Today's Guest: Chris Schultz of Chris Schultz Photography. in Los Angeles, California
Today's Host: John Bentley
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Chris Schultz Expert PageANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide. Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, we have in the studio Chris Schultz of Chris Schultz Photography out in Los Angeles, California. Chris is a celebrity photographer and has been in the business for a few years now doing such. Chris welcome to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight.
CHRIS: Thank you, John. Thank you. Thank you.
JOHN: We give us a little overview of what you're up to out there in L.A.
CHRIS: I shoot beautiful people, John, and we do things, you know, we do album packaging. Mostly we do editorial stuff. Just real pretty work. Daylight stuff usually. I kind of frown when clients tell me they want to be in a dark studio with strobes, because I kind of like the daylight. It's the prettiest light there is so....
JOHN: So you do a lot of on location photography?
CHRIS: I'd like to. The problem with location photography out in L.A., imagine this the real estate is out of control, but people want a lot...you know day rates are high to get a really good location so, unfortunately, until the big clients start rolling in, we don't a lot of location, but I love to be on location. I actually prefer to be on location. It's more challenging. It, you know, changes up your schedule and it's just more fun. You get more chemistry with the images, I think, when you're on location.
JOHN: So you have a studio, is that what you're alluding to?
CHRIS: I don't have a studio actually. Because we kind of tend to travel around, you know, we go to Atlanta, Nashville, New York a lot, L.A., so we kind of having a studio and having the over head doesn't make a lot of sense any more because it's just so expensive. So I don't actually own a studio, but I frequently in one.
JOHN: So give me a little bit of history about you, Chris. How long have you been a photographer?
CHRIS: Oh, man, I've been a photographer my whole life. My dad, he taught photography in...he taught high school. He still teaches it in college in Texas, but he's kind of semi-retired. So I've been in the dark room since I was like 2 years old which we'll see how that works out when I get older all the chemicals and what not, but I've been shooting my whole life. I actually have footage of when I was four, my family every year for Christmas they would, you know, we were poor growing up, so they had footage of me with a camera shooting my mom. And I'm telling her, hey do this, do that, do this, and I'm actually shooting a roll of film. It's a great piece of footage.
JOHN: Awesome.
CHRIS: Yeah, but I've been doing that, and I got of got serious one day, I was going to art school, and I didn't know what I was doing. I've done everything; I have a TB degree, a broadcasting degree, radio/tv and ended up in photo, but just one day my art teacher said, hey...What it was we had a show and tell day and I brought in some photos and she was like, she pulled me aside after class and said, hey listen these photos are really good and you kind of suck at drawing so maybe you should pursue the photography thing. So I started looking around and that's how I kind of discovered kind of the world of photography existed that I didn't really know about, and I thought wow this is cool maybe I should really really look into this and next thing I know, I'm moving to Denver to go to photo school. So...
JOHN: What was the school that you attended?
CHRIS: I went to the Art Institute of Colorado and that's just in downtown Denver, there.
JOHN: A lot of great opportunities to shoot in the Denver area, I'm sure.
CHRIS: There were. That's kind of how I got going. When I was in school, I had an opportunity to shoot a band that was up and coming at the time, and I had never heard of them, and I was like, ok whatever. They're kind of a big bill, and now they're all over. They started their own record label and I follow them, but I don't know if I should mention them or not, but I shot a lot of their early work.
JOHN: Sure why not.
CHRIS: Anyway, that kind of snowballed and I started shooting a lot of music and how that happened was, Denver is kind of the only city in that part of the country, so...like only the major city so most of the bands will go through Denver and then all of a sudden next thing I know every big band that's coming through is calling me up and saying, hey we heard about you through so and so. So I started shooting a lot of band work.
JOHN: That's great. That's certainly...
CHRIS: Yeah, it was really kind of cool, because I mean, you hear a lot of time stories where stuff just falls in people's laps and that's literally what happened, but the more serious I got about it, the more I realized I didn't really want to do strictly music.
JOHN: Now, for our listening audience, will you share your website address, Chris?
CHRIS: Yeah, you can check it out www.chrisschultz.us and Schultz is S-C-H-U-L-T-Z.
JOHN: We are speaking with Chris Schultz of Chris Schultz Photography out in Los Angeles, California. You are listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to take a moment aside for these important messages, we'll be right back.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
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ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: We are back in the studio with Chris Schultz of Chris Schultz Photography out in Los Angeles, California, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Welcome back to the program, Chris.
CHRIS: Thank you.
JOHN: Now we've been talking about your photography business where you're shooting celebrities. You said you've done some magazines, some album covers. Could you elaborate a little bit on those?
CHRIS: Yeah, we've done...last year was good. We did, you know, Cosmo and Ocean Drive and different smaller magazines like that, and it's been a good year. It was a growth year for us...I keep saying us, because I've been with my girlfriend for two years, and she's my makeup artists, and we're kinda becoming more of a business partnership. It's kind of funny because people they always ask, you know, clients coming in, like who's the make up? We want that make up. And I'm like, ok cool, perfect. So I keep saying we, but that's why.
JOHN: It's good to have a partner that can help you out with what you're doing. That's for sure.
CHRIS: Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It's funny because we met because, you know, mutual interests and related fields, and then we didn't end up doing anything together for, business wise, for about a year and then one day we just started...like ok we need to shoot together, and it just clicked, and ever since we've just...boom...took off so that was good.
JOHN: Now you had mentioned earlier about country music stars. Can you tell us maybe some of the stars that you've shot, or the albums that you've done, that kind of thing?
CHRIS: It wouldn't be anybody big that you guys would be like know about, but I've worked with Leanne Rhymes before and different people and I'm definitely hoping to market more towards, you know, more up and coming stars for the country, because it seems to be that I'm kind of getting labeled which is a good thing as kind of the young Hollywood photographer, and that's probably due because of the fact that I'm so young so younger stars can relate to a younger photographer rather than being with somebody twice their age.
JOHN: Well let's talk about the future. What is the future hold for Chris Schultz Photography?
CHRIS: Well I'm looking more to get into more of a, I'm going to call them portraits, but I'm noticing portraiture tends to be more, kind of from the hip now days. The portraiture really doesn't work as a good label, but I like to have really intimate shots of people in their environment, but more glamorized. The really, the beautiful clothing, that beautiful hair, and beautiful make up, beautiful lighting and beautiful location. That's kind of the direction I want to go from where I'm at now, and I'm already pretty much there, but I just want to kind of tighten it up a little bit and perfect it just a little bit more.
JOHN: Well before I let you go, Chris, would you share your website address one more time?
CHRIS: Yeah, sure you can check it out. It's www.chrisschultz.us and Schultz is S-C-H-U-L-T-Z and I should also make a note that they're be a new glamorous website come next year so anybody listening after that point will definitely have to go check it out.
JOHN: Well I want to thank you for joining us today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Chris.
CHRIS: Sure. Thank you for having me.
JOHN: You have been listening to John Bentley interviewing Chris Schulz of Chris Schultz Photography and VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. I want to thank you for tuning in today. Have a great afternoon everyone.
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