CHRISTOPHER MORRIS
F
or local photojournalist Christopher Morris, shooting the 2010 Winter Olympics on home turf was a triumphant and well-deserved win in a twenty five year climb up the steep road to a successful career in photography. Two years later, his determination, ambition and passion are taking him across the pond to shoot the London 2012 Games.We caught up with Christopher shortly before he hit the road for his second go at this dream assignment.
the the inte r v iew work - just loving it. And that was long before I knew who Annie Leibovitz was. I had no idea. She wasn’t huge then because we are talking, like, 1984 when I would have been looking at that book. Another photographer whose work I loved, and I still love, is Ernst Haas. Just really phenomenal work. Those were some of the early influences. Now, some of the photographers that I think are phenomenal are Dan Winters, Chris Buck, Gregory Heisler…those are some of the photographers working now whose photography I think is fabulous.
After I quit school, I went to work in my stepfather’s used bookstore. That gave me a little bit of money to pay for film. I had a darkroom in my basement where I would process my own film. My first job in photography was as an assistant. A neighbour of mine had a commercial studio. I worked there for about a year - just long enough to realize I didn’t want to be a commercial photographer. Actually, going into it I knew I wanted to be a photojournalist. I saw this movie [Under Fire with Nick Nolte] that depicted a photojournalist and that sort of sealed the deal for me.
What was your first assignment as a photojournalist? After I quit working at the studio, I started working freelance - and I use the term loosely. I quit to go work at a local paper. I worked there for free at first. When I was getting paid I was getting $10 per assignment and that included expenses. I was using my darkroom in the basement. That was such a great experience because it was my first experience where the pictures had to come out. I had never, before that, shot under pressure. I had to shoot pictures where, if they didn’t turn out, I was screwed. There was someone who needed results and they needed to be good! I tried to go to as many events around the city as I could find. Montreal was having a mayoral race and I went to cover the debate. I met a photographer there - he suggested that I go see the photo editor at Canadian Press because he was known for mentoring young photographers. So I called him up and he said ‘yeah how about we meet Monday morning?’ That weekend there was also the collegiate football championships and I went to shoot them. There was a photographer from Canadian Press there and I talked to him and he said ‘why don’t you come with me, we’ll soup your film and see how it looks…’ because I had told him I was meeting with the photo editor the next morning. We processed my film and I had a picture that he liked so that went out on the wire. That was a great introduction to the photo editor - when he came in the next morning - I already had a picture out on the Canadian Press wire! That’s really what it took. And that’s what I don’t think some people understand, is how hard you have to work, and how much initiative you have to take.You really can’t sit at home and wait for the phone to ring. The only way you’re going to get work is if you go out and chase it down, wrestle it to the ground and make it yours. That was a great introduction for me and it showed the editor that I had initiative - that I was going to go out and do things. He was probably the toughest boss I’ll ever have but he was fair. I still talk to him and he’s probably the only one that ever sat me down and tried to teach me lessons in photography.
Who were some of the first photographers that inspired you and are there any photographers whose work you admire now? I look at a ton of photography. Two of the first photographers that I remember were Mary Ellen Mark and Annie Leibovitz. My stepfather used to save photography books for me. He’d save anything that looked remotely interesting. There was this book that profiled Mary Ellen Mark and Annie Leibovitz. I remember being just blown away by their
How did you come to shoot the 2010 Winter Olympics and who were you shooting for? I shot the Vancouver Olympics for Corbis. I’ve been a Corbis contributor for about ten or twelve years and before that I was with an agency called SABA Press Photos. I think I’d been with SABA for about eight years when Corbis bought out SABA. It was at a time when Corbis and Getty were going around buying up every agency on the planet. SABA was one of the small agencies made up of about fifty-
When did you first know that you wanted to be a photographer? In University I was going to be a lawyer. I was doing a history poly-sci undergrad degree at Carlton University - the ‘quintessential’ under-grad degree for law school. I just realized that I hated school, so I quit. I had been interested in photography in high school. Then sports and girls became way more interesting than photography.When I was in university people would ask ‘what did I major in?’ and I said ‘I majored in beer and I minored in squash.’ One of the things that I never cease to see the humour in is the fact that I failed math in high school and now there are times, when it comes to the technical aspect of photography, that I have to explain math to people. So I tell them, ‘if I can get this, you can get this’, because I have no capacity for math. So my academic career was an inauspicious one to say the least.
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photohaus magazine fall 2012
five photographers. It got bought up and suddenly I found myself as part of the collective. It was sort of like we’d been absorbed by the Borg. That’s the way it felt at the time, but Corbis has been really good for me. I worked for Corbis for the 2010 Olympics and I’m going to London for them in a couple of weeks. I’d say probably the reason why I’ve had such a good experience at Corbis is because I’ve dealt with some really good people and right now, one of the best people I’ve dealt with is my editor Seth. He
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