BIO
Jasper Johal has been a professional photographer for over three decades.
His images have appeared on the covers of print magazines and in ads around the world, including the US, UK, The Netherlands, Germany, Russia, and Australia. His fine art images have been displayed in art exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
Please scroll down to read more about his life.
Born and Raised in India:
Jasper Johal was born into a Sikh family in a small town in central India. He acquired his first camera when he was 13 years old.
He built a darkroom in his house and taught himself how to process film and make prints. Below is an early black and white portrait Jasper captured of his father on his farm, during harvest time.
New Life in the US:
Jasper Johal was nineteen when he left India and emigrated halfway around the world to California to start a new life.
Late 1970s was a thrilling time to arrive in San Francisco. A decade earlier, Haight Ashbury had been the birthplace of the flower children and hippie culture.
As is traditional for most Sikh men in India, Jasper had never had a haircut. So he disembarked from the plane with long wavy hair that flowed past his waist. He was wearing a tie-dye shirt he had handmade himself in his backyard in India (many forms of tie-dye are native to India). He was astonished to find that his look fit right into the counter culture scene of 1970s America.
Arriving with the princely sum of thirty six dollars in his pocket Jasper was obliged to scramble for work immediately. His first exciting job was washing dishes and busing tables in a diner near UC Berkeley. Waitresses at that diner became his first photography subjects.
The San Francisco Bay Area had a thriving dance scene at the time.
Many of the waitresses Jasper worked with would head over to a dance studio for modern, jazz or ballet classes after work. Since Jasper had a motorcycle, they often asked to hitch a ride with him. At the dance studios, shooting with an inexpensive film camera that he had brought with him from India, Jasper discovered he had a knack for capturing motion.
His first commercial photography assignment was to create marketing photos for a leg warmer company (yes, back when leg warmers were hot the first time around!)
Back to School
Wanting to go back to school, Jasper moved to Los Angeles where he was accepted into the highly competitive USC (University of Southern California) Cinema and Television program.
Fashion for Tuition
USC is an expensive school (its unofficial name is the University of Spoiled Children). Jasper paid for his tuition and living expenses by shooting fashion ads. His images appeared in trade magazines and in the then, pre-internet days, highest circulation print publication in Southern California, the LA Weekly.
Dance Shoots for Tuition
The director of USC Dance Dept saw Jasper’s photos from his dishwashing days, and hired him to shoot all their dance productions.
Shooting Cinematographers
While studying at USC Jasper visited the famed film camera company, Panavision, in Tarzana (yes, this Southern California town near LA is named after that Tarzan!). When Panavision director Benjamin Bergery wrote a book on cinematography titled Reflections, published by the ASC (American Society of Cinematographers), he commissioned Jasper to create all the illustrations.
For this book Jasper photographed well known cinematographers like Jordan Cronenweth, Vilmos Zsigmond, Stephen Barum, John Bailey, Laszlo Kovacs, Haskell Wexler, Steven Poster, Jack Green, and more.
TIFFEN
While attending a workshop at Panavision Jasper befriended Oscar and Emmy winning product scientist Ira Tiffen from TIFFEN FILTERS. He worked with Ira testing prototype filters that have gone on to become industry standards like Soft FX, Pro Mist, Fog, Ultra Con, Glimmer Glass and more. Jasper’s photographs were used to illustrate many of theTIFFEN product packagings and instruction inserts. You can still see many of Jasper’s images being used on TIFFEN listings on online stores.
Shooting Stills on film sets + Creating B-Movie Posters
In the 90s Jasper moved to the Beachwood neighborhood just south of the famous Hollywood sign. Living in Hollywood it was inevitable that Jasper would start working on movie sets. He used a custom built blimped (sound proofed) camera to shoot production stills on set, working with many well known actors.
Back in the early 90s images for movie posters were still being composited with analog methods in darkrooms. A pioneer in adopting digital technology, Jasper Johal began using computers and created over two dozen B-Movie posters and VHS/DVD video box designs. When he started, it was still so bleeding edge, movie marketing departments had no way of accepting digital files. Jasper had to image his digital files back onto sheets of 4x5 film before handing them in!
Shooting Musicians + Desiging CD Album Art
Jasper Johal photographed musicians and designed CD Album covers, when CDs were still a thing.
Editorial Shoots - Architecture
Jasper Johal’s architecture photographs have appeared on covers and editorial layouts for magazines like Architectural Record and more.
Editorial Shoots - Travel
Jasper Johal regularly travels across the US and overseas. His travel images have been sold to businesses and private collectors, to decorate interiors, and to license for use in marketing.
Editorial Shoots - Food
Jasper Johal has photographed well known chefs and various cuisines for magazines and the hospitality industry.
“After all these years, I am just as excited about creating beautiful photographs as I was that hot summer day in India, when as a 13 years old, I purchased my first camera.”
– Jasper Johal