Meet Johnny Joo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Johnny Joo.

Hi Johnny, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I started with photography in high school around the age of 16, mostly taking the class because it was an art class and I was interested in the arts. I thought it would be a nice way to pass some more time during the school day filling it with art-related work. I ended up loving photography so much more than I thought I would.

For one of my first projects, I photographed an abandoned farmhouse and barn in Kirtland, Ohio. This pretty much instantly shifted my focus to abandoned structures, and for years I continued to capture abandoned places.

It wasn’t until about 2012 that I started researching the places I had photographed as much as I could, and started writing about their history. I felt that a blog would be a good place to host the stories to share with anyone who was interested. After a couple of years of running my blog, I was contacted by someone at Buzzfeed to share my photos of abandoned malls in a story they were running about abandoned malls. I allowed them to use my photos and had pretty much woken up to see that the story had gone viral, and many new people were finding my work because of it.

At this same time, I had been working on a book with the compiled stories from my blog, mostly just for family and friends, but also for whoever else out there would see and want to pick up a copy.

After the Buzzfeed article, Huffington Post contacted me wanting to run a story on my work and included a link to my book.

About 100 other people other than friends and family ordered a copy of this book, and from then I just kept doing all I could to build my portfolio, and continue to create other books over the years.

There is so much more to the entire story, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

It has been incredible to see the number of people finding my work and enjoying it over these years, and I am so grateful for the opportunity in my lifetime to do something I have always wanted to do – have a career in art.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Working with art in any way is almost never a smooth road.

The biggest struggle any artist faces I don’t think ever truly go away.

You have to create something from nothing and hope that to others it means something. Sure, you can love creating, and that’s like…the whole entire joy of art, right? To enjoy it for yourself, and who cares what others think?

Though, you still want others to feel what you have created, and what you are sharing. Whether that be anger, joy, etc. you want them to feel something. That’s just as important as what you feel yourself when creating. On top of that, you need to live and be able to continue creating art, so if you want to do it as a career, you need to turn it into your job. Finding a balance between passion/job is the hardest thing.

Aside from this, sure, there have been numerous struggles but I only use them as ways to learn and to try and push forward from them. If I can do that, then I have made a huge step and have learned something along the way, leaving me often better off than I was before it. It’s difficult, but you can’t just give up if it’s something you love and want to do. I worked with photography for nearly 8 years before I had even sold anything more than a few prints. But I knew that since at least those few people had wanted my work, and others were enjoying my work, there are other people out there who will enjoy it the same way.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m not sure so much about what would set me apart from others. I don’t really like to think like that. I’ve been told many things that people enjoy about me that set me apart from others that they see/follow/etc., but I just don’t like to think about that. I just like to continue being me, and doing what I do, whatever I feel is the next thing I want to do, I just do my best to get out and do it.

As far as my work goes, I wouldn’t say I “specialize” in just abandoned or forgotten places, but I am definitely known for that body of my work. It also remains one of my favorite subjects to capture, but I just love so many aspects of photography, it’s hard to say I love one subject most. I enjoy some more than others, but I am always taking photos.

I have a few different ongoing projects though, My entire body of work consists of quite a few different things. One of the projects I’m working on lately is my “Fading Hours” series, which shows scenes during the blue hour of morning or evening, and all of the moody night scenes in between. Those are my favorite times to photograph so many different scenes when I am not rolling around in the dirt of an abandoned building or house. But yeah, aside from that I still do take on client work, such as weddings, which I took a few of each year between everything else. It’s what I started doing when I wanted to build my photography business as mostly client-based work like weddings, senior portraits, etc., before shifting more towards the work I do now. I just really enjoy capturing wedding days, so I didn’t want to completely stop doing them.

What am I most proud of? Probably just that I actually get to share so many stories with so many people, and have been able to continue doing something that I love to do. I’m not sure. I’m proud of a lot I guess, but again I don’t like to think about it too much, because I just like to focus on my work and continue doing more. Whenever I hit a goal, I immediately set another goal to move towards.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Work with others as much as you can. Learn from each other. Do all you can to get rid of this ridiculous gatekeeping in the art world (especially photography), where people think they’re better than others, or refuse to help/teach. Too many people do this, mostly because they’re too scared that people will shift focus toward the work of others, and forget about theirs. They want all of the focus to be on them, and none on others. It’s a ridiculous way of thinking, and I could go on and on about this, but I’ll just leave it at that. I love seeing others succeed. I don’t know why anyone would be against seeing another artist succeed, especially ones doing similar work. We need to work together, because that’s how we learn the most, and we could do so much better.

Keep learning, because there is always something new to learn. Don’t let yourself hit a point where you think there is nothing more you can do. Always look for the next step.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.oddworldstudio.com or www.johnnyjoo.com + www.architecturalafterlife.com
• Instagram: @scrap_brain
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/JohnnyJooPhotography
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/urbexus