Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Zupo.
Hi Chris, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story didn’t start in a typical way, I grew up in North East Ohio and had always wanted to build robots from the time I was a kid. So I ended up going to college as a double engineering major at The University of Akron for Electronic and Mechanical Engineering, I worked for a pharmaceutical company as an engineer for a while before realizing it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be. Rather than creating and building the things I wanted to, it was just being told what needed to be done and executing on that. I had a friend who was a graphic design major at the time, and he had told me I should look into doing photography because I always liked taking pictures. At first I thought he was crazy, and I told him “you can’t make any money taking photos” but then I went and bought the cheapest digital SLR I could at the time, and began to teach myself.
I did this for a while, and ended up moving near Tampa Florida where I continued to teach myself and try new things, and continued to pursue the world of photography struggling as a new freelance working. After some time I managed to get a job with Bealls Inc. working in the production studio as a digital tech at first, and later became a jr photographer where I shot on location and in studio, and was responsible for photographing content for Under Armor, Columbia, Champion, and other brand specific campaigns. I worked there for around 5-6 years before being offered a position as a lead photographer for a company here in Knoxville TN.
I moved to Knoxville in 2017 and worked in house for a company until the beginning of 2020. It proved to be a very difficult environment to work in and I had to work in all positions as a lead photographer, producer, I balanced budgets for multi seasonal campaign shoots around the world, maintained studio budgets, managed the photo studio in house, and was in charge of all digital asset management. I wasn’t allowed to hire in any help to assist in all of these positions and it proved to be a very toxic and unfortunate environment to work in. The one benefit of this situation was I basically gained about a decade of experience in 2 years… So at the beginning of 2020 I went freelance, which proved to be the worst time in history to do so as the world shut down several months later.
With no work and no clients lined up, as everything had shut down, I took a break from photography. I got my CDL and drove a flatbed semi on a national fleet for 18mo covering 136k miles, and honestly… it was probably one of the best things that could have happened at that time. I didn’t touch a camera for 18mo and was able to take some time off from the creative world after working in such a terrible environment for so long, I fear had I gone straight into freelance like I had planned I may have carried a chip on my should or a grudge due to the outcome of the previous position I had held.
So now, here we are! I’ve been freelancing since the end of 2021 again and things have been building up. These days I tend to specialize in working with professional athletes and the aerospace industry. I have been blessed to be able to be a small part in the space industry through a company called Axiom Space that trains private astronauts from different countries for missions to the International Space Station, partnering with NASA for short duration missions focused on scientific research in micro-gravity environments. I get to work with astronauts through their entire duration of training, about 9-10 months, and photograph their official portraits, document their training efforts, and even teach a brief photo course, we document their launch and the time they spend on the International Space Station, and are some of the first people to greet them upon returning to earth. It took roughly 15yrs but I was finally able to combine my love of photography, and my love of all things engineering, into one job!
In addition to that, I have had the opportunity to work with some phenomenal professional athletes such as Coco Gauff, Matt Fitzpatrick, Romain Grosjean, and Diana Taurassi to name a few. I’ve been working more and more in the commercial photography world, as opposed to fashion, which is where I spent the first 10-12 years of my career. It’s been an amazing journey and I can’t wait to see what comes next as work evolves and I continue to branch into other aspects of photography. Commercial Photography, Fashion, Beauty, Lifestyle, Documentary, and portraiture are all incredibly fulfilling and I love having the opportunity to show these amazing people and the work that they do, through an image. To me, the job of the photographer is simply to show the work of dozens of other people in the best way possible, an image should best showcase the works of the hair/makeup artist, wardrobe stylist, the talent whether it be models or real life individuals, set and prop stylists, producers, directors, etc. It takes a village to make an incredible image.
The photographer may show the canvas, but the team creates the painting.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been an incredibly rocky journey, as I had mentioned before. But I think that’s what it takes to do something that other people are not able to do, and to be able to truly appreciate what you have. If it was just given to you then it would hold no value. Success has to be earned, not given. There has been so many times in my career that I thought I had everything all planned out, only to find that all the plans crumbled beneath me. I’ve learned over the years what’s more important is to listen to your gut, to let go and let God. There has been many times over the years I have just made a decision or gone a certain way based just on how it felt, more than what made sense.
Struggles make successes, and faith is what carries you through those struggles.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I think what sets me apart is that I have spent my entire career working in all aspects of production, not just a photographer, I think when you have a greater understanding of the process as a whole then you can tweak your specific job to make it easier and more beneficial for all that are involved. Like knowing how you want to edit an image later on, is going to dictate how you’re going to shoot it in the moment, not the other way around. Sometimes you have to work your processes backwards in your head. For that reason I have always worked in a little bit of a niche of slight chaos, sets that need a lot of content captured in a quick amount of time. Whether it’s working with professional athletes when you only have minutes or seconds to capture a specific look for a portrait, or the work I do at NASA facilities where there is no time to setup and make specific looks / images, it’s a documentary style run and gun but needs to be shot and appear very staged and commercial.
Also, the ability to blend in an understanding of engineering and photography helps more often than I would have ever thought previously, from building custom specific remote camera rigs for rocket launches that are triggered based on sound, with full temperature control built in to them, to being able to have an understanding of how a specific engineering system works for shooting something like a pharmaceutical filling suite. There’s all sorts of little nuances to this industry that I love so much because of the lessons you learn along the way, and how the apply across different industries always fascinates me.
How do you think about luck?
I truly believe there is no luck involved, it’s being able to walk by faith not by sight, and understanding that even at times when something may feel wrong, it’ll work out in the end. Some might call that a balance of good and bad luck, but I don’t see it that way.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.zupophotography.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-zupo-379a4715a
