Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Highsmith.
Chris, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
A music producer, photographer, and videographer Chris Highsmith is known as June jissle, Born and raised in New Haven, CT, recently moved down to South Florida. I’ve been making music since the age of eight, which was picked up by my father who had me on the drum machine at eight years old and I’ve been making music ever since. Starting on the Yamaha drum machine, then moving to hiphop ejay, and finally, fl studio, which was fruity loops three at the time, I started using it in the 6th grade. Later on, I discovered my other talent, which is photography. I’ve been doing photography for almost seven years now and videography just as long. I was mainly was intrigued with a video production. That’s where it all started I would say I got into photography by accident.
One day after doing researching on a good indoor lens to shoot my beat videos I stumbled upon the 35mm prime lens and went to best buy to get it, the cashier asked me if I did photography I said no only videos but he continued to tell me about a photography editing program called lightroom, I looked it up and got it for me and my friend and I started editing the pictures my friend took of me and fell in love with editing from that day I asked the same friend who was just learning photography to teach me about photography he taught me the basics and from that day on I never stopped shooting I was eager to learn everything I can about photography and enhancing my video production.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Being a music producer there will always be constant obstacles from either trying to get major placements, to trying to get herd in the first place everything takes time and it has been a long journey to get where I’m at now. for photography and videography I would say the struggle would be people paying you everybody wants something for free and time shooting and editing you should be compensated for it.
Please tell us more about your work. What do you do? What do you specialize in? What sets you apart from competition?
Me doing everything myself I specialize in custom music production for companies, music artist and streaming platforms. Doing Video work clients such a music artists, companies, and models and the same for photography. I’m most proud of my achievements in music that I have gotten over the years. My most recent one was one of my beats called “Jasmine Fuji” had received over four million streams just on Spotify alone. But honestly just seeing people from around the world loving my work and appreciating my work is really an achievement I remember back when I was trying so hard for people to listen to my music and no one really cared to see people from all over love my work really amazes me.
What sets me apart from everyone else I would say my unique way of approaching everything that I do… for example with photography on IG, I post what I call me 3º series which has my three talents all in one… all on one post the first slide is a picture of the model the next slide is a video I shot of the model and in the video, it has my music production in the back and throughout shows the rest of the film I used to shoot the model with. and on the music side I’m known for my soulful music production and people know me from my video edits that people have never seen before, so I think that really makes me stand out and I appreciate and love the comments I receive from people on my work.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Three things I have written down and posted everywhere is to get a huge music placement. I want to work with Big Sean. That’s my favorite rapper ever. I want to work with Chanel. That’s my favorite fashion line and most importantly, work for myself… I really hate going to work at places that do nothing for me (grocery store, retail, etc.) I wanna live off of my talents. I’m actually looking forward to seeing what my journey is like in south Florida, photography, and videography wise. In the future, I would love to live in San Deigo. I’m working towards that.
Pricing:
- Photoshoots starting at $160
- Videography starting at $300
Contact Info:
- Website: www.junejissle.com
- Instagram: instagram @junejissle @junejisslemusic
Image Credit:
photographer: June Jissle
Model: June Jissle (self portrait)
Model: Arelis
Model: Skye
Model: Mei
Suggest a story: VoyageMIA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
