Erik Umphery '00 - Shooting the Stars

Erik Umphery ’00 is an accomplished, Los Angeles-based photographer. His work has been displayed on countless billboards in prime locations like Times Square, San Francisco, South by Southwest, Miami, and L.A. His images have been used in advertising for companies like Beats by Dre, Coca-Cola, Gillette, Walmart, BET, Atlantic Records, and more. Beyoncé, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jamie Foxx, and dozens of other celebrity artists, actors, athletes, and comedians have been in front of his camera.

And, he never would have guessed any of this about himself 10 years ago. After graduating from Clark Atlanta University with a bachelor’s degree in finance, Erik spent the first nine years of his professional life as a product manager in the tool and hardware industry. The money was good, and the perks were abundant. But, God had a different plan for his life – a plan that had been in the works since childhood.

When Erik was seven years old living in Baltimore, his school-teacher mother unknowingly ignited the first spark in what would eventually lead to Erik’s successful career in photography. During the summers, she would register Erik and his brother for various camps and enrichment programs. One of them was for photography, and Erik fell in love with it. His mom bought him his first SLR camera, and he carried it around everywhere with him for years.

That initial passion, however, would fade almost as quickly as it came about. When Erik was 11 years old, his mom died, and he put down his camera. Just a few years later, the summer before he started as a freshman at Mount Saint Joseph, Erik also lost his dad. His grandmother stepped up to raise him and his brother. A retired teacher, she, like Erik’s mom, stressed the importance of education and learning. Erik remembers playing football for the Gaels his freshman year. Never good at managing multiple activities, his grades started slipping early on. “I played until report cards came out,” he laughs.

However, Erik’s experience at The Mount offered him more than just the opportunity to excel academically. He explains, “Saint Joe prepared me tremendously for the transition into college and the workforce. When I got to Saint Joe, I was exposed to all these people from different walks of life. And, when you go off into the workforce, the same thing happens. It’s not just people from my neighborhood that I’m working with; I’m interacting with all different kinds of people.”

Just out of college, Erik started working for Stanley Tools as a product manager for toolboxes, taking the products from design all the way through retail. “It was great because they gave me a whole lot of responsibility and not a lot of resources, so I got to learn so much,” he says. The combination of responsibility, learning opportunities, a laid-back company culture, and a more-than-comfortable salary made for a pretty ideal job.

After about four and a half years at Stanley, Erik’s boss left for a different company and Erik was quick to follow. A couple of years later, God subtly made his plan known once more.

“I always wanted to get back into photography, but I didn’t know how,” Erik says. “I had no idea people had careers out of it. It was just something I was always interested in and drawn to, and it wasn’t until the last two years I was working in corporate when I saw a post on Facebook asking if anyone wanted to take a photography class. So, I bought a camera and signed up, and from that point on I was hooked.”

Meanwhile, at work, Erik had lost the excitement and enjoyment he’d once had in his job at Stanley. With a different company culture and the stress of an economic crash, Erik began to realize that he did not want to spend the rest of his life working in corporate. He had to make a change.

Before he made the leap to leave his job, Erik started learning everything he could about photography. The work ethic instilled in him by his mom and grandmother throughout his childhood led him to pivotal opportunities. “One of my friends introduced me to a photographer who had just left corporate to pursue photography,” says Erik. “He told me to shoot on every weekend, so that’s what I did. And every time I shot, I would meet other photographers.”

One thing led to another, and Erik ended up with an internship for a professional photographer named Derek Lane. “I am 27 years old at this point, a senior manager at my company, and I am interning for a guy maybe five years older than me,” he says. “Most of the people on his team are 20 or 21. So, I had to humble myself, taking directions from them and schlepping things around, just so I could be in that environment. I just wanted to learn. I did that for about a year, and I decided I was ready.”

So, with his grandmother’s blessing and support, Erik made the decision to leave his comfortable corporate job to try to make a name for himself in the photography business. He picked up and moved to L.A. shortly after. The next couple of years consisted of much more learning, setting up test shoots, and continuously seeking out and building a network of industry professionals across the country who would each play a key role in helping Erik become the photographer he is today.

Derek Lane proved to be one of the most valuable connections Erik made. “The first big job I did was because of Derek,” says Erik. “He was shooting this campaign for BET where they brought in 20 or so celebrities over the course of two days, and they needed a second photographer. I got to shoot Kevin Hart, Usher, Damon Wayans – a long list of celebrities. These were people I admired my whole life.”

He admits, “At the time, I didn’t even want to shoot celebrities because I had this misconception of what a celebrity was and how they acted. Then, when I had this experience and I got to meet and work with all these different celebrities, I realized they are really cool. They all have so many interesting stories. That kind of led me to realize I was interested in shooting people. I like hearing their stories, and I like capturing them.”

For Erik, hearing those stories is a vital part of his creative process. “The biggest thing for me i photography is being able to connect with people,” he explains. “I need to be able to make a connection with someone in a really short amount of time, especially with celebrities. I’ve had three minutes with some, and I’ve had 12 hours with some, but no matter what amount of time I have with them, I have to connect with them to get what I need from them on camera.”

Now, with hundreds of celebrity portraits filling his portfolio, Erik looks back on his unusual career path, grateful for all the connections he made along the way. “It’s interesting to look back on your life and see how the dots all connect in a way that when you’re living in it and going through it, you can’t understand,” he says. “I’ve had so many full circle moments because of photography.”

One of those full circle moments came when Erik had the chance to shoot Anita Baker, his mom’s favorite singer. “I got to spend the whole day with her,” he shares. “When she talks, it sounds like her voice signing. So, every time she spoke, it made me think of my mom. After that first day shooting with her, I was driving home, and I just broke down crying because it felt like I had just spent the whole day with my mom’s presence.”

Erik has felt more and more connected with his parents as he’s continued to meet and work with different people and listen to their own life stories. From behind his lens, he can’t help but think back to that first camera from his mom, smiling to himself at the serendipity of it all.

“God has a plan for all of us, and you’re not going to get there in a straight line,” Erik reflects. “There are going to be twists and turns. Even my time in corporate taught me so much, so I had to go to corporate. I had to leave it. I had to have early successes and struggles to be prepared for where I’m at now. There are lessons in every detour, and they will circle you back to where you’re supposed to be according to God’s plan for you.”