Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Cieszko.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m a freelance photographer, DP, and director living in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. I moved to LA in 2019 and started a company called Vision Kid Films with two great friends from college, Sam Delfavero and Cassandra Couwenberg. Over the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to work with brands like Walmart, Beats by Dre, Hollister, Tinder, and have my work featured with Billboard, Variety, and MTV.
I grew up an hour outside of NYC with a camera in hand for as long as I could remember. At Syracuse University, I studied film but quickly found an equally strong passion for music, and so naturally I started shooting music videos, photos, album art and everything in between. Before long, I fell deep in love with film as a medium – 35mm, Polaroid, Super 8, etc.
As an artist personally, I find most passion for shooting portraits on film; working with a subject to create visuals that have character, texture, mood; using the artist’s aesthetic to their advantage and shooting an image that just looks… sick. That’s the goal. This translates into anything from fashion photography to street photography.
Vision Kid Films focuses primarily on music video production and photo content for artists. In 2020 we were lucky enough to work with Jxdn and visually brand his introduction as a music artist with his first single, Comatose. This service has now become our bread and butter. With combined expertise in visual production and music distribution, we take an artist’s release and brand it front to back – album art, ads, posters, Spotify canvases, music videos, visualizers, anything visual that the artist needs for their single or album.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The main struggle has been starting up a creative company on top of full-time work. Gaining traction as a photographer or director in LA takes time, takes favors, and it takes real patience. All three of us at Vision Kid Films started the company when we were working full-time 9-5 jobs too, so we found ourselves working overtime during weekdays and booking out weekends for shoots. We’ve also found it helpful to take a step back from Vision Kid at times, gaining experience and knowledge with other companies and projects that we can apply to our own processes and life in general.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Shhhh, my favorite way to edit my photos is still on my phone using VSCO. I can mess around in Lightroom and Photoshop all I want, but VSCO’s ease of use, image control, and color-filter diversity remains king to me. Haven’t found a cleaner and better way to creatively post-process my photos.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: austincieszko.com, visionkid.net
- Instagram: @theonlymang, @visionkidfilms
