Once upon a time in the land of steel and bridges, there was an engineer. Earning a mechanical-engineering degree in 2007 from Carnegie Mellon University, one of the best engineering schools in the country, and landing a job at home in Pittsburgh just wasn’t enough. Our engineer was unhappy; and as you’ve probably guessed, I was that unhappy engineer. Luckily, the rest of our little tale is a satisfying one.
I’m JP Diroll, and all my life I’ve been a visual person, fascinated by wildlife photos specifically. But I needed to create my own, so with the extra scratch I had in my pocket from that engineering gig, I bought my first digital camera, also in 2007. It was a sweet little Nikon D50 with a whopping 6.1 megapixels. I had no clue how to use the thing, but buying that camera was the smartest thing I’ve ever done, and it made me fall even more in love with Pittsburgh (which I didn’t think was possible).
Gone were the days of looking at someone else’s photos. The creative process immediately began to consume me and I was no longer just taking photos. I was creating art, focusing primarily on Pittsburgh’s world-class skyline. What I knew all along was being confirmed in real time—I was never an engineer; I was an artist, and a good one.
So I took a leap of faith in 2013. No more 9 to 5. No more steady paycheck. Just a camera, a vision, and the determination (and support—thank you, Alyssa!) to pursue a dream, a dream where my clean, crisp, creative, and colorful compositions look better on a wall than they do on a screen.
Fast forward to today and the dream is a reality. As a full-time professional photographer, I’m happier than ever. Here in the city we all love—with my art on billboards, airport walls, and hanging in nearly every building in town—I get to share my journey and art, showing you the city you love too, but through my eyes. And that’s an honor I don’t take lightly!
—JP Diroll
