Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Santrizos.
Hi Nick, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I got here in a very round-a-bout way. I’ve always loved taking photos and have been since I was a kid, my mom encouraging me to take pictures at school events, giving me a disposable camera and eventually a digital camera in 2003 for my birthday.
I was the designated cameraman in my group of outcast skate rats. I cut my teeth editing photos and videos of my friends skateboarding, doing stunts, and being menaces to society in the suburbs.
We go back to the far flung year of 2009, I graduated and I went to school for media productions, the real goal was to eventually make my way into the voice acting world and to do audio engineering, directing and voice acting for video games, anime and cartoons. But after 1 semester of sitting at a desk, pushing buttons, twisting dials, pounding my head against the wall on the computer I wanted to get back out and create.
So I did the smart thing and I dropped out of art school to pursue photography with no network, no connections, no friends in industry, but I had a camera, a stubborn attitude and the most supportive friends and family that helped me grow my portfolio.
After a year I was shooting weddings almost every weekend from 2013 to 2019 before finally setting out on my own. With the unfortunate timing of the pandemic I found myself adrift from the wedding industry that moved on without me. But I found a new home in photographing and filming restaurants, and now have found myself a quiet little corner of the locker room with the amazing people of F1rst Wrestling and photographing concerts across Minnesota. I’m at a point in my creative journey where everything is falling into place.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth as a dirt road in a February ice storm. The hardest part was the consistency. 2-3 months of non-stop, go,go,go work, weddings every weekend, weekdays filled with “We decided to go with someone else” emails, engagement sessions, and picking up contract work to fill in the gaps. But then another 2-3 months of NOTHING. Especially post covid and with current ai trends, filling the gaps of small jobs between big ones is a constant battle. Knowing you may have to rice & beans it for a couple weeks does eventually grow on you though. I’d never change those battles for everything I have gotten to do and experience.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a photographer through and through. I can be a videographer, a voice actor, a middling audio engineer, on camera talent but I will want to throw up doing it. But taking pictures and saving those individual moments in time is my favorite part of what I do.
I think what sets me apart is just bucking trends and doing what I want even if it’s not gonna get me views or clicks. Right now I am obsessed with taking pictures that create a nostalgic feeling, throwing them together with music from artists like The Midnight, Sunglasses Kid and Ollie Ride. Blurry imperfect photos with direct flash, mixing those color palates and tones of the 80’s,90’s and 2000’s with modern twists,. Part of what I have been doing with my coverage of F1rst Wrestling shows is photoshopping VHS boxes you’d find at your local video rental store in 1997. I’m torn between making these boxes into physical media, but for the same reason I don’t draw or paint I’ve got these big clumsy bear paws and delicate work is not my specialty.
I guess for specialties right now it would be music and technically sports photography? I’d love to do more in both and I have a bucket list to work on for both but right now I’m very at peace with what I am doing.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
This is strictly for photographers but videographers can fall under it too.
Gear does not matter and you should buy it used from a reputable dealer like National Camera or BH Photo. Get an older camera body like a 5dmkii,mkiii or mkiv, a decent used lens and spend that extra money on traveling or doing stuff to build your portfolio or marketing. Don’t listen to the nerds of this industry about blurry corners or because it’s not perfectly sharp wide open you should get the best 50mm on the market.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sntrzphoto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sntrzphoto/
- Other: https://www.santrizosphotography.com/
