Art Commisso

Art Commisso

Job Description

I am a commercial headshot and portrait photographer who specializes in bringing out the best in people so they can make a lasting impact with their personal brand.

Relevant School Subjects

Arts

Areas Of Expertise

Arts & Culture

Career Story

I’m what some might consider a late bloomer. I grew up in a family business lifestyle. My parents founded a chain of dry cleaners, where I had my first taste of branding/marketing at 7 years old after naming the business; which grew to over 30 locations across southern Ontario. I fell in love with advertising and marketing, working alongside my late father, brainstorming ideas, and making ads in Microsoft Paint (that never went to print, for obvious reasons)

In grade 8, I fell in love with music, photography and design. It was a passion of mine, and I carried that through high school and on to college, but I was pushed away from pursuing a career in the arts in favour of stability and predictability. So, I studied creative advertising at Mohawk College, but after my 3rd year internship, I discovered that it wasn’t for me. I ended up working for the family business after college, helping my mother operate the company. My father had passed away when I was 17 and she had been running the company on her own.

I battled depression, self-confidence issues and an overwhelming sense of unfulfillment. Mind you, I was still pursuing many of my passions on the side. I was producing music, DJ’ing on weekends, but my everyday workweek was draining me and sucking out any joy I had for the things I loved doing. I left the family business in 2017 to take a stab at freelance graphic design and start exploring photography and videography.

I was really curious and interested in being a wedding videographer. I joined all the facebook groups and watched all the youtube videos hoping to learn the ins and outs in preparation for my friends wedding (which i shot for free). I stumbled across a post in a wedding videography group from someone looking for a video editor.

I had edited videos in the past and because of my design and computer background, I was pretty efficient, but had no valuable experience. So I volunteered to edit the video for free. As it turns out, this wasn’t a wedding video or wedding videographer, but a producer at a marketing agency. I still went with it. The work I turned in was 10x faster than their previous editors and the quality was better. So they not only paid me for the work I did for free but began sending me a consistent stream of work. 2 months later, they hired me full-time and 4 years later, I was the VP of marketing at that company.

Those were some of the greatest years in my professional career, but the company was growing quickly and I was working crazy hours. Eventually I had had enough so with the photography equipment I had, I set up a small studio in my basement, built a website and ran some google ads. That was a Thursday and on Monday I had my first client.

The clients kept coming. I was the happiest I had ever been and knew I was on to something.

I quit my job in March 2023, and in the same year, I opened a commercial studio in December of the same year.