Christopher C. Lee

Christopher C. Lee (born March 4, 1993) is a Taiwanese American artist, photographer and author. He is the current Director of Photography of Photomochi Studio and Head Creative director of Troo Wear, and has worked for Google, Airbnb, Microsoft and Dropbox, providing multimedia services.
Early life
Christopher C. Lee was born to Taiwanese parents, Jeff Lee and Ai-Ling Tracy Chuang, in San Jose, California. His parents immigrated to California from Taipei, Taiwan and lived in Fremont during his childhood.
He began to develop an interest in various forms of artistry and was heavily involved in street art and hip hop. He immersed himself into streetwear, graffiti and urban culture through exposure to underground artist exhibitions and fashion shows. He conversed with Haight Street, San Francisco artists and designers to gain more knowledge. Growing up in his teenage years, he was known for being a polymath. He excelled in many topics such as physics, mathematics, philosophy, dance, fashion design, computer science, photography, cinematography, business and marketing.
Education
Christopher C. Lee attended Gomes Elementary School and Hopkins Jr. High in Fremont United School District. From early on he volunteered at churches and community services to aid children and needy people. He attended Mission San Jose High School and from there he excelled in his academics and was accepted into most University of California schools such as UCLA and UCB. Finally he attended Stanford University for Mathematics and was also admitted into Cornell University. But he attended UC Berkeley for Electrical Engineering and Computer Science via full scholarship.
He graduated from UC Berkeley with Bachelor's of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2014.
Career
From high school and college, Lee continued to network and discover art through various events and workshop and met various artists such as: Dance groups from America's Best Dance Crew, Streetwear designers from skate brands and fashion designers and art curator that shared knowledge with him.
Troo Wear
He eventually developed his own lifestyle brand and streetwear label called Troo Wear. Main message of his brand was staying true to yourself and your dreams, to bolster confidence in the creative process of people, to boost individualism and strength in everyone.
He would pass out his shirts and promote his Troo Wear ideal in cafes, streerwear conventions like DunkXChange, streetwear media like SoleCollector, Hypebeast, Highsnobiety, PLNDR, Karmaloop and Jackthreads through various Social media channels, through art shows like RAW artists, through Dance battles and workshops and through word of mouth with the artists he worked with.
Cooperation with major companies
He gained more exposure to photography and film as well and worked with various studios in the San Francisco Bay Area to produce many advertisements and films. He served as a gaffer, grip, camera operator, director, producer and screenwriter for many audiovisual works.
He worked with major companies like Google, Airbnb, Microsoft, and Dropbox for recordings of their tech conferences. He was a video production assistant and actor for Axent Wear, grossing over 3 million dollars in funds and over 500,000 views on YouTube.
Many companies and people such as Model Mayhem, Shaun Evaristo of Movement Lifestyle, Bionic Man from Supreme soul as well as Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, had positive reviews on Lee's works.
He is currently represented by the Professional Photographers of America as a commercial photographer and earned his certificate in photography from New York Institute of Photography later.
Lee participated in many software engineering projects during college and eventually worked for division of Adobe called TubeMogul which was a video advertising software company.
Accolades
Based on Snappr, a platform for ranking photographers and cinematographers, he is one of the photographers of San Francisco Bay Area.
Bibliography
He became the best-selling author of a couple of books.
*The Japan Book (2016)
*Christopher C. Lee: Portfolio 2018 (2018)
Personal life
Lee's father, Jeff Lee, served as a lead engineer at TSMC. His major influences include Mike Tyson who inspired him to do boxing in his college years. His top graffiti artist is SHEONE. His first book, The Japan Book, is a result of his love to Japanese culture and taught English in Japan as a TESOL teacher and had attended Osaka University as an international student.
He loved to take inspiration from Japanese design, from Harajuku culture to Japanese architecture. He frequently visits Taipei, Taiwan to pay respects to his grandparents and Taiwanese family. His favorite model is Kiko Mizuhara and his favorite singer is Aimer. He has a strong connection with Buddhist monks and a Buddhist priest who served as his mentor and caretaker from when he was a child.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu