We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Christopher Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

One of my favorite projects was doing a shoot for Guo Pei, a renown Chinese fashion designer. She is best known for designing Rihanna’s dress for the Met Gala. I shot her dresses at the Bowers Museum in Orange County. I used colored light to highlight the intricacies of each dress and complement the colors. I’ve been shooting fashion for about 20 years and there are no designers on the level of Guo Pei. She is one of a kind with an imagination that has no bounds.

David, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was raised in a conservative Asian suburb of Los Angeles and never really fit in. A 3rd generation Chinese American, I dreamt of working with celebrities at a young age. In high school, I was writing for my high school newspaper and won a journalism competition hosted by Scholastic. The prize was $5000 plus writing for Seventeen Magazine. I started writing cd reviews for the magazine and discovered they were hosting the Teen Choice Awards. Naturally, I asked if I could cover the awards for them. I told them I had a digital camera and they asked me if I wanted to be their official digital photographer. The year was 1999 and everyone was shooting film. At the awards, I took the most exclusive photographed and mixed and mingled with the likes of Britney Spears, N Sync and Backstreet Boys. My dreams were coming true.

I started my first online magazine in 2001 called TDink which was about fashion, technology and lifestyle. I was the first to do fashion editorial shoots online and I also did tech and restaurant reviews. I used the magazine to experience life; anything I wanted to do, I would write about it. The reason why I started my own magazine was because I was tired of having to get approval from editors every time I wanted to do something. Now, I was my own boss and the world was my playground.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

NFTs are here to stay. I wrote a book called Everything you Need to Know about NFTs back when it first became hot in 2021. As a digital artist, I’m always looking for ways to monetize my content; the dream is to use those funds to fund my personal projects. NFTs give artists a way to create digital works of art that can live on the blockchain for til the end of time.

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

I’ve been told the word no so many times in my life. Since I began my career, I’ve had to fight for everything. I had to seek out opportunities and make them happen on my own. In order to get these opportunities, you have to think outside of the box and you have to be fearless. You have to be ok with rejection. There have been so many times that celebrities have turned me down for photoshoots but there are so many times where they haven’t turned me down. If I didn’t have the courage to ask them in the beginning, then I would never get to shoot them.

Shooting celebrities is very difficult because you need to deal with their team and there are always so many agendas. The process is extremely political but I love being around their creative energy so it’s worth it to me. Over my 24 year career, I have photographed Lady Gaga, the Kardashians, Demi Moore, Mandy Moore, Britney Spears, Carmen Electra, Jessica Simpson, Quincy Jones, Snoop, Usher, and so many more.      

Contact Info:

• Website: dclee.net
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/davidcleephotography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealdavidclee
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dclee/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/luxesquire
• Youtube: http://youtube.com/davidsguide

Image Credits
Photography by David Christopher Lee