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

Hi David, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

It was a mix of on-the-job and school. I started shooting in high school and learned the basics there and then got my BFA in Photography. I studied when Digital Photography was still in the future and I would love to go back knowing how quickly Digital Photography became standard and start learning that earlier, instead of having to re-learn. When shooting with film the cost is much higher so I was less inclined to make mistakes and shoot just a ton of photos.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was brought up as (and am still) a street photographer with a product and still photography business as the commercial side of my trade. I shoot beauty, fashion and lifestyle for small and medium sized businesses and I love supporting people making amazing products. When I’m not shooting in the studios I’m wandering around all of L.A. California and the US snapping real life.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

In a way. I was a full time product photographer for a huge company and started taking side jobs doing product shots for cooler brands that I was personally interested in and it just took off and quickly became my full-time job. We have scaled slowly and organically as I really love what I do and want to continue shooting vs. managing a huge team, so we take the jobs we can handle and make it work with a small team.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up I was pretty naive and thought that being a fine art photographer was a lucrative business and I never really thought about the commercial aspect of it. I just thought I could snap black and white street pics and the money would show up but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Once I realized this i had a moment where I focused exclusively on the commercial business and realized I wasn’t shooting how I used to and wanted to so I had to re learn how to get back shooting on the street because that fuels my product business and creativity.

Contact Info:

• Website: upphoto.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/upphotoco/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daviduzzardi/
• Other: daviduzzardi.com

Image Credits
All images by me, David Uzzardi