Meet Mitch Lazorko

We were lucky to catch up with Mitch Lazorko recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mitch, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome is something I have struggled with my entire life, and it’s something I have to continue to keep in check. If we back up a little bit to my early 20s, for a period of time I was a professional guitarist. I lived in Nashville, TN, and would tour with bands and artists as a “hired gun.” I made a living traveling the U.S. getting to do what I loved. Even when I would play shows in front of thousands of people, I felt like an imposter. Like someone was going figure out that I wasn’t “really” a guitarist and that I didn’t know what I was doing. I took a long time to acknowledge that I was a “real” professional and that a lot of people out there feel like an imposter sometimes too. To bring it back to the present, nowadays as a Director of Photography I do still have some of those same feelings come back. I think one of the big challenges with social media on this front is that we have access to all the best work at our fingertips. I often look to the DPs of blockbuster cinema or famous still photographers for inspiration to help grow my work. Playing the comparison game can make anyone feel a little less confident in their own work. Now, when I start to feel imposter syndrome creeping in, I will acknowledge other people’s work with the praise it deserves while also affirming that I DO actually know what I’m doing.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

My name is Mitch Lazorko, and I’m the owner of Lazorko Photography. I’m a Director of Photography that specializes in corporate interviews as well as personal and commercial branding, both photo and video. The story begins with cats! My wife, Jen, and I foster kittens, and at a certain point I wanted to take better pictures so these cute little baby kittens would have a better chance at getting adopted. At the time, I was working as Yoga instructor. I enjoyed taking photos so much that I started doing portraits for my other Yoga instructor friends. When Covid arrived, I had several Yoga studio owners reach out, asking me to help film some classes so they could provide them online. It was an incredible learning experience, and I loved diving into the video side of things. Fast forward to today, now Jen and I own our own business providing video and photo services. Jen has come on as co-owner and handles our administrative workload and stills editing. A lot of what we do is corporate interview video and corporate headshots, and I love getting to be a part of sharing a person’s story.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. I’m stealing the first one from Ted Lasso: Be Curious. Every time in my life that I was interested in learning something new and pursued that, my life benefited. Keep learning and keep growing.

2. Be Kind. The world has enough grumpy people in it.

3. Ask for help when you need it.

For people who are early in their journey, I think the best advice I could give is this: Find someone who is doing what you want to do. Ask them if you can take them out for coffee or for lunch. Pay for it. Ask them about how they got to where they are. Thank them for their time.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

Here are my thoughts on this. I think it’s important to explore the areas you aren’t as strong in, but for short periods of time. You don’t know what you don’t know. And I think it can be important to go down the rabbit hole on skills to understand where on the spectrum you need to land. While working on my skills as a beginning photographer, I did a variety of work to broaden my knowledge. Real estate photography, beauty photography skin retouching, audio post processing, etc. I worked on learning those skills, not for them to be the main scope of my work, but to better inform the work I typically do. Now, if I have a video shoot for an interior designer, I know how to shoot an interior residential space with the eye of a “real estate photographer.” When I am editing and professional headshot, I know how to strike the balance between natural and “overcooked” skin retouching. When I am editing audio for a corporate interview, I have a better idea of what I am listening for when I dial in compression on a person’s voice.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Personal image: Heesoo Yang
All other images: Mitch Lazorko

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