Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Popio.
Chris, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I had always been drawn to photography, but never was a professional photographer. I moved to Chicago in the early nineties to be an actor and held every kind of job trying to make a living of acting from bartender to carpenter to receptionist to production assistant to working with a team to create and write kid’s books.
Acting was great fun and occasionally paid some money, but it was never enough to quit doing other things to pay the bills. the closest I came to feeling fulfilled creatively with a day job was writing but when that job ended, I was left wondering how I could make a living that would still feed my creative spirit. and I kept coming back to photography.
I had never been paid to take photographs and I wasn’t sure how that possibly come about until I met a beautiful photographer who was taking press photos for a play I was doing. we hit it off and decided to go on a couple of photography “dates”. at the time she was taking gigs as a photographer when she wasn’t working as a server or teaching art in Chicago public schools.
We fell and love and started taking pictures together and within six months, started our studio together. that was a wedding date, a beautiful daughter, thousands of photos and over ten years ago.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I’m a photographer but I really feel like my job is telling stories and conveying some truth. when I’m shooting headshots (my primary photography) I’m trying to capture images of people that tell some story of who they are, not just what they look like. for actors, the shots i take are all anyone is likely to see of them before they decide they want to see more of that person. if they don’t have some life and energy in them, they’re just pictures that look like them and not great headshots.
Even when I’m shooting with non-actors, my goal is to capture that life and energy and take pictures that people feel are the best they’ve ever had.
I also work on landscape and architectural photography and, in a completely different way, I’m still trying to tell a story, set a mood and create a sense of mystery, joy or beauty in an image.
And while Photoshop is an amazing tool and, I think, an art form unto itself, I prefer to use it as little as possible to convey the truth of a scene or what a person looks like.
I feel like there’s beauty everywhere in the world; I’m just trying to capture it.
Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
The astounding leaps that technology has made and continues to make!) in the past ten years or so have made it infinitely easier for artists not only to create but to have their work seen. Filmmakers, photographers, musicians, writers, actors, artists and performers of just about every stripe can create and have avenues to broadcast their work that were unimaginable twenty years ago.
And while that’s fantastic, it can also lead to an oversaturation of the “marketplace” and, potentially a desensitization. I think, and have to believe, as it always has, the best work will rise the top.
I often think about how prevalent apprenticeship once was. a master would take an apprentice and that apprentice would study and learn until they were ready to strike out on their own. and while that definitely still exists in some forms (for example, my wife and hire studio assistants from time to time), I think there could always be more of that sharing and passing on of information. I would love to see an artistic mentorship program evolve here where, whatever the discipline, creators would have an avenue to pass along what they’d learned and the generations behind them could benefit from that before building on to the next thing.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Many examples of my headshot photography is on my website at www.popiostumpf.com. I’m working on a series of landscape images highlighting rural America and the change and, in some ways decay, of American farming. I hope to have those images available soon and will have a link to them form my existing website.
Contact Info:
- Address: 724 west hubbard street
chicago, il 60622 - Website: www.popiostumpf.com
- Phone: 7733204018
- Email: chris@popiostumpf.com
Image Credit:
Popio Stumpf Photography
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