Christopher Wray-McCann was born in Detroit and attended high school at The Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan. It was there at the age of 16 that he began studying photography. After graduating, he went on to the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore to continue studying photography, majoring in photojournalism. In the early years of his career, Christopher did a great deal of work within the music industry photographing many album covers, making music videos, and spending months at a time embedded with numerous bands photographing their lives as they toured the world. At the same time, the commercial aspect of his practice continued to grow in the realm of photojournalism for magazines such as Conde Nast Traveler, Rolling Stone, Popular Mechanics, Esquire, and GQ.