Meet Jonathan Zhao | Director of Photography

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

Hi Jonathan, what is the most important factor behind your success?
This might sound a little cliche, but I do think behind my success as a cinematographer, putting in the hard work and time to master my craft in cinematography was obviously important, but luck also plays a huge role.

Mainly being asked to do the right project at the right time, and being technically prepared for that project was definitely extremely important.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
As a professional cinematographer, my art is creating visual masterpieces that fulfill and support the director’s vision for their story.

It is my belief that as a cinematographer, being adaptable to any story and making that story look real is what is most important. Batman Dark Knight Rising and La La Land are both great films, but if one had looked like the other, neither would work. And that is exactly my philosophy when it comes to approaching a new film. I want to make it look as real to what the story deserves as possible all while being efficient and able to make my days.

I think it is always exciting for me to watch the premiere of a film at an international film festival, to see my team’s work on the big screens, and of course, winning an award is always a plus!

I was lucky to have started doing photography from an extremely early age of 8, so I’ve had cameras around me all my life. But getting to where I am now is definitely not easy. NYU TISCH School of the Arts’ film program being one of the best in the world, was my dream school for undergrad. However, I was not successful in getting in the first time I applied. It was possibly one of the darkest moments as I just saw my dream shatter in front of my eyes when I got the rejection letter.

However, I ended up studying at UC Santa Barbara for my freshman year and successfully transferred to NYU TISCH. There, I worked as hard as I could, being on set almost every weekend possible, learning the craft from hands-on experiences and making mistakes.

Genuinely, I think the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is, to never give up your dream. If it is something that you truly love, and you work twice, three times as hard as other people, you’ll eventually get it. I come from a background where nobody in my family has anything to do with art by a long shot, and I knew going into studying film, that once I graduated, they wouldn’t be able to give me any kind of support like many of my classmates do have. But I knew shooting films is what I loved to do, and is something I’ll keep doing for the rest of my life.

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.
I think this depends on how much money we are thinking of spending haha. As we know, NYC can get quite pricy at times.

But I think definitely I’ll take them to Katz’s delicacies one time, just to experience the enormous amount of meat. And if we’re thinking of doing something fancy, we’ll probably go to Saka Mai.

I’m a huge foodie, so most of my spots would just be restaurants and food related stuff. I’ll probably also cook for them and have a fun chat at home one day with some fine Sake and beer.

But there are also the classic museums and parks we’ll check out, a lot of my friends are also into photography so we’ll probably go do some street photography just walking around.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Absolutely! There are two people who are like friends and like mentor to me in my career.

Frank Prinzi ASC, and Andrew Voegeli.

They’re both wonderful professional Director of Photography who I’ve met working on various projects in New York. They’ve helped me develop my career, taught me so much about this industry, and also helped me master my craft.

Website: https://www.jonathanzhaofilm-dp.com/

Instagram: jz.film.dp

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-zhao-dp/

Image Credits
Richard Chen Yiwen Qian