Meet Oliver Ponce | Cinematographer, Photographer, and Creative Director

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

Hi Oliver, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I had never really thought about starting a business just about creating art with my friends and sharing it with the world. But after 10 years of investing my own money into my own projects; I finally started to make money and created my own business and now I get to pay my friends to help me share art to the world.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m a visual storyteller whether its photography, cinematography or camera operating all the roads are different but they lead to the same destination. I like making my art to make people think, laugh or cry. Recently, during the pandemic I believe that I have done some of my best work due to all the chaos that has happened around myself and the world and channel it into my art. I was able to create two projects close to me: One is a documentary called ” L.A. Rise’s” that tells the story of the L.A. protest’s, riot’s, and cleanup during the George Floyd uprising. The 2nd is a photo collection I shot during the L.A. covid shutdown, I photographed my girlfriend Kerry Goodwin in a gas mask in the lonely streets of L.A. and was able to reflect how we all felt during the shutdown. Now, thanks to 20 years of daily dedication I am starting to arrive professionally where I want to be and recently operated on the NBC Emmy Award winning show This Is Us. It wasn’t easy and I made a lot of mistakes, but if it weren’t for the mistakes I wouldn’t have learned and grown. The biggest lesson I’ve learned along the way is treat others well and they will have your back. You do them wrong and they will be long gone. I hope through this journey I will discover how we can best connect and learn more about each other through a visual medium.

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?
My favorite spots in LA consist of downtown art galleries, LACMA, Olivera Street, and Sunset Blvd in Silverlake. I enjoy walking this streets because it puts me side by side with the people of LA. LA is one of the biggest diverse cities in the US where you can learn about different cultures, religion, and food without any judgement. At night, I enjoy the LA rave scene and taco stands. While weekends I enjoy spending time down by the Santa Monica and Venice beaches, where you can discover different types of fashion.

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 am a very lucky person to have always had a support system around me. My Local 600 co-worker and friend Jim Thibo has taught me and brought me along to work with him in the visual effects camera department on big features such as: Spiderman 2, Interstellar, and the Matrix Resurrection. My friend and editor Greg Young has been by my side during this pandemic and has taken my photo’s and video’s and turn them into beautiful works of art. My mentor and legendary actor, Luis Guzman has taught me while traveling with him to keep my head up when life gets you down. And, I couldn’t do it without the encouragement of my mom and the love of my girlfriend.

Website: olivonstudio.com

Instagram: @olivonstudio

Image Credits
Photos by: 1 – Cheryl Collins 2 – Temma Hankin 3 – Max Weckbaugh 4 – Richard Phelps 5 – Greg Young 6 – Oliver Ponce