We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Luigi Ciuffetelli. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Luigi below.

Hi Luigi, thanks for joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I have been a working Commercial Photographer since the age of 20 and have been for 40 years now. I knew at the age of 12 that I wanted to be a photographer, most importantly a Fashion Photographer. I was also always interested in art as a child, drawing and painting, and when I was 12, my older cousin got a camera for Christmas, when I saw it, I was mesmerized. The next Christmas, My sister gave me a camera, and I pretty much never put it down, it became a part of me.

I grew up with two much older sisters who always had fashion magazines laying around. As a young boy, I would look through the magazines and was, of course, attracted to the photos of the models. I’ve always had an eye for detail and I noticed that there was always a credit to the photographer who took the photos. That’s when I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my life.

I went to an all boys Catholic High School and was lost most of the time there except when I was in art class. I showed my art teacher some of my photos and he suggested that I attend a new art school that had opened a year prior, the Art Institute of Philadelphia. It was like home to me, I excelled there, graduated and went to work for a local Commercial Philly Photographer, where I learned the business of taking photos for catalogs and advertising agencies. Two years later, I moved to NYC to pursue my passion as a Fashion Photographer. For the next two years, I assisted some of the most famous Fashion Photographers in NYC, and worked on my portfolio.

I eventually landed a position at Macy’s NYC as a freelance fashion photographer and started shooting the fashion photos for their ad supplements. Then, through old fashioned networking, I started shooting the fashion and beauty stories for a handful of New York Magazines. I was living and working in NYC when the 911 disaster happened, and after 13 years, I decided that the fashion business in NYC wasn’t making me happy. I moved back home to Delaware and switched my focus to the corporate editorial and advertising world of photography, and I have been busier than ever for the past three decades.

My industry has grown and changed drastically over the past 40 years. I worked very hard at networking my entire career, that was much harder to do way back then. Social media has made that much easier, only more challenging. The digital camera and the past two decades has multiplied the amount of Photographers in the business hundreds of times from when I started out. I think that if I was starting out in today’s world, it would be way more challenging to succeed. I have a lot of respect for the young upcoming photographers today, especially in the commercial side of the business. Retail photographers, the wedding and portrait folks, come and go, they seem to get burned out after a few years, it’s a tough business. The commercial advertising business is much harder to break into, but when you get there and get the respect of the industry, you can make a lot of money and not have to work 20 hour days, 7 days a week.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Like I said earlier, I knew at a young age what I wanted to do with my life, I was lucky. I only had one focus my entire life, I did not have a back up plan, my main focus was to be a photographer. I put in my 10,000 hours a few times over, my passion for what I wanted to do was very intense and I did not think of anything else. I visualized my life as a photographer from the first day I discovered the camera. I literally had a camera in my hand every minute of the day, it became a part of me, like wearing a shirt, pants and shoes.

When I started in the business of photography, there was no such thing as a digital camera, it was film, and it was not something that everyone could do. It was and is an art form, exposing film was challenging, and there was a lot of trial and error that took days and weeks to figure out. I truly believe that learning how to shoot film made me a better photographer, especially when the digital camera surfaced. Most of the new photographers who learned on a digital camera never really understood the concept of how film worked. Digital technology is much more forgiving, and what I see today, is that most of the imagery produced is more of digital art than photography. I am sure there are some people who will disagree, it’s simply my opinion. My advice to a person starting out would be get a film camera and learn how to expose film so you can understand the limitations.

I am strictly an editorial and advertising photographer, I do not shoot weddings, I only shoot family portraits for family and friends and I shoot very little events. I like to produce imagery for clients who have a product or service that they want to promote. I have nothing against the Wedding shooters, it is a great business and those folks hustIe and can make a serious amount of money, but they work way to hard. I also have huge amount of respect for journalism photographers in my industry, I started out wanting to go that direction, but they unfortunately do not make a lot of money, but in my opinion, they tend to be the most creative.

I have lived several lives in my business, starting out in the fashion world in NYC. It was my main passion and dream, but in the end, I found the fashion industry to be a little tempestuous. I had a lot of success though, I shot a lot of catalog fashion and a ton of editorial fashion. Shooting for magazines and seeing my credit line was the highlight of my career and, to this day, it never gets old. I still do a lot of that type of work, only it is in the corporate world now, I mostly shoot website content and ads for big business and advertising.

The most notable part of my career was serving as Vice President Biden’s Inaugural photographer in 2009. That was challenging for me, because most of the week I was shooting behind the scene content as a journalist, which felt natural, since I feel that I have a journalistic style to my work, but hard, because I had no control. I like to control all of my photography, which is why I have always been in the commercial side of the industry. I think that is part of what sets me apart, but I am not alone.

The one advantage that I have, is my fashion experience. I really learned a lot about the human body and how it moves and what looks good on film when you position people in certain ways. I also have a very sharp eye for detail, I think it’s important to study your image and look for the things that should and shouldn’t be there.

I get a lot of feed back from my clients, and most of them tell me this;
“You are very efficient, confident and aware of what you are doing. I like that you give me direction and make me feel at ease”.

I have been told that I can do in 30 minutes what other photographers take all day to do. Does that make me better, I don’t think so, but in the corporate world, time is money. Wasting people’s time will be the best way to not get the next assignment.

I specialize in photographing people, and it is very important that you listen to your subject, try to get to know them, even if it’s for a brief 10 minutes. Ask questions, listen to their concerns, scan their environment to see what you have in common with them, and talk. Photographing people is like dating in a weird way. You have to be charming without being creepy, you have to show interest without being intrusive, you have to be interesting but you also have be interested. Making the person you are photographing feel at ease and comfortable is going to produce a great image. That’s not always easy to do, but I think I do it well, and 99 percent of the time, I seem to make it work. The one percent though, is what keeps me up at night. There is always going to be a moment when things don’t workout the way you want them to, and for me, that is the best part, learning from a mistake or a moment that was tense, and making sure it never happens again.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

For me, the most challenging event in my career was the COVID Pandemic. When the pandemic hit I had been in business for 35 years. I, like most, had no idea that it would last for more than two years. I saw a lot of artists loose their businesses, and I have to admit, I was nervous too. I think that the biggest mistake artists make is they neglect the business aspect of being in business. Being creative is not enough. I have a great set of clients that I kept in touch with, I used the down time to reinvent my website and brand, and because I was set up as a proper business, I was able to get grants and loans to stay above water. But most importantly, I had an emergency fund in place, I saved and invested my money over the years and had 6 months of expenses set aside for an emergency. My advise, save as much money as you can, and start early.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to be the best version of me I can be. I am never happy with what I have done and I continually strive to be better and the best at what I do. When I bid on an assignment, I expect to get, if I do, that is awesome and I give it 110 percent. If I don’t get it, I try to figure it why and what can I do to make sure I get it the next time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.luigic.com
• Instagram: luigicphoto
• Facebook: Luigi.Ciuffetelli.Photography
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/luigic

Image Credits
All Photos © Luigi Ciuffetelli 2023