biography
After 18 years in photography, Lopez has carved a career as a music photographer shooting artists in every genre from Rock to Classical artists. Essentially Lopez is a portrait photographer who loves music and is fortunate to combine his two biggest passions. Lopez started his career as a commercial advertising photographer shooting room sets, cars and product photography. In 1993 Lopez traveled the world with his Mamiya C330 firmly attached to his hand and a large stock of film. Shooting for the various tourist commissions in Australia Lopez turned a year traveling into a profit making adventure, coming home with a healthy profit after a year away. On his return Lopez found it difficult to settle back into commercial life, wanting more from his career. After reading a feature in the British Journal of Photography about Raleigh International 3 months later Lopez found himself in the far regions of southern Chile as expedition photographer in 1997. Lopez talks passionately about Raleigh International and would encourage all young photographers to take the challenge! “It was the most challenging experience of my life as a photographer and as a man”
On his return from Chile, Lopez was invited back the following year to film a documentary with Channel 4 on the ups and down of a Raleigh expedition at that point Lopez’s career took another turn when he read a classified advertisment in the BJP for a staff position with Sony Music. After 2 interviews Lopez was selected from over 300 applicants and offered the job as staff photographer in ’98.
Following an illustrious career with Sony Music Lopez has photographed an amazing selection of artists from Blondie to Tony Bennett. Over 60 cover shoots and over 100 press shoots Lopez took full advantage of his position and made a prominent name for himself as a music photographer.
In 2003, Lopez released his first book, ‘dj’s by lopez’, a collection of 100 portraits of Dj’s from around the globe. Due to the success of the book 21 images were selected by the National Portrait Gallery for an exhibition of dance music icons of the last ten years. In 2006 Lopez acted as the project manager for Sonybmg and Getty Images editing and selecting images from an archive covering 35 years of music history.
In 2008, Lopez worked on various projects including co-directing Magnificent Strangers documentary on the life of music producer Henrik Takkenberg. Lopez also exhibited ‘Cardinal Sins’ at MuTate Britain – “Wrong but Strong” (Evening Standard) At the end of the year he was approached by JWT to photograph a calendar to raise money for Raleigh International. The calendar was a huge success.
2009 saw big changes for Lopez with many of his shoots taking place broad including Reykjavik, Hamburg, Madrid, Monaco and Dubai. Lopez is currently working on his next coffee table book project, ‘Beach Huts of Bournemouth’ and continues to shoot artists all over the world.
PUBLISHING
Copies of Dj’s by Lopez are still available direct from Lopez’s web site. DJ’s by Lopez is available in 2 formats.
6 x 6” paper book retails at £9.99 plus postage and packing.
12 x 12” hard back retails at £29.00 plus postage and packing.
Please send all enquiries here
Links
To view information and sample images from the book go to the link below:
Bournemouth Beach Huts
