Joshua Aurelius Galloway, also known as The Creative Gent, is a man of action. Don’t believe us? Check this out.

After graduating from UNC Charlotte, Josh, The Creative Gent, stuck around the Queen City and emersed himself in the Queen City creative scene in almost every conceivable way — lifestyle commercial photography (he recently shot “Lights” at USNWC for us), freelance brand identity design and creative consultancy. If that’s not enough for you, he also makes wooden bow ties with his brother.

But, undeniable talent and drive are not the only ingredients for success in Charlotte. Carving his niche here hasn’t been easy for The Creative Gent. He has to hustle. He’s had his moments of wondering if Charlotte is where he needs to be.

Knowing Joshua to be honest and direct about his experience here, we wanted to know more about that with the candor we’ve come to expect from him.

Here are the three biggest challenges The Creative Gents sees at work in his creative life on Friday, January 31, 2020.

MORE COMMERCIAL SPACE

I would say more full-time creative business owners need the opportunity to have access to more commercial space without such traditional barriers being in the way. I am not thinking about owning a home right now. I just want me and my fellow creative business owners to be able to open more businesses, so the city will not look like clones when they say “Shop local.”

AUTHENTIC JOURNALISM FROM PUBLICATIONS

Less sarcastic journalism from people who don’t walk a mile in your shoes or know what it’s like to have to use your creative abilities to create a living income for yourself. I see articles written at times from many publications in this city and they are either producing wrong information, not giving photography credit or writing from such a biased opinion full of sarcasm and no empathy. But, they love engagement, so they don’t delete anything. Also, quit highlighting the same people over and over. You would be surprised how many different creative individuals are out here if you got out here and did research.

PS: Quit thinking you can do it all with your iPhone because you can’t. You call it content. We as photographers know they are photographs. You don’t walk into the Mint Museum and say, “Man look at this great content on the wall!” So, stop trying to delete the word “photography” from existence.

LOOKING INTO AT WHAT OTHER CITIES ARE DOING ISN’T BAD

As a creative entrepreneur that lives in this city and deals with all the walls it puts up for you to be successful anytime, I have gone to other places to create or seek out an opportunity. I don’t get the push back or misdirection that Charlotte continues to put up. There are a lot of holes that need to be filled in this place and it’s going to take many different types of mindsets and perspectives to make that happen. So, until that happens, we gonna’ keep looking like a brewery, construction cone and high condos.

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