Today we’d like to introduce you to Shane McCormick.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been a professional photographer for almost eighteen years. I paid rent in college shooting graduation portraits at the University of North Texas, but I’d been taking pictures long before that. My grandfather put an Olympus 35mm in my hands when I was six, just to play with. Every summer after that, my mother sent me to camp and on family vacations with a disposable camera.
We were lower middle class, so a shiny new digital camera was never on the table. Then my mother started reselling clothes on eBay and bought a little Fujifilm FinePix A101 that held about fifteen photos before the memory filled up. That was it. I was hooked.
I shot my friends doing keg stands at sixteen, and kids doing kickflips at skate camp and hooligans in the streets. I became the kid who always had a camera, then the party photographer in college. I was about to enter the photo program when I realized the students a few years ahead of me, the ones about to graduate, couldn’t change their own depth of field. I was already making money, so I dropped out.
An old family friend offered me a spot on a special effects crew alongside my father, on a movie shoot outside Austin. It was creative and photography-adjacent, so I jumped at the chance. It took a few years to understand that following my father wasn’t my calling. After filming The Leftovers for HBO and one too many Dick’s Sporting Goods commercials that ended in sun poisoning, I left to forge my own path in Dallas.
I struggled. I shot whatever I could and showed face wherever I could, working the door as a bouncer in Deep Ellum to stay afloat. Concerts, gigs, events, weddings. Years of it.
My big break was a man named Marc Rebillet. He walked past a birthday party my friends and I were throwing, a woman on each arm. I asked if he’d give me five minutes. I ran inside, grabbed my camera and more women, put him in the middle of the group, and took the shot. The rest is history. I toured with him and the crew for the next few years, and traveled the country for a company called The Match Artist.
After all that travel, I settled in Dallas and took a marketing job at Bishop Cider. A year later, the position was dissolved, and I was let go. I bought a one-way ticket to Portugal.
I’ve been backpacking and shooting my fine art series ever since. I have no real place to call home, but my heart is in a small coastal town called Ericeira in Portugal. Three months at a time: Istanbul, Morocco, now Albania. Backpacking through countries I know almost nothing about is a dream, and I know how lucky I am to be living it. I don’t know if I’ll come back to the States, given the current political climate. I know one thing, though. I feel free.
It’s my Leica and me now. No professional gear, no lighting stands. A fixed 28mm and blisters on my feet. I want to stand in as many perspectives and sit inside as many cultures as I can, for as long as I can. Go everywhere I haven’t been, meet everyone I haven’t met, eat everything I haven’t tried, and bring back the pictures for all to see.
Everything I learned, I learned in Texas. I learned working the doors in Deep Ellum and on Red River in Austin. Shooting weddings and charity events for rich people I didn’t want to be around. Texas taught me how to do it. I’m just doing it now, all over the world.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I wouldn’t say it has been a smooth road, but a twisting, winding one with lots of potholes and roadside attractions.
I let a girlfriend right out of college convince me I would never make it as a photographer. I sold my camera. I ended up in an Amazon warehouse, then doing tech support for a real estate CRM company, before getting fired for “not being interested in the job.”
A few months later, I had a new camera, thanks to my incredible mom and what little money I had saved. A few weeks after that, I quit the door guy position because I’d landed enough steady gigs to live on. I had to hit rock bottom before climbing back out with a new focus.
The life of a photographer isn’t for the faint of heart. It comes down to how comfortable you’re willing to live. For me, that’s not a problem. I can sleep in a hammock in the rain just about anywhere. In the early days, it was a lot of bean burritos and ramen, and when it was crunch time for rent, I always somehow landed the right gig. I did that for years.
I still have no real place to call home. The one place that comes close, I’m only allowed to be in 90 days out of every 180. For now, it’s a single hiking backpack, a truly nomadic life, and a burning desire to never return to the United States.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As of now, I am traveling the world in search of new faces and cultures to expand my worldview. Whatever comes from that inspiration will be my next big project. I’m currently trying to break into fine art photography and sell prints from my travels. I’ll be creating large 1-of-1 museum-grade prints to sell very soon.
You can find my fine art work here: www.shanemccormickart.com
What’s next?
I try not to plan too far ahead as of now. I have been following the road that is laid out before me. I stay on the path of least resistance and avoid fighting the current. I hope to one day show my photos in a gallery, maybe sell some prints, and make a name for myself in the art world. Until then, I’ll go where the wind blows.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.shanemccormickart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portrait_god/
- Other: https://www.shanemccormickphoto.com/
