We were lucky to catch up with Damon Corso recently and have shared our conversation below.

Damon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

While living in Los Angeles I was able to make a full-time living from my photography business. It started out very difficult but got easier as I built my client list and broadened my skills.

It all started when I was taking classes at Central Connecticut State University for journalism and photography. I was working part time at a physical therapy office as a member of the marketing team during the day and taking classes in the evenings, the company did a series of layoffs, and I was out of a job and on unemployment. Right before my layoff, 9/11 occurred and it made me realize life was short and I needed to take action.

with the extra free time I re-ignited my love for hiking that was inspired by my godfather in my mid-teens and stumbled upon a book by Bill Bryson about the Appalachian Trail, ‘A Walk in the Woods’. In the book he was overweight and out of shape and nearly finished the entire trail from Georgia to Maine. That inspired me and was a sign, I could do that. I devised a gameplan and approached my professors at the University and pitched to them that in exchange for credits, I would document my 6-month journey on the 2,197 mile long Appalachian Trail with photos and stories. They agreed. That was a life changing event, my professors inspired me to continue with my writing and photography upon getting perfect grades and the credits when I returned.

I quickly decided to move to California and attempt to pursue my career goals. I held multiple jobs when i arrived in Los Angeles as well as continuing my education at Santa Monica College focusing on general education and photography. One morning on my way to class I got a call from my neighbor who did sound production for films, he offered me an opportunity for three weeks of paid work doing sound production with him on a film called ‘Soldier of God’. I decided to bring my camera and take photos during all the rehearsal scenes. The director noticed the quality of the images and paid me extra to use them for their marketing campaign and for the DVD cover imagery. I was blown away and knew I could keep doing this.

Soon enough I was following another one of my desires, rock climbing, I met many local climbers, some sponsored and was taking photographs of them outdoors. This led to my first featured article and photos for Urban Climber Magazine. It really just snowballed after that, I started attending the annual Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City, Utah where I would network to as many companies as possible and land small jobs here and there, the biggest break being a cover photo for the prominent ‘Climbing Magazine’ Bouldering special issue, the photo went on to become one of their more iconic covers.

Meanwhile I was constantly reaching out to all the other climbing brands and magazines pitching ideas and athletes to work with. I was able to travel across the US and many European countries with some of the most well-known athletes making some memorable images and writing many feature articles. I was very passionate about rock climbing and enjoyed living the ‘Dirt Bag’ lifestyle but realized I needed to make a better living financially. I had some amazing mentors in the photography industry and expanded my skills into other styles of photography to help earn a true living; Stop Motion, Wedding, Portrait, Headshot, Fashion, Product and Landscape.

Eventually I tired of the rat races in the climbing magazine and advertisement world and started pitching ideas to Guidebook publishers. One of the largest publishing companies, Falcon Guides, offered me a contract to write a series of Climbing guides in Southern California. The process was amazing, producing two guides essentially on my own. After this I visited their headquarters and said I wanted a bigger project that would reach nationwide. Thats where the idea for a John Muir Trail coffee table style guidebook was hatched. It was a dream come true to land this project. I spent two years on that book, collaborating with many of my outdoor photography and athletic heroes, hiking sections of the trail in all seasons and culminating with a complete thru hike in 2017. When it printed in 2018, I was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award in the Outdoor Adventure category. The book has gone on to be my best-selling publication yet, feels timeless and gives me an attachment to one of the wildest places in America.

Near the end of 2019 everything changed. I suffered a serious injury on a photoshoot and was sidelined for many months of activity. By early 2020 I felt like I was finally getting my strength back and was looking forward to the future. Then the world went into lockdown, I lost all my clients, my wife and I had blown through all our savings by summer that year. We were essentially forced to leave Los Angeles and move to a friend’s property in Washington State with no solid income. We made the best of a bad situation and stayed there for over a year living as frugally as possible in a used RV we had bought with the last of our savings. Once we felt the dust had settled, we started travelling South, a magnet was drawing us toward the Eastern Sierra, a place both my wife and I had deep connections to and always wanted to live.

Slowly we made new friends and ran into old friends. I secured a job at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area as a Snowmobile and Climbing Guide and quickly advanced up the ranks and soon found myself managing both departments and working year-round. I still take photos but am slowly migrating into the MotoSports world building my new portfolios up in hopes to land new clients in the future. Climbing is still a passion of mine and in my limited free time I have been developing an alpine climbing area I found close to home and plan on self-publishing a guidebook.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Be flexible with your skills. You never know what other skills/jobs you may be good at. Through photography I learned I was very talented at lighting. I worked with many photographers as my mentors and would assist them
on set as often as possible, I was able to see shots and help pick the proper lens and build a lighting schematic to bring our vision to life. This directly led into me working for a stop motion studio where I was often in charge of four animation stages. I would come in early and start building out the lighting scene, get it perfected then choose the proper lens and settings so my animators could create the perfect scene. When I didn’t have enough photo jobs lined up for a certain month, I was able to supplement this with lighting and photo assistant jobs in Los Angeles.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.damoncorso.com
• Instagram: @damon_corso
• Facebook: Damon Corso
• Youtube: @damoncorso333

Image Credits

All images taken by Damon Corso