Meet Christopher Petro | Californist Commercial & Fine Art Photography

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

Hi Christopher, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
Anthony Bourdain stated in his later years that he felt like he was living on borrowed time. This strikes me in a way that only a portion of our society grasps. Many of us are quiet survivors: something in our story permanently altered our state of mind, sometimes instantly, and sometimes over a long painful stretch. I feel like I’m on borrowed time because of cancer, more specifically coming through to the other side a changed man.

I enjoy doing outreach for early cancer fighters, relaying whatever nuggets of truth and wisdom I have from my battle. Many folks talk about how we were versus how we are today, after our battle—the existential lens shift. For me, this brush with mortality arrived with a deep awareness of time: how little of it I have and more importantly, how to use the rest of my tiny dash. It’s weird and some folks may find it morbid to consider that almost daily I feel my mortality. I know I’m going to die, but it’s this core point that imbues a desire to live with as much devotion and fervor as possible. To live life with, seek and engage as much passion as humanly possible.

Before cancer, I engaged in creativity, sure, but it wasn’t as deeply intentional and necessary as it was after the fight. I look at the way I created art and engaged with creativity before cancer and after cancer and I see more soul in my work today. I strongly believe that artists ought to dump their souls into their work, really be gutted into it, and hang it out there plainly, and confidently. I shifted my life around to focus more on engaging passions and seeking the flow state, a concept I deeply love. This came with a deep awareness about material possessions that often become a distraction from what living our best truly means: it’s our relationships and connections to others. One of the ways I connect with others is through my art. I’ve learned over the years this is how I want to spend the rest of my time.

When I advise novice photographers seeking early-stage wisdom, it’s important to reiterate doing photography (and creativity at large) for ourselves first. We are creative because we have to get this out of us, dump our soul on the canvas, so to speak.

I’ve been finding myself unintentionally staying up until sometimes 3 or 4 am working on pieces and contemplating life, often I’ll have Toro y Moi or Bill Evans cranked up on the Sonos, maybe some whiskey in hand, I’ll move from my editing studio to my deck, watching the fog roll into the valley behind my home, listening to the rustle of some unseen critter rummaging under the oaks in my backyard, then I’ll head back into my studio as an idea emerges. Entering the flow state after a while becomes a skill of its own. Today, it’s easier to enter the flow state when I’m creating a piece, or collecting images in the field, time moves most hastily then, and looking back on a chunk of time in the flow state always feels well spent. I never regret a moment in my studio, or outside with my camera in hand — even if I don’t capture an image that day. I want work and life to meld together, and my legacy to be a portfolio of pieces displaying an ever-evolving soul. I ground so hard in the salt mines of the rat race for so long, that my goal for remaining my time alive will be spent on all forms of self-actualization, helping others, and engaging passions.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I remember exploring deep into modern art during my undergrad and graduate school years – an important and impactful time when fresh ideas were frothing from all of my peers and mentors. I loved how modern artists transcended their ideas into their purist forms, but with subtlety and nuance. I became obsessed with the ideas expressed in impressionism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism.

This idea emerged showing me a world vetted through the artist’s soul, not simply creating something exactly as it appears in the real world. This could mean something tangible, a subject like a place or a person, but most potently what thrilled me were expressions of intangibles: emotions and the sometimes subtle qualities found in a scene, like a mood, or a feeling. When I view a piece, most of the time I don’t want to see the world for how it actually is, I want to see how the artist interprets our world. I want to see their lens. As I started creating my own work more persistently, now thousands of pieces deep, the idea of subtlety is all the more enticing. I want to tell the viewer something without bashing them over the head with the idea. I want to be set apart from others because I’m showing you a vision of the world in a hopefully unique to me manner.
I get so excited about shooting scenes I haven’t explored before; even in my commercial work, photographing products, lifestyles, or regional production work. I seek the uncommon composition, and I’ll still go after the obvious too, those are nice images to have, sure, but what really excites me are the details and nuances that make compositions and images truly individual. Where when you see the artist’s work in the wild, you know exactly whose it is.

I started as many photographers do, with traditional landscape photography, but I evolved my style with more influences from lifestyle and urban photography, folding in impressionism and California culture, exploring these rich creative bedrocks. A lot of my work reflects what I consider a quintessential California aesthetic. Just as an aside, I am obsessed with California’s culture and design legacies. It’s a fundamental, internationally recognized aesthetic that is as broad as the region itself. I love shooting throughout California and exploring less-trodden scenes, it’s always so surprising, and there’s plenty still to discover.
I’ve had more success in recent years with my business than at any other time in my life, but I also take the business development side seriously. I know my shortcomings, and I’m constantly trying to develop skills to improve my weaknesses.
I care deeply when clients reach out asking for images to convey a certain aesthetic for their brands, I always want to help my clients achieve their goals. I’m here to convey your story using all the tools and knowledge I have, but at the end of the day, I want you to be happy with my work as much as I am. If I’m approaching a commercial or regional shoot, I will, as many photographers also do, overshoot as much as practical, to have a large body of work to pull from. I find that it’s having options that allow for the best decision-making and work output. I want as many options as possible. Occasionally, if a shoot is particularly challenging, I’ll intentionally use every lens in my kit, put the drone in the air, do whatever I can to explore an idea, get a lay of the land, and the details.
Also what’s important, you need to be professional and diligent about working with client management. Be it the tangibles of having the right insurance, licensing, and business practices in place, but also managing the minutia of client expectations, and having a professional brand of my own I stand behind. Building a business in the creative sphere is far from easy, but it’s more doable now than ever before. Clients today need high-quality digital assets, and they want to work with someone professional and talented, who meets schedules, budgets, and deliverables as stated, with clear communication. I always try to outlay the relationship on the front end with my proposals and contract, to rearticulate the client’s goals and expectations as well as my own; while doing so with humility and kindness.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’m a sentimental man, so I’d start off the day with breakfast at the Clark Street Diner. Back in my twenties, I was a music writer and I loved holding my band interviews at the 101 Cafe so that Franklin Avenue location will always be a candle in my heart. I used to order hearty greasy spoon favorites, but like most of us as we enter our late thirties we realize that if we want to stick around we can’t keep cramming fried chicken and waffles into our faces without meeting the consequences. From here, we’d walk to one of my favorite cafes, The Bourgeois Pig Café, for Americanos and a chocolate chip cookie to split. This was my breakfast for I can’t tell you how long back in the day. Los Angeles is a constantly inspiring place, and it’s important to lean into the inspiration often, hitting up the MOMA, one of the Gettys, or the Museum of Contemporary Art. I crave challenging ideas and art that explores depth while deep with aesthetic character. I also have a deep store of affection for the Museum of Neon Art and all my peers who bend glass. I can’t tell you how much the colors used in creative neon art inspire my own use of color. It’s a kind of light we all love to bask in because it creates a dreamlike immersion of rich, saturated color. I wish I learned how to bend neon long ago, still on my bucket list, I admit.

After exploring museums and getting inspired, we’d head to Frogtown and grab a Terry Gross turkey sandwich on focaccia from Wax Paper, my favorite LA casual and chill sandwich shop, which we’d roll out to nearby Elysian park and eat among the narrow palm-studded roads and utmost commanding views of LA’s downtown. We’d head out to Santa Monica to ride bikes and watch the sunset before either heading back to Frogtown to eat tacos at Salazar, one of my favorite outdoor restaurant hangs, or if we’ve had a couple of pints in the Public Market, my secret recent weakness is the Nashville Hot Chicken craze, so I’d want to stand in line for a chicken sandwich at none other than Howlin Ray’s in Chinatown. We’d begin the evening with cocktails at either Varnish or the Library Bar, as I’m a cocktail simpleton who thrives on Old Fashioneds and Manhattans, and head to West Hollywood for a Goth Babe concert at my favorite venue, an iconic mainstay institution, the Troubadour.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d like to dedicate this shoutout to all in the fight, whether in mental or physical health, grinding to find your voice, or achieving a dream. I respect everyone living with intentionality and trying to get to a better place, physically, mentally, or station. It’s always important to remember that most of the time life is unbounded, that there aren’t any rules for creativity, and life is far too short to exist on anyone’s terms or expectations other than your own.

I’d also like to observe my family, my brother, and stepmother, and my friends, who have always accepted me for who I am. It’s a true treasure to have people in our lives that speak positively about our development, encourage risk-taking, remind us that they have our backs, will be our unequivocal cheerleaders, and want, more than anything else, the folks around us to thrive. If you want to know how success feels – surround yourself with people who not only urge us to make great choices, but also encourage us to be daring and take risks. I always think back to that Theodore Roosevelt’s speech, “The Man in the Arena,” where he states the strong individual “knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

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