Greetings, I’m Jesse Cole Guthery, a technical director and photographer based in Seattle, WASHINGTON.
I work diligently to find new and creative approaches to design and technical challenges, and have been recognized for empowering learners and coworkers with modern best practices and unique approaches. I strive to be an agile, creative, data-informed problem solver known for never-ending patience and obsessive attention to detail.
Raised in Owasso, Oklahoma, I’ve been drawn to teaching since my adolescence. I began as an assistant instructor, and eventually instructing my own classes at my family's martial arts school. Fun side fact: my father’s family was the inspiration for S.E. Hinton’s novel, The Outsiders.
After High School, I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona to pursue my Bachelor of Arts degree in Film/HDTV Production. Toward the end of my undergraduate degree, I had planned on moving to New York and trying my luck in the Big Apple; unfortunately, my camera equipment was stolen and so finding a different path became essential. Luckily, right after graduation I was recruited as an Apple Support specialist at the college I had been attending. My predecessor and I had worked hand-in-hand for many years during my time as the Senior Student Assistant and Stage Manager for our film program. In that role, I often assisted students and instructors through their technical difficulties. After a quick interview with the IT Director, I landed my first full-time technical role at Collins College.
Post completing my M.F.A. with Full Sail University in 2010, I joined the teaching staff at Collins as an Adjunct Professor and worked nonstop. At one point, I was teaching five courses while still working forty hours a week at the Helpdesk.
In 2011 I joined the Salt River Project (SRP) Media Services team as their Video Systems Engineer and Post Production Technician. While at SRP I worked hard to help implement new workflows and best practices, developed and supported production and post-production facilities, managed over 520 TB of historical video and photo assets as well as also shooting, editing, and producing projects as needed. After a few months of getting my feet wet with their group, they added live-event production to my list of duties, ranging in roles from Video Engineer to Executive Producer. At that point our group was averaging around 100 different events per year of different scales, this being in addition to my regular duties. While still freelancing as a photographer in the Phoenix area, I was honored to be invited as a commencement speaker at a graduation ceremony at Collins College in 2013.
In early 2014 I relocated to Seattle—where my girlfriend, Anita, would be beginning her Ph.D. I was pursuing an opportunity to teach at the Seattle Film Institute while continuing to freelance as a photographer. Unfortunately, my plans changed again when the resident instructor that I was going to be replacing decided to continue teaching. This left me in an interesting position, to say the least. By the time I received offers that I liked in Seattle I had already accepted a position back in Phoenix with a company called Events By Image (EBI), having met their owners during my time at SRP.
Working with EBI was an interesting job serving as their Creative Director. Throughout the years my roles and responsibilities changed and become more complex as the company grew. While back in Phoenix, to keep the photo passion alive I launched BigFish Photographers with another Collins College alum, focusing on portraiture for professionals and senior photography. This work is incredibly rewarding—and fun. Not only did working with EBI allow for a crazy amount of travel, 9 countries in total, it also allowed BFP to shoot multiple album covers for the country music artist Ned Ledoux, even having photos published on the Rolling Stone website. One of those not-a-big-deal kind of things but definitely felt nice.
Feeling my time at EBI had run its course, I joined Anita in March of 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia where she’s teaching at Georgia State University. Now in Atlanta, I’ve expanded BFP to serve the local area and have taken the fully remote role of Head of Broadcasting with Nextech AR Solutions, Inc. based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Among many solutions NTAR has a virtual events platform for online events; for example a national sales conference online stream and meetings, as well has hybrid events. I currently manage a global remote team of 8 full-time vMix Broadcasters as well as one full time editor and two interns. Our team works alongside the NTAR Global Experience Managers to help get the clients events into a virtual streaming space.
In the spring of 2022 with the mass flood of hybrid events due to the Covid-19 pandemic starting to slow, I transition to working for a long time friend and his production company Foo Dog Production based in Tampa, Florida. And simultaneously following Anita to Seattle, Washington where she’s taken the role of Visiting Lecturer in the Music Education department. For Foo Dog I’m serving as the Head of Production, with the essential role of trying to put 10lbs of event into a 5lbs box. Working alongside Project Managers to do all CAD/3D drawings, physical site visits, production logistics and scoping, and managing the virtual event team. Essentially all production runs through me to some degree. Sadly at the end of 2022 we came to the conclusion to close BigFish Photographers permanently. But we each are still shooting and playing with light anytime we can.