bio
| bio Born in 1974 in Toronto, Canada. Che spent much of his early years pursuing a life in ballet. Moving to New York in 1993 to continue his training and attend theatre school he was scouted by a modeling agent in the SoHo nightclub he worked in and began a busy but brief modeling career. Never quite at ease with the lens focused on him he was fascinated with what was happening behind the camera. “The coolest guy in the room was always the photographer. Part circus conductor, part midwife, part magician. I wanted to be that guy. I used to stick to the photographer like glue during a shoot, asking a ton of questions. It’s probably the reason they stopped booking me!” He opened his first studio in 1998 in downtown New York. Working mostly as a headshot and portrait photographer Che also test shot for some of the largest agencies in New York as well as The Village Voice, Playboy and others. He also pursued his life long obsession with music by shooting album covers for various bands and solo artists along with their promotional material and live concerts, something he’s still heavily involved with today. “There’s something about musicians and their energy that begs to be captured whether it’s in studio or on stage, it’s a target rich environment.” Confident in his photo chops and looking to branch out again Che began an ongoing collaboration with Click Photography company, a wedding and event based photo agency with offices in New York and Toronto. “It’s been a great relationship. A lot of agencies want to box you into a certain style or approach, wedding photography is rooted on a series of traditions but Click has been really open to me trying new things and playing, it’s great.” Che has opened a new studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where he lives with his wife and 4 year old son. He continues to shoot headshots and portraits along with capturing wedding stories at home and abroad. “Traveling to some of the world’s most exotic wedding locations is a real perk in what I do, I love it.” philosophy “There is a rhythm in every photo shoot. Once you know how to listen to it you'll know when the shot you want is coming. That’s how I approach photography anyway. You need to let it happen. Of course there is a need to document everything when you’re shooting a wedding for example but the best images I get are ones that I let come to me. “ “Photojournalistic is the buzzword of the day in wedding photography but I tell people all the time that if they had an album full of only photojournalistic images from their wedding they’d want to hang the photographer. Storytelling is a better description. How that story is told and the style in which to tell it is up to the photographer. I use words like beauty, glamour, movement, and mystery, as touchstones while I’m shooting. Photojournalistic style has a large element of luck involved with it. You can get a lucky image of Grandpa asleep by the punch bowl while the kids tie his shoelaces together but so can Uncle Eddy. Photography needs to be more than lucky. It’s an elegant art form and sometimes that is forgotten. On the other hand I’d be the first to tell you that I’ve been lucky more than once. On what image however is my secret.” |
 |