Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Chenault
Hi Andrew, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I first picked up a photography while attending UCI and working on film and media production. Not having the chance to do photography beforehand and just having experience in film work with friends, I’d rent a camera everyday and practice shooting pretty much anything I was around. This usually looked like night photography, long exposure, action photography, and a lot of playing around with dynamic and vibrant color lighting. This eventually developed into my own style of photography I call Moods & Hues. Using vibrant color combinations and dynamic lighting to bring “the vision” to life. While I now have a decade of various photography work that I continue to strive and further develop, my focus and specialization is the continual growth and development of the Mood and Hues series along with pushing that form of photography to new heights by combining dynamic color lighting with photo realistic special effects to truly bring peoples visions to life. Over the last couple of years I’ve dove into the cosplay scene as a way to really push my craft. It really feels like the culmination of everything I’ve experimented with and learned. I’ve even gotten to use my experience with newborn and family photography to do cosplay shoots for kids and help them embody their favorite superheroes or say Disney princesses. It’s been a blast so far and I look forward to continuing to push what I can do with my craft.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t think it’s ever been a smooth road persay, I think any craft in the creator or artistic industry is rife with it’s own difficulties that have to be worked out or overcome, but covid and the following years of economic difficulties through changing industry, strikes, layoffs, and even the recent natural disasters have definitely been their own unique amplifiers for causing some struggles. I’m optimistic about developing my craft but I do worry what the industry may look like in the coming years. Working closely with local communities, artists, and businesses is definitely a way to keep work mutual and alive in difficult times.
Any other struggles? I’m trying to be better with marketing, hasn’t always been a strong suit of mine, but I’m working on it.
When it comes to my craft specifically, I believe I had reached a bit of a plateau in terms of trying to figure out a better balance to the overall image. I didn’t want to just throw a vomit of visual colors and fx lol. Going back to some older photos and edits and deciding to redo them a year or 2 years later with everything I learned, something just clicked, and suddenly my work was even better than before for the rest of my shoots and edits coming out. Looking back at previous editing shortfalls and ways I could better pre-plan an image or shot combined with trusting my initial shot and not trying to change it when it was unnecessary, really helped push my work to a higher level but also a more visually balanced photo-realistic one.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
What makes me stand out as an artist I believe, is my visual style and ability to bring a vision to life. Whether that vision is an artist showing off their personality and style, or bringing someones fictional character or concept to life. I love combining vibrant color combinations on a subject that really makes them pop while also bringing a visual style that may not be too common. Using colors in different levels of intensity and combination to create specific moods and convey a theme or range of emotions. Combining this lighting with photo realistic effects and you get some pretty awesome visuals that you wouldn’t be able to see without going to the movies, 3d animation, or cgi artists. I think bringing a sort of combination of both those worlds is always an opportunity for awesome visuals. I definitely want to continue to push my craft into different artistic styles and overall more cinematic story telling. I’ve been lucky to have my work recognized by people before they knew it was mine and I think that’s pretty cool. Pushing this style into a video version is currently one of my next goals.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I love working with passionate groups of people so if you’d like to collaborate or hire me for a personal project feel free to hit me up through my site or socials. If you like my work and want to see more, any support is deeply appreciated. I’m working on doing metal prints of my work so that’s something I’m looking forward to.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.andrewchenaultcreative.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shinobichenault
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChenaultAndrew/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-chenault-4981059b/
- Other: https://bsky.app/profile/shinobichenault.bsky.social
