Check Out Andrew St. Jean’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew St. Jean.

Hi Andrew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My name is Andrew, and I’ve been a photographer for 13 years. I started shooting in 2012 but didn’t take it seriously until 2015. My first DSLR, a Canon 5D Mark I, was handed down to me—a modest yet powerful starting point for capturing photos. In the beginning, I primarily photographed events and scenes involving friends and family. Later, I ventured into studio work to better understand lighting and how to use it to my advantage. These experiences played a crucial role in shaping my skills.

Over time, I transitioned into wedding photography. It was both challenging and rewarding, as it allowed me to share in the excitement of those special moments.

By late 2017, I shifted my focus to portraiture, deciding to specialize in it. I worked alongside my brother, Brandon, who helped open doors to collaborations with well-known industry figures like Joe Budden and Charlamagne Tha God. I’ve also had the opportunity to photograph celebrities before they rose to fame, such as Ariana DeBose. Portraiture has taken me to places I never imagined, and I find it far more fulfilling than event photography, which can often be overwhelming.

Capturing backgrounds and environments alone wasn’t enough—I wanted to tell stories through portraiture. Photography, as an art form, allows for deeper expression and connection. I do look forward to presenting my very best as I go through 2025 onward. We must make the most of the moments we got left.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth? Not really, in all honesty. It’s always challenging. Things can happen often that can put you in a disposition often. Opportunities can always fall flat at times so it’s best to keep a realistic expectation. The challenges of the COVID era tested my resilience, but overcoming them became a driving force. After battling COVID multiple times, I’ve gained a renewed sense of purpose, pushing myself to work harder because time is not on our side as we get older. Health issues can become the biggest concern as well as things are not the same and so often I had to keep adapting and adjusting myself to stay on a more straight path with my health but otherwise I’m a lot more better these days and it’s about learning and not taking too many crazy risks as you age. You need to learn your limitations and work around that. I’m grateful to have people like Fazon Dry Gray, Eve Chen and others who are supporting me the best they can through those struggles.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Not sure if this question is directed towards my work work life or the work I do as a passion so I will give a brief description of both. In the real world of a sense. I work in the field of IT. Primarily focused in Networking path. I enjoy it at most as I get to do what I like to do best. Help people solve their problems in the tech world so to speak.

Now as a passion I specialize as a photographer/creative who works along the lines of shooting Art, Fashion, Commercial work, I’ve done some brand work in the past such as shooting Events, Concerts, you name it. As well alongside with influencer opportunities that have come along. I was primarily known in the photography space during the early days for my Neon art that I was inspired with early 2017. A lot of that influence then came from a photographer named Brandon Woefel and he was one of the first and youngest ones to take advantage of diffrentiating himself as that sort of portrait shooter. He’s sort of an inspiration for me when it comes to developing my art style and he’s grown a lot since then. So on the side I like to do creative work like that but I need to establish some level of portfolio first with actual work that brands like to see then I’ll mix some very insteresting uinque art in the mix.

I would say I’m most proud of the opportunity I had with Pursuit of Portraits and being one of the first few to be published in their magazine, I still have it to this day! Saunik Shah a portrait artist that started that group and it has grown immensely to become somewhat a global icon and also probably one of the reasons my art style took shape as well in the past. One thing for sure when it comes to being in a community. It is one of the driving forces for growth. You can’t grow if you don’t have a solid community you can be around. Even then you can start your own community but everyone needs some level of influence and it starts there. Creativity creates growth, so there is many times I would like to do some out of the box work that stands out. It’s one of my plans to keep learning and see what I can come up with but following the trends is the key to learning new techniques.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
This is interesting, I’ve had some good luck in my time where things just went right accordingly. Most of the unplanned shoots I had was based around luck. In these days, I’m more prepared than most because it’s never a great idea to do shoots unplanned unless you are starting out and don’t know where you want to go yet or are just practicing for the sake of learning. But as you want to develop, plans will become important.

I’ve had some bad luck at times when shoots don’t work out the way they should. Whether it’s the model cancelling out or opportunities dropping often then deciding how best to move forward with your career as a photographer. There were times where you had those booming moments in your career as a photographer and it was amazing to see but then after reality sets in. There will be many moments you will be down and you’ll need to figure out how to come out of it. I can equare some of the bad due to social media though at times because trends is somehow the push along communities and trends come and go so quickly so often that you are always playing catch up. So the best thing to do is stick to what you love doing and build around that. Keep learning how to enhance your photo work cause competition keeps growing and keeps changing often and it’s easy to get left behind.

Pricing:

• Portraitures – $150 an hour
• Events – $1600
• Commercial Day Rate – $5000

Contact Info:

• Website: https://andrewstjean.com
• Instagram: andrewjstjean
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@justjayy85
• Other: https://kavyar.com/andrewstjean

Image Credits
Chelsea Reject
Joey Badass
Randy Lee
Fazon Dry Gray
Nikki
Daniel Brigmanhen