From passion to profession: the world of Mathieu Dupuis

I've been a professional photographer for 25 years. At the age of 43, I sometimes feel as if I've had two careers in one, due to the amount of passion I have poured into photography. It's been two decades of living out of suitcases, planes, hotels and on the road, according to my assignments and projects. In fact, as I write this, I'm on a plane bound for Asia. There's a great determination that has led me to the pinnacle of my personal, professional, financial and philanthropic goals. Photography has always been at the heart of what drives me most in life. It's much more than a job, it's a way of life! 

In my 20-year career, my track record is, without exaggeration, proportional to the millions of dollars I've billed in services. Services for the production of commercial photo projects in the four corners of the world, and the management of my copyright licenses. Looking back, I wonder how I managed to accomplish all these projects within 24 hours days. But the reality is simple: for a long time, I sacrificed part of my personal life in the name of my ever-growing passion for this medium. As far as I'm concerned, the limits have always been hard to set, because I love pushing myself so much in this field. I've never counted the hours...  

Mathieu Dupuis

 Canon EOS 5D Mark II + EF 17-40mm à 40mm
1/8 | f/5 | ISO 500

For the record, I began my career in Montreal around 1999. For reasons linked to the exorbitant costs of digital technology at the time, I decided to use 35mm and 120mm slide film combined with digitization. I could then access digital files without having to invest in digital cameras that had only one feature: huge depreciation. At $10,000 for a 2-3MP, with a new one every six months, the amortization of such expenses was putting a strain on my budget. To tell you the truth, I didn't have a cent to my name. I slept in my then Subaru Outback to maximize my Per Diem on the road. I remember the endless hours of scanning sessions, slide by slide, on my “Super COOLSCAN 9000 ED”. I ended up with high-resolution TIFF files that I could “edit” in a rather limited version of Photoshop. Nevertheless, it saved me a lot of expenses, and I was able to invest my financial surplus in other levers for my career. 

Since I was probably as good at business as I was at photography, in my early twenties I invested a large part of my income in two things! The first was the intelligent and progressive development of my artistic approach and personal projects. The second, in financial investments with a very long-term strategy based on compound interest. Eventually, I would generate substantial passive income to complement my photographic activities. By paying close attention to my business expenses, being cautious with irrational purchases and maximizing taxation, I was quickly able to free myself financially so as to become not an executor, but a project partner. This enabled me to share the risks with different collaborators and, above all, to share the full potential of our successes...

After a good number of commercial and advertising projects shot on 35mm and medium-format slide film, full-frame digital cameras finally came into their own. So I incorporated them into my approach. It was a renaissance! One of my most interesting projects during this period (2010 to 2015) was an urban photo essay for National Geographic. A few years of intensive travel to the four corners of North America and Europe, photographing some fifty urban cities.  A constant quest to find the best angles and light for these urban panoramas. Among the most iconic photos from this project with National Geographic, I automatically think of these scenes from Vancouver, New Orleans and Los Angeles... Moments when all the elements came together perfectly for an exceptional photographic moment! 

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 5D Mark II + EF 17-40mm F4 L USM à 20mm
10 sec | f/11 | ISO 100

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 5D Mark II + EF 70-200mm F/2.8 L USM à 200mm
1/5 | f/8 | ISO 100

With the tools of the time like Google Lens, Street View and Pinterest, finding places was a real quest. Once you found the place in the cities, you had to find the best time to proceed. I remember spending five mornings in line on a hill to get the Seattle skyline at sunrise. When they say it's the city of rain, believe me, they're right! Same thing in Paris for the sunset from the Montparnasse tower. By the way, this photo made it into National Geographic's top 20 most beautiful “Golden Hours”.

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + EF 24-70mm F/2.8 USM à 70mm
1/8 | f/8 | ISO 160

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + EF 70-200mm F4 IS USM à 121mm
5 sec | f/8 | ISO 160

These years of intensive travel in America and Europe only exacerbated my desire to discover the world, and my passion for producing large-scale projects became hard to contain. With a track record of international collaborations with : Mercedes-Benz, Geo France, Wanderlust UK, Conde Nast Traveller and several tourist destinations, one project however brings me back to basics... After lengthy negotiations, I sign my 8ᵉ book publishing contract. This time, with National Geographic Books. The project, a “Beaux-Livres” published by the prestigious publishing house on a subject I know well, Quebec! I'm going back into many years of photo archives. But above all, I spent 2 years exploring the 185,000 km² of this exceptional territory. All the while, I made many return trips to Washington, to National Geographic headquarters, to work with the 12 people assigned to my project. It was a stimulating experience, but also a very demanding one. National Geographic is well known for its exacting photographic standards. What's more, Quebec is a big place, and many parts of it are difficult to access. Access to the Grand-Nord and Basse-Côte-Nord, and the many hours of driving between the other regions, are logistically challenging... But with the help of several partners, the book finally saw the light of day.

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + EF 70-200mm F4 IS USM à 127mm
1/800 | f/5.6 | ISO 500

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 6D + EF 24-70mm f2.8L USM à 27mm
1/500 | f/8 | ISO 250

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 6D + EF 400mm f/5.6L USM
1/640 | f/5.6 | ISO 640

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS 5D Mark III + EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM à 200mm
1/640 | f/8 | ISO 250

Following this project, National Geographic assigned me a few reports, including one in Namibia in collaboration with Terres d'Aventure / Voyageurs du Monde. An exceptional journey between nature and culture. This assignment enabled me to explore a multitude of subjects in a single report, including landscape, portrait and wildlife photography. Unfortunately, it was on my return from this trip that the pandemic broke out and the publication of the dossier was postponed.  While for some the pandemic was a lull, for me it was my busiest and most active year, and God knows it was already a whirlwind before that! I multiplied international and national projects without losing count. Projects linked to various economic sectors that had to be documented in order to revive the economy.  

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS R + RF 24-70mm f2.8L USM à 63mm
1/125 | f/4 | ISO 100

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS R + RF 24-70mm f2.8L USM à 70mm
1/160 | f/8 | ISO 250

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS R + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM à 200mm
1/640 | f/5 | ISO 640

As I had fallen in love with the African continent, when the borders reopened for these corners of the world, I was privileged to take on a very special project. To document the migration path of several individuals in West Africa. My mandate was to carry out interviews, but above all a series of portraits with people targeted by my collaborator. With no prior location scouting, I drove around in cabs in some of the major cities to make these people shine in front of my camera, and in particular, to tell their stories! A human and extraordinarily creative project. In short, field work as I like it! And with a minimum of equipment. Prime lenses... and my 35mm lens of choice.

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS RP + RF 16mm f2.8 STM
1/125 | f/5.6 | ISO 320

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS RP + RF 100-400mm f5.6-8 IS USM à 270mm
1/100 | f/11 | ISO 250

Among the other major projects that have particularly nurtured my creativity, my two-month report to Vietnam in autumn 2023 tops the list. In collaboration with Terres d'Aventure, I documented several regions of the country and made local contacts with a view to eventually returning there with a group of photographers to hold a master class. As I write these lines, I'm on a plane from Montreal to Tokyo, bound for Hanoi to join my group! 

The scouting / reporting trip of 2023 remains one of the best trips of my life. In the company of my lover Andrée-Anne, we learned that she was pregnant with our son Mathéo, and above all experienced a multitude of mishaps that put our travel experience to the test, including finding ourselves in the middle of a natural disaster. But this report is one of my career favorites, because I was with my family and we had almost two months to complete it. Plenty of time to become knowledgeable with a subject and enjoy the destination.

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS RP + RF 50mm f1.8 STM
1/125 | f/1.8 | ISO 1250

Mathieu Dupuis
DJI Mini 3 Pro
1/640 | f/1.7 | ISO 100

Mathieu Dupuis
DJI Mini 3 Pro
1/400 | f/1.7 | ISO 100

Mathieu Dupuis
Canon EOS RP + RF 50mm f1.8 STM
1/1600 | f/2.8 | ISO 250

In my next article, we'll explore in more detail the behind-the-scenes aspects of a long report trip to Asia. In the meantime, it's time to land in Hanoi to meet my group of photographers