Johnny Cirillo was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, in 1980 to a father who delivered UPS packages in the Garment District of Manhattan and a very creative stay-at-home mom. During high school on Long Island, he developed a passion for photography when his mom gave him his first 35mm and shared with him some of her black-and-white work from the sixties. Film and photography became an obsession. He rolled his own film, built his own darkroom, and bugged every one of his friends to sit for him as he explored all facets of the medium.