Well Basically I was studying engineering at SDSU. My last year of college I asked my roomate which camera I should buy (He was a photography major). I bought a cheap canon 20d used with a 50mm 1.8 ii lens for like $300 total. I realized I love photography and sold that gear and upgraded and at the same time found that I could flip camera gear and test everything out. So I spent my last year of college buying every camera and lens possible and trying things out to see what I ended up liking. After graduating I decided to do a "make it or break it" trip to see if I could become a professional photographer, otherwise I'd go back to engineering. I had two choices: Paris or New York. I chose the harder of the two - Paris. Didn't speak french but a friend from my senior year was interested in taking a part in my photography business and doing the managing portion of my career since he spoke french, lived in Paris, and didn't have a job, and of course liked my work.
Arriving in Paris, I did a bunch of free shoots for model agencies, knocked on every single door in Paris and started shooting some products with a glasses company I had met at a conference. In doing so, I found abstract photography. I stopped shooting models and dropped everything for Art. I created a series of abstract photography photos and walked around to all the galleries with prints in hand trying to show them off. I of course aimed high and went to Avenue Matignon which is potentially the most famous art road in the world. I was kicked out of multiple galleries, told that no one would ever have photography on this road, told that no one would buy art from someone my age on this road, everything. Until I walked into Gallerie Matignon which was a pretty big gallerie at the time. The owner Jany Jansem was a very kind man and said "looks like you guys have something to show walking in here like this". He accepted us into the gallery. Sold a couple, but this was at the time when France was having a recession of sorts. Then to pay bills, I started applying those abstract techniques to product photography and booked clients like Chanel, doing a fairly large campaign for their perfume which was all over their stores and booths in France.
The images I showed here are very simple as they are just test shoots but if you go to my website
www.lab-coat.com you can see that I do a lot more elaborate shoots that have handmade backgrounds etc.
