Dr. Larry Louie always wanted to become a photographer, especially if he could land a dream job visiting faraway locales on the National Geographic Society's dime. However, the rest of his family didn't exactly see eye-to-eye with him regarding his career choice.
"Unfortunately, being from a traditional Chinese background, my parents did not encourage that, because it’s not a job that tends to provide an adequate or stable income," says Larry, who opted to become an optometrist.
But Larry had a big-picture vision of how he could co-opt his skills as an eye doctor with that as a photographer. After all, both occupations involve working with lenses of some sort. "To me, photography is all about seeing, and optometry is about taking care of the eyes," he says. "So, it was a pretty easy decision to go into this."
After graduating from the University of Waterloo in 1986, and starting his own optometry business in 1993, he garnered enough of a regular clientele to parlay any extra time he had into photography. Larry hasn't looked back since.
