Chris Fritchie’s path to becoming a photographer—and winning awards for his Santa studio work—was anything but linear.

Roughly 20 years ago, Fritchie, M.Photog.M.Artist.Cr., CPP, left his job as a golf pro in suburban Dallas, Texas, to start a landscaping business. When the company needed photos for its website, Fritchie decided to take them himself. He purchased a camera and learned by doing. The landscaping business eventually fizzled, and Fritchie put his camera away to start a corporate sales job. Then, a musician friend asked Fritchie to capture images of music artists. That experience, along with coaching his daughter in her high school yearbook photography role, sparked his passion. He sold his guitar collection to invest in professional gear and jumped into photography.

Fritchie enjoyed the experience so much that he decided capturing images of music artists was his new hobby. In exchange for photos at a local bar and grill, Fritchie was paid in the establishment’s gift cards. Soon, he realized he wanted to photograph bigger acts at bigger venues, and to get paid in something more than gift cards, so, he recalls, he “kept harassing” a local lifestyle magazine, Frisco, for assignments while he reluctantly continued his IT sales job. “I hated that job so much,” Fritchie says, adding that the day he quit, an editor at Frisco called to ask if he still wanted to take photographs for the magazine.

For the next eight years, Fritchie worked full-time for Frisco in sales and then photography. When he got burned out, he considered returning to the golf business. In the meantime, he needed a studio to create some photography work for a commercial client. When a friend with empty retail space in McKinney, Texas, offered it to Fritchie, he turned it into a makeshift studio. He had seen examples of high-end Santa portraiture and, inspired by his love of the artist Norman Rockwell, considered starting his own Santa experience. He remembers he told his wife Lori, “I’ve got this crazy idea. I want to do high-end Santa portraits.”

Santa Experience

In that first year, 2015, Fritchie estimates he photographed about 15 Santa sessions. One of those was for the child of a local mom who was a social media influencer. After she posted his photos, Fritchie recalls, his phone blew up. The next season, Chris Fritchie Studios—for which Fritchie handles photography and Lori handles sales—completed nearly 50 Santa sessions and created The Magic of Santa Experience. “It changed our world,” says Fritchie. The following year, business doubled. This year, Fritchie celebrates his 10th anniversary as a Santa experience photographer. “It’s become my passion,” he says, “my heart and soul.”

At Fritchie’s studio, the late artist Norman Rockwell’s influence permeates the Santa sets. The goal of The Magic of Santa Experience is timeless, custom art, according to the studio’s website. Some Santa-experience photographers keep to the background, explains Fritchie, so as not to interrupt the “vibe” between Santa and the child. But Fritchie says he prefers to be in the action. “It’s like a Broadway show,” he says, as he engages with Santa, the kids, and their parents while taking their photographs. For example, one of his favorite things to do is to let the kids find their names on Santa’s “nice list,” an elaborate set piece where he writes the children’s names before their sessions. After they get excited, Santa might ask them, “Where are your mom and dad on the nice list?” When they can’t find their names, Santa pulls out the “naughty list” and points out the parents’ names. “The kids just erupt,” Fritchie says. “We create memories we know will get brought up again whether it’s in five years, 10 years, 20 years from now.”

The Magic of Santa Experience offers two types of private sessions: a 15-minute session and a more immersive 45-minute session. Booking fees start at $300 and are applied to product orders, which include wall portraits, albums, folio boxes, tabletop displays, and a children’s book. The most expensive product on the website is a 40-inch heirloom wall portrait for $6,000. The average spend is $2,500, says Fritchie. “We make the threshold to enter, to come experience what we do, very small,” says Fritchie. “Sometimes those are the clients who sing our praises from the mountaintops.”

While word-of-mouth referrals continue to be Fritchie’s most effective marketing, he contracts a handful of social media influencers. This year, he’s trying programmatic advertising, a form of digital ad sales that uses algorithms to target specific audiences in real time. As an advertiser, he pays a certain amount so his studio can show up in ad spaces on websites that his potential customers are viewing at that moment. “We feel it’s going to be the next big thing,” Fritchie says, as far as advertising. Fritchie says he has no problem selling his photography. “The thing about photography that I love is it’s the only thing I’ve ever sold in my life where I have 100% control,” he says. “I control the product that I sell; I don’t have to rely on customer service, manufacturing. I control it, and as a salesman, that’s fantastic.”

MASTER SERIES

In addition to his Santa work, Fritchie creates what he calls “these crazy composites,” relying heavily on Photoshop to layer multiple images into one single image that can take him up to 100 hours in post-production. A few years ago, Fritchie challenged himself to create an award-winning image with minimal retouching. His Master Series fine art images, he says, use “minimalist hybrid painting style,” and rely on creating depth and dimension through dodging and burning, combined with a light, painterly finish. Since 2023, these images have garnered him multiple awards, including a finalist position in PPA’s International Photographic Competition. To create these images, Fritchie uses Nanlite continuous lighting and concentrates on two styles—Rembrandt and loop lighting. “If I can control my shadows, I can create depth and I can create interest—and drama and suspense,” Fritchie explains. 

Fritchie uses his expertise to assist other photographers. He and Lori run an education website, Magic Makers Academy, which offers programs including a Magic of Santa Bootcamp and one-on-one mentoring. Fritchie has led sessions at Imaging USA, Texas School, and various state and local guilds. His goal, he says, is to teach his students how to create images that earn PPA merits and lead them toward earning their PPA degrees. In August, he began juror training with the Dallas Professional Photographers Association to serve as a judge in photo competitions.

For the Future

This year, the Fritchies launched a Magic of Santa Studios licensing program and, as of the end of September, had signed almost 10 studios. Each license includes a specific territory, on-site training, and full access to the Santa experience: everything from marketing and client funnels to set design, sales strategies, and product offerings. Licensed studios also receive a library of business templates, album and card designs, product layouts, and workflow systems. “This is not a franchise,” Fritchie explains about his licensing program, adding that photographers are independent “while being empowered with the tools, education, and community support needed to deliver a consistent, magical [Santa] experience for families year after year.”

While Fritchie, who turns 61 this year, doesn’t think he’ll retire from Santa work, he’s thought about slowing down and possibly moving to Colorado. He envisions having a pop-up studio in Dallas during Santa season and spending the bulk of his time creating fine art photography. He says he also plans to continue entering photography competitions. “I want my work judged by the best of the best and put up against the best of the best,” he says. “I don’t want to be irrelevant in what I do as an artist.”  

Writer and photographer Allison Shirreffs works with various organizations and publications.