Meet Diego Lopez | Cinematographer

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

Hi Diego, can you share a quote or affirmation with us?
My favorite affirmations are all of the scrolls from The Greatest Salesman in the World. I enjoy listening to them as often as a can while I am on my way to work in the mornings. A couple of my favorites are: “I am natures greatest miracle” and “I will live this day as if it were my last.” They keep me centered when I am worried about the problems surrounding my life and give me drive to keep moving forward always.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I make pictures for a living. Pretty pictures. To go more in depth and make myself feel better about it; I make an attempt to convey and inspire emotions through a visual medium using light and shadows to an audience about a certain subject. My goal in being a cinematographer is that one day someone will look at a image of mine and be able to say that they FELT an emotion. That is when I know I did what I set out to do. From a young age I have always wanted to make movies because of the inspiration they gave me in my own life. They have inspired me to win world wide martial arts tournaments and climb to Mt. Everest base camp and do just what they did to me, inspire people. I adore the emotions that a moving image can evoke. I love telling a story about someone who has overcome adversity. To me cinematography is poetry. It is an image of a metaphor injected straight into your brain that can change your life.

I wish I would have known that you could have a career making movies when I was younger. I would have started at age six when my brother and cousins would make home movies about cowboys and random kidnappings. I didn’t actually find that out until my second year in college when I switched my major from Opera/Pre-Med. One year late I was living in a “studio apartment” (more like a closet in studio city working as Production Assistant from one of the scummiest reality shows ever made. Nevertheless, I was working under an Oscar-winning DP as well as going to film school. Those two allowed me to learn lighting and learn how to light quickly, quickly. Over the next several years I went to film school at night (sometimes literally all night) and worked twelve-hour days during the day, sometimes sleeping in my car outside the production office for an hour or so or sleeping on a bed of Pelican cases in the gear cage. Eventually, I got some sleep and got my first DP job on yet another reality show. Needless to say it is not where my heart lies but I still make the best attempt to make the best images and covey the best stories I can through my work and it has let me to go on and do bigger and better jobs.

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.
Yosemite. I would immediately drive my best friend up the the greatest national park in the US and we’d spend the week climbing big wall, eating at the Awahnee, finding secret camping spots in the backcountry, drinking German beer and sitting by the fire at the lodge. I would not have it any other way.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to acknowledge my parents. I was fortunate enough to have parents that I am completely able to look up to and admire. I know that not everyone is nearly as lucky as I am and I really try to be thankful for that every day. They have always supported every decision I’ve made, even the most crazy ones like rope swinging off of my high school gym through a wall of cardboard boxes for a pep rally… in a kilt. They have always led me to be the best person I can be, introducing me at a young age to people like writings Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Anthony Robbins and Og Mandino. Say what you want about self help books – I believe they are written for a reason and those reasons seem to help me through my life. Another person is my older brother. When it comes to strong, strong-willed, inspiring, viciously intelligent and admirable people, my brother could kick all of the rests asses, quite literally, he is nearly a black belt in Jiu Jitsu. My brother has always been there for me and always been an absolute model when it comes to someone I want to be like. Good luck beating him at anything, especially chess. He is also the most well-read person I have ever met, reading around 30 books a year. I have always wanted to be just like him. I hope I can make these three people proud.

Instagram: instagram.com/eolumpas