Today we’d like to introduce you to John Leo.
Hi John, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started going to school in pre-K, and every year of schooling, around the end of the year, my mom would dress me up for my school pictures. Me being a kid fascinated by the camera with its clicking sound and flash, I thought it was some toy so I always asked if I could use it, but the photographer would say no. Now, when I was about five years old, our class had an event and my school hired a photographer to take pictures of us and someone gifted me an actual toy camera. I was so happy with this toy camera, the photographer took a picture with me and the camera which I still have.
Now, fast forward when I was in middle school, my dad bought himself a Sony camcorder which I remember using to record special events: my brother’s elementary school graduation, going to six flags, including other random recordings. I would take my dad’s camera to record because whenever I would watch his recordings the angle and composition would be horrible and it would frustrate me. I would ask why is that person’s lower body cut off, or why can’t I see his head, or better yet, why is the camera at 100% zoom looking up the person’s nostrils. Because I thought people don’t understand the basics of putting people in frame correctly I volunteering myself to be the church videographer for special events, and I was great at it. After a while, I quit because I was embarrassed being placed in the middle of the church just standing there with a camcorder and I thought that wasn’t cool and too nerdy.
When I was in college, I bought my first laptop and I was displeased with the default wallpaper. So I spent hours on google looking for the perfect picture to set as my wallpaper but I could not find the perfect picture. Until it hit me “why don’t I take my own pictures to set as a wallpaper. That is when I bought my first camera. After a few camera upgrades, friends asked me if I could take a picture of them or their events. So this is the story of how I got to where I am today, but I am still not done with this journey.
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?
There were some bumps, some were cancellations due to life situations, but even then that wasn’t an issue because I genuinely love taking pictures so I would take pictures of landscapes. The most recent bump was looking for a makeup artist for my recent fashion photoshoot. All of the nearby makeup artists were booked due to wedding season. But, a good friend of mine told me that another friend of mine named Annoucka does make-up and did it for a wedding. After speaking with her she was more than happy to collaborate and the photoshoot was a success.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a photographer located in the DC, Maryland, Virginia (DMV) area. I specialize in landscape, fashion, portrait, and animal photography. I am known for having pictures with a lot or even too much details. The reason is because I have a full-frame camera with 61 megapixels. That means if I want to crop my pictures, the quality won’t be diminish at all due to high resolution. I am proud of owning a high-resolution camera. Too much details is better than not enough because it can be corrected during post-production. What sets me apart from others are high resolution just in case my clients want to print very large prints.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
There are three things that matter to me and they are making sure I am having a good time taking pictures, the client is having a good time, and details. I never have a bad time taking pictures so far, but I want to share this joy with the client so the client can feel happy with me capturing their memories. Details are important because events will become history and it is important for the photographer to capture as much details as possible so the story could be retold years later as if it happened a few seconds ago.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jleopic.wixsite.com/jleo
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/timal_antilles
Image Credits
J.Leo Photography
