Meet Mario Winston | Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mario Winston and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mario, do you have a favorite quote or affirmation?
failure is the key to success, each mistake teaches us something we may have missed.

this concept has always stuck with me and helped me appreciate both my losses and my wins.

with failures, they’re opportunities that we can take to learn how to improve ourselves

I’ve seen a ton of people try, fail, and give up but when you’re passionate about something, you keep going.

that’s another reason i love art and photography so much! You can’t start off shooting perfected captured pictures or creating rembrandt paintings right off the bat.

It takes practice, patience, lots of terrible sketches, and thousand of pictures that will NEVER see the light of day.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m an artist at heart and a photographer second. With my photographs, my goal is to try and bridge my knowledge and love of painting with the technology and capabilities that photography brings!.

Getting to where i am today was pretty difficult. I grew up in a small town with not a ton of opportunity to make a career as an artist and though my family wasn’t broke, we also didn’t have a ton of money either so 40k a year at an art school wasn’t possible.

I moved to OKC after studying fine art at Columbia College in Missouri for a semester .

There, after finding out that my son was on his way, i needed a good steady job and couldn’t rely solely on my job selling phones and getting paid next to nothing taking pictures at a club.

I soon started working at Dell during the day while also trying to grow my photography business after work.
I’d be Dad every other weekend, my 9-5 during the day, and then artist in the evening.
I can’t describe the level of exhaustion and just overall lack of a life i had at certain points but being able to continue doing art and knowing my son was being taken care of gave me the drive to keep going.

So for 10 years, i’ve continued to wear multiple hats but nowadays, they’re all much more manageable with me understanding that I need to take time to myself or i’ll go insane.

Lessons learned though throughout this time, i would say is understand that you are going to fail, right off the bat. But understanding and being able to prepare you for those failures, will help you grow to continue being successful.

Self-growth and taking time to understand yourself is the key to getting where you want to go.

My business has always been named after myself because what i’m shooting and the work i create will always be based on how I interpret beauty through the world I see.

Being able to tell the stories of both myself and others through my lens is how I feel that i’m communicating what i’m truly seeing and making it come to life.

Eugnell gives me the ability to not only make others feel good by showing them that they truly are incredible people but to express my own feeling and hardships that i endure as well.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
When i’m in LA, i love just exploring Venice Beach, Santa Monica, and the art district downtown.

Had some of the best vegan meals ever at Zinc Cafe! When i come back, i’ll be shooting and staying in Santa Monica but since i’m new to the area, I wouldn’t know where to start!

Website: www.eugnell.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/Eugnell

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Eugnell

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Eugnell1