Tony Ulchar

Father, Husband, Mentor, Photographer, and Co-Founder of the Photo outfitters

Tony Ulchar at the photo outfitters: 2026 hasselblad 500c / Kodak Ektacolor Pro 800

As a film photographer in Charlotte, I cannot stress enough how important community is. How important as photographers and artists it is to look out for each other and help each other grow. Surrounding ourselves with people that nurture us with positivity, while still providing authentic feedback, is undeniably imperative to our growth and even mental health as artists. To make a millennial reference, it’s part of the “Secret Stuff” Buggs and Michael gave the Tune Squad in Space Jam. 

When thinking of people and places that exemplify the strength in those values, The Photo Outfitters and Co-Founders Tony Ulchar & Cannon Spradley, always come to mind.

The Photo Outfitters is a Charlotte film photography lab that provides dark room access, prints, new and used photography gear, film, gallery shows, print swaps, and best of all: Community. Over the last year, The Photo Outfitters has become like a second home for me. A home where I have met so many amazing people, one of them being a mentor we all love and adore: Tony Ulchar. 

I recently had the opportunity of sitting down with Tony and having an awesome conversation about some of the earlier moments in Tony’s photography journey. We touched on quite a few topics, including the question of the hour: 

                                        “Tony, what are you passionate about?”  

Tony: “Being A Mentor” 

Throughout our conversation, one thing stayed consistent, “helping people get better", "sharing skills”, “sharing the journey”… For as much as we love Tony for his role in helping us grow as artist, Tony loves to help us and see us shine ten times more. 

One important point of many that Tony emphasized on was using our skills to help the community.

For over 20 years, Tony has been volunteering with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as an event photographer. 

“Whatever we can use our photography skills for, to help the community, and bring some kind of change”

Tony’s drive to start this act of service originated with the love of family and passion to find a cure. On a more heartfelt level, Tony opened up during our conversation and told me a little bit about his niece, who was born with Cystic Fibrosis. Tony spoke passionately about how he remembers the day she was born. Within a week, he was involved with the CF foundation and has been involved ever since. Through his volunteer work, Tony ended up finding another community and cause. 

I do want to share some important words that Tony shared with me, that I feel many of us need to hear: 

“Photographers sometimes do things solely for the exposure, but sometimes you have to do things solely for the cause… In over 20 years of working with the CF foundation, I can count on one hand the amount of jobs volunteer work has generated for me. I didn't do it for the money or the jobs; I did it because I believed in the cause. 

With the constant rat race society and social media sends artists on, it was definitely a great reminder that sometimes it's ok to do things for the sake of our community and because it brings us joy. 

One thing that definitely brought me joy was learning about a pivotal moment in Tony’s career. I am not sure if many of you know, I recently learned myself, that Tony was able to capture the game winning hit and game winning run for the 1997 MLB World Series! Marlins won that by the way …GO FISH! 

Living in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in 1997, Tony was working at a photo lab, sitting at his machine printing, when he heard a commotion. In comes this guy saying, “Jesus Christ I have to teach this new guy new stuff!”. Then this guy comes in and grabs the stuff off the machine, sticks his hand in Tony’s face and say “Hey! I'm Bancroft..I like this this …and this..this is good” and storms off like a tornado.

That gentleman was Denis Bancroft, a career sports photographer, mentor to Tony, and a guy who Tony describes as a fusion of Cramer and Hawkey Pierce.

A couple of weeks later, Tony gets a call from Denis, asking if he shoots baseball and if he wanted to shoot opening day for the Marlins. Tony was around 30 at the time and remembers calling his wife excited. “I'm shooting opening day for the Marlins!”.

In a surreal set of events that would become core memories for him, Tony described one of his first moments capturing Major League Baseball.    “To be standing feet away from home plate while Mike McGwire was at batting practice and launching stuff into the upper deck… all you could do was giggle”

When the Marlins made it to The World Series that year, Tony got a call stating “Major League Baseball handles media now, you won't be able to shoot The World Series” 

…. But life has a funny way of working out. 

THE DAY BEFORE the series starts Tony got another phone call: “Be here at 5 o clock tomorrow for your credentials”.

With a network camera on one side and the ESPN camera on the other, Tony ultimately went on to capturing shots of the game winning hit and the game winning run.

One question I like to ask photographers and artist is at what point do they finally accept it for themselves. Our community is plagued with imposter syndrome, myself included. At what point do you accept that you truly are a photographer or an artist. For Tony it was after his game winning Marlins photo. At 30 years old, and after being told NO. Tony did it.

“I still have that scan, and it's awful! But it's a moment I'll never forget”

One of the last questions I asked Tony was what some of his favorite songs were. Tony told me a story about one of the founding days for The Photo Outfitters. On the day he and Cannon took the leap of faith and signed for the PO business space, the first song he heard was: Head Full of Doubt /Road Full of Promise by The Avett Brothers. 

One line stood out to him the most: “Decide what to be and go be it”.