Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Cichon.
Lucas, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My first professional photography job was when I was 13. I’d already photographed a number of weddings for cousins, uncles, etc… This was my first time shooting for someone I didn’t know. It seems unbelievable today, but the couple saw my photographs didn’t care about my age.
At that age, making money from Photography probably was a mistake. It made me realize I could make money doing something I loved but not shooting what I loved. For the next 8 years, I photographed a ton of weddings, photojournalism and generally anything I could do to make money from my photography. Photography had turned into a job, something I did to pay the bills. The pure enjoyment was gone, honestly, all the enjoyment was gone.
Over the next 15 years, I rarely took any photographs. Cameras were packed away, and life moved in a different direction. I’m not really sure why I started shooting again. It just happened. It went from zero to one hundred percent in the blink of an eye. Next thing I knew, my wife and business partner, Kathie, and I were opening a portrait photography studio. Most of our work was in Black and White, and my wife’s hand tinted the photographs.
We specialized in nude maternity, traditional black and white portraits and baby portraits. This was an amazing time, not only were we doing the studio work but I was shooting commercial magazine and advertising work. Kathie and I produced a lot of “fine art” photographs and slowly started to build an art following. We moved to Taos, New Mexico in 2002 and opened a gallery. For the next 5 years, we mainly produced black and white and hand-tinted landscapes, nudes, and still life photographs for sale in our gallery and the other handful of galleries that represented our work.
At the time, Taos was home to almost 2,000 mostly full-time artists. It was an amazing experience. Everyone was creating something. It felt like, what I imagine, Paris of the 1880s would have been. People were feeding off each other’s ideas. Parties featured a bunch of artists, too much cheap wine, and discussions into the night. So exciting and a time I will never forget. It was actually in end of 2006 when someone seemed to have shut off the lights. Sales plummeted, galleries closed, we closed our gallery. I cut my hair, bought some new shoes and headed to Phoenix, Arizona.
For a time I taught photography at the art museum and worked odd jobs. I remember seeing a documentary on Ansel Adams where he was worried about the “Wolf at the door.” It’s a reference to money, and for the next 2 years, we lived with the wolf. We were fortunate, we had outright purchased a 40 foot RV. This now became our home and studio, often parked on the street and when we made some money staying, in an RV park, near LAX.
In 2008, life had started to recover. We were still shooting art when we could but mainly concentrating on Real Estate commercial photography and video. It’s still our main commercial business. Our artwork has developed in new directions, we’re producing still photography, video, and now looking at doing old style tintypes. Kathie is writing a fiction book.
Great, 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?
Time, Food, Shelter, Security and Sanity.
I’ve been fortunate in never having “artists block.” My problem has always been having the time to do what I have in my mind. There’s never enough time, and as I get older, I feel there are so many things I will never get to. So, the struggle now is to prioritize what I want to work on.
Sanity, we can talk about another time. HA!
LucasOnLocation and Old Fat and Vlogging – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our main business (LucasOnLocation.com) produces video and still photographs for real estate. Our secondary business is producing artwork. In our commercial work, we are known for our commitment to consistency, excellent magazine quality photography.
Our customer service is key. It’s somewhat odd, in our artwork we try to be loose but, our commercial work is extremely buttoned up.
Kathie is what sets us apart. She does all of the Photoshop work. Her art background allows her to understand and manipulate our photographs to produce consistent, high quality finished images.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I don’t think that happened. It’s sometime in the future. The moment I liked the most was living in Taos, as a full-time artist, in the early 2000s. It was truly a magical time with amazing people in a special location.
Contact Info:
- Website: LucasOnLocation.com and Oldfatandvlogging.com (up on Thursday)
- Phone: 310-432-3400
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oldfatandvlogging/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/lucasonlocation/
Image Credit:
LucasOnLocation.com
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