Meet Jeremy Janus

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Janus.

Jeremy, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I did not pick up a DSLR camera until three years ago when I was 30 years old. I had just moved back to Colorado and I started a job where I traveled 50% of the time throughout the United States. My childhood friend and mentor Mike was a photographer and he called to convince me to buy a camera due to my love for the outdoors. I purchased my first Nikon in September of 2016 and I have not stopped shooting ever since.

In my first three years of shooting, I have taken over 25,000 photos and have edited well over 10,000 of those. I have always been manic in my demeanor with all of my passions in life but photography has taken my love for the outdoors to a whole other level. I have had amazing mentors along the way and have developed lifelong friendships with fellow photographers. Photography has opened so many doors for me, not the least of which has been opening the doors of my past and letting me be more vocal about the struggles I have endured to get where I am today.

Has it been a smooth road?
The story of my photographic journey starts much before I ever picked up a camera. I moved to Colorado when I was 18 years old. I had no friends, I moved away from the only place I had ever known (southern California), and I was no longer playing football, which kept me grounded with discipline and responsibility. I went into a severe depression in Colorado and the night I was going to commit suicide my dad walked in the basement. I spent the next ten years battling anxiety and depression while trying to figure out life. My uncle Mike was also living in Colorado at the time where he and my dad started taking me on the first hikes of my life.

At 19, I finally found my way again after I moved to northern California and decided to move home to southern California to pursue my dream of playing college football. On the first night I was home I rolled over in my sleep, felt a strong pop, and didn’t think anything of it. I finally was enrolled and practicing spring ball with the football team for Orange Coast College but something felt very off. My strength was falling through the floor and I kept having intense bouts of pain in my back until I finally decided to go see a specialist. I got the bad news: I broke my back and my dreams of playing college football were shattered. I moved back to Colorado at 20 years old and in bouts of boredom I started drawing superheroes from my childhood comics, which eventually lead to paintings on my walls, canvas, and nurseries. This is where my love for vibrant and colorful artwork stems from.

At 21, after a year of trying physical therapy, relaxation, and cortisone shots, the decision was made to get back surgery. I had two titanium rods placed in my back at my L4 and L5. My surgery went great but when my doctor went to go bring my family back post-surgery the complications began. My lungs were over 50% filled with fluid and I spent the next three days fighting for my life before I needed to learn to walk again. Shortly after my surgery I also found out that one of my best high school friends and teammates died from cancer. I was able to paint a canvas of him from our football days together that hung above his hospital bed before he passed away. The intersecting of these events is where I developed my love and passion for life.

After surgery, I could not work out with the same amount of weights that I was accustomed to, and in order to deal with the anxiety and depression I was still battling, I lost myself in the wilderness over the years. The wilderness helped me to create concise clear thoughts about everything that I was battling internally and externally. The wilderness was the only place I felt at home, where I could fully be myself, and it developed my deep love for the outdoors, particularly in Colorado.

College was a struggle for me. At this point I had taken nearly every course I needed at six different junior colleges and I was running out of time. I had been rejected from Colorado State twice because I could not pass a math class that I already failed twice. On my third try, I finally passed and got into Colorado State. I fell back into my old ways at one point and dropped down to a 1.3 GPA and was put on academic probation. I finally had a friend and coworker pull me aside and tell me “if you only put in half the work into school that you do into your job, you would accomplish great things”. From there on out I applied myself and finished my last two years of school above a 3.0 GPA. It took me 7 1/2 years, 7 colleges, and 7 jobs to finally get my degree but I received my degree in Nutrition and Food Science in 2011.

I had a lot more happen in the interim of going to post-grad at UC Davis, moving to and from Colorado another four times, and having had eight jobs during that time span since. However, picking up my camera at the age of 30, starting my business at the age of 32, and providing inspiration for the world through the view of my lens has been the most meaningful thing I have ever done with my life. I still have a full-time job where I manage six states and do technical consulting across the United States, so being able to provide as much inspiration through photography as I have has meant the world to me.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
My business focuses mainly on nature photography. I love natural light, the wilderness, and the beauty of this earth. I live to inspire others to get outdoors and explore this wonderful planet. I am also a licensed drone pilot so I also do commercial photography as well. I sell prints, books, and calendars through my website, as well as selling prints at galleries. I also do blogs, vlogs, and produce a plethora of other content to bring value to other people through my experiences, heartache, and pain that I have been fortunate enough to go through over the years.

I tie everything I do and produce back to inspiring others and the world around me. I love that I have been able to find purpose and meaning in my pain and suffering and use that in order to make the world a better place. In my first two years of selling professionally, I have been able to sell in over 50 countries around the world and as such, I have been blessed to touch more lives than I could ever imagine through photography. Next year I will have a six-month exhibit in the Denver International Airport which will feature 35 of my different photographs of Colorado.

Every year I try to give back in as many ways as I possibly can. When I went through another rough patch at 27, my mom told me to pick myself up and go do something for someone else. Over the next few weeks, I drew and painted 20 children’s characters and donated them to the Denver Children’s Hospital. Every year since I have donated drawings to children’s hospitals and Ronald McDonalds houses in the southwestern United States and to date I have donated 70 drawings and paintings in 4 different states to 7 different locations.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The age of social media has created some challenges for the photography industry (but it has also created some great opportunities as well!). Everyone is a “photographer” now. The technological advances and features on phones have created a less expensive barrier to market, viable content creation, and mass opportunity to work with millions of companies, customers, and consumers. The real challenge for photographers is to show the value of hiring a professional versus someone off of the street. Most people cannot tell the technical flaws in photos such as blown-out highlights, spots on the camera, or chromatic aberration, but when you look on Instagram the app is full of them.

Professional photographers have years of blood, sweat, and tears in spotting these technical issues and developing their styles that make them worthy of their costs and eventually I do believe that will come to light (sorry for the photography pun). It is ever important to hire someone that is in your niche that you are looking for. For example, I turned down shooting three weddings this year because I felt I was not the right person for the job. There are some phenomenal wedding photographers out there! Right person, right job will come to fruition and it will be rewarding for all the photographers that are busting their tails to make a difference in the world through the view of their lens.

Contact Info:

• Website: jeremyjanusphotography.com
• Phone: (970)590-9845
• Email: jeremyjanusphotography@gmail.com
• Instagram: jeremyjanusphotography
• Facebook: jeremyjanusphotography
• Twitter: jeremy_janus

Image Credit:
Lindsey Jenkins (Profile Photo Credit). Jeremy Janus (All other photos).

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