. Whether it was for the day, or the month, or even the year. Achieving those things for myself just meant I was getting the job done. Putting things that were important to me forward. Accomplishing any life goals as a kid is basically what that meant to me.

How has that changed for you as an adult? 

Not really. Even as an adult I still have stuff I want to achieve. I’m never content where I am in life. I think as you get older there’s more goals you want to achieve. We got different responsibilities now. Our minds in a different place and we grow as people. I still set goals for myself every day and I still wanna be able to achieve them by the end of the year.   

Why do you think you struggle with compliments?

I’m my biggest critic, man. Anything I put out I always want it to feel powerful or great. So I’m always breaking down something that’s out. I’m always gonna see the imperfection in what I do. So when somebody gives me a compliment I say “I appreciate it so much, thank you” but I know in my mind I know I could have did this better. So it’s me upping it in my mind that you know you could do a lot better. 

What are ways that you access inspiration?

Being around other creative individuals. That gets me going. To see it happening around me. To be a part of their process. There’s a lot of young people that are now up and coming they're just wizards at stuff that they do. I was watching Euphoria the other night and I think that show is just shot extremely well. The guys behind it are masters at it. So I already gotta step up for today’s gen. That’s definitely one of the ways I access inspiration.

What is your process and how did you know you had a process?

Prior to me picking up the camera, before this I was DJing. Then I slowly got into photography. I got into this rhythm of figuring out this style of shooting. One thing I used to do back in the day was I never told anybody that the work was mine. I feel like if you don’t tell people they’ll give you a real answer. I didn’t go to school for this either so once I started figuring out my blueprint is when I started to get to that process.

What do you see as possible for yourself in the future?

One of my biggest goals right now is to get my own studio, where I can make my own rules and pretty much live there to make my own space. I’d most likely just live there and have the 24/7 creative things practicing everyday, master the craft, come up with new ideas, trial and error. I wanna see myself in that lane where I can just sit back and let the work speak for itself. #GreatnessisaProcess

 Interviewed by Dashaun Simmons. View Evan Pierce's work here