Feature Stories
Kevin Michael Schmitz, '06
Kevin Michael Schmitz, ’06, is a professional advertising and editorial fashion photographer in Los Angeles and New York. He is the principle/founder of Kevin Michael Schmitz Photography, specializing in location lighting, digital imaging, and large scale production. Kevin Michael photographs magazine spreads, fashion lookbooks, advertising campaigns, fine art pieces, documentary spreads, album covers, and is branching into celebrity fashion photography. His high-profile work has been published in eight national and international magazines within the past year.
After receiving a bachelor of science in photography from Grand Valley State University, Kevin Michael Schmitz pursued a master of fine arts in photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Upon moving to Manhattan Beach, California, he began his advertising photography business full-time. He employs six photography interns whom he mentors about the business of photography and advanced lighting techniques. As an educator, he guest lectures at photography and fashion workshops in Los Angeles.
Kevin Michael has taken his photographic thesis from GVSU entitled Alchemy of a Dream, to an entirely new level. As dreams have a unique way of transforming our unconscious into a limitless reality, photographs can trigger deep unconscious memories. Each fine art fashion piece is photographed as a multi-image composition of an archetypal figure meshed into a black & white negative background. This new style of fine art and fashion digital montage encompasses an ethereal feel that is represented by an inverse dreamscape of the collective unconscious.
In January 2009, Kevin Michael Schmitz traveled throughout Israel during the war in Gaza. He photographed and authored documentary magazine editorials published in the United States and Europe. The project entitled ISRAEL: A Culture at War documents the people and Holy Land of Israel and the West Bank during a time of war. These gripping images and articles tell the perspective of the people living within the conflict.
Kevin Michael Schmitz is an active member of numerous professional organizations and holds an impressive list of clients. He plans to begin working as an adjunct professor of photography in Los Angeles this year to educate the future of the photographic industry in Southern California.
“I am deeply honored to have been nominated for the GVSU Young Alumni Award. Grand Valley truly prepared me for the world in so many ways, and I am excited to be living my dream as a professional advertising photographer.”
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