Rising Stars: Meet John E. Kelly

Today we’d like to introduce you to John E. Kelly.

Hi John, thanks for joining us today.  We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

Hello, I’m John Kelly.  I was born and raised in Southern California, and I’ve been a professional photographer for 40 years.

Can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today. You can include as little or as much detail as you’d like.

It seems like I’ve always been interested in photography.  My parents gave me a small instamatic Polaroid camera when I was a little boy.   It took glossy B&W prints that were ready in about a minute.  The camera just felt right in my hands, like it was a part of me.  

Photography was the first thing I remember being good at.  I loved how capturing, processing, and printing an image made me feel as if I was creating something original and special.  Later, I studied photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.  Up to that point I thought photography was about fine art and B&W photographs of landscapes or nudes.  However, Art Center was mainly teaching its students how to be successful in the advertising and commercial photography world.  It was a grueling curriculum with many late nights spent in the school’s B&W and color labs, which is where I thankfully met and fell in love with my wife, Marianne Lannen.

After graduating, I began my photography career in earnest in the mid 1980’s with a specialty in food photography.  After years of persistent calling, promoting, and shooting for my portfolio, my work began to be noticed.  Then one day I received a call from the creative director at Bon Appetit Magazine asking if I wanted to photograph their next cover.  It was a dream come true.  

Marianne and I worked together to build our thriving business.  Over the past 40 years we’ve worked with many great food companies and magazines, with wonderful people who share our love of food and beautiful photography.

Even with the demands of a full-time advertising career and the raising of our two daughters, Danae and Samantha, I continued to work on my first love, fine art photography.  I took time to create a variety of series, including subjects of abstract, still life, street, travel, and landscape photography.  My images have been featured in magazines and books, shown in gallery exhibitions, won numerous awards, and my fine art prints are now available for purchase through my online gallery.  I still love the feeling of shooting and then processing and printing images in my digital darkroom.  The technology has changed considerably, but the excitement remains the same.  In the most gratifying way, it feels like I’ve come full circle, with my camera in hand.

Has it been a smooth road? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?

Advertising photography has always been a highly competitive field.  So, it was incredibly important to differentiate myself from my fellow photographers.  I remember an instructor at Art Center telling my class that it would take about ten years to become established.  We all laughed at the idea.  Turns out it took about a decade before I felt like I had really made it as a professional.  I spent a lot of time working on my portfolio and developing a style that was bold and bright, and nothing like what I was seeing in magazines.  

Self-promotion was one of the most difficult aspects of being a self-employed photographer, and it was the thing I hated doing the most.  In general, artists have a hard time talking about themselves.  It feels unnatural to promote something that is so deeply personal.  Over time I knew if I wanted to get the best assignments, I was going to have to come out of my shell and talk about my work, and let people know why they needed to hire me.  I may have had one of the best food photography portfolios out there, but nobody was going to call if I didn’t get their attention.

We’d love to learn more about your work. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of? What sets you apart from others?

I have a wide range of visual interests when it comes to my personal fine art work.  My first impressions of photography were formed by my admiration of the images created by Ansel Adams.  I initially gravitated toward shooting landscapes and pictures of the natural world.  After my formal education I enjoyed working on different series that were in the studio as well.

I’d say my diversity is what sets me apart.  I love shooting windmills in the desert, seascapes, cities and towns, still lifes of silverware and flowers, abstracts of razorblades or burnt matchsticks, reflections of color upon water, and landscapes of course.

Do you have any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general? What has worked well for you?

Being an artist often means you spend a lot of time alone in a bubble, which can make it difficult to know in which direction to turn.  A mentor can use their own experience to help you avoid certain roadblocks and even guide you as you move through your career.

Teachers can make wonderful mentors, as can working professionals.  Find someone who’s work you admire and reach out to them.  Ask them if they would be willing talk about their work and perhaps even offer some advice about yours.  Start with an email or letter and see what happens.  As the saying goes, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”.  The same holds true for mentors.

Assisting a photographer is a wonderful way to learn not only about the craft, but about the business as well.  On their own, most artists don’t make great businesspeople.  We tend to get too emotionally invested in our work to do a good job of promoting it.  Watching a successful photographer at work will give you priceless knowledge on how to best run a profitable art business, and in some cases, you will even learn from their mistakes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.johnekelly.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johne.kelly/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnekellyphoto/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnekelly/ 

Image Credits
© John E. Kelly