What photographers see through their viewfinder is different from what most people see. With an eye that’s attuned to capture a spontaneous moment on a shoot, like a model that can do a backflip, and scout the perfect location, like finding triangles in nature that mirror a brand’s logo, Erik Isakson shares his personal experiences as a top brand photographer. Having worked with leading brands, including Nike, Chevrolet, UCLA and more, Erik provides insights on how to effectively work with a professional photographer to bring your brand story to life, visually, in this new episode of The 19: Entrepreneur Edition.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:00:06] This is the 19. In 19 minutes or less game changing insights from Orange Label, the leading response marketing agency for established brands that are driven by a fearless entrepreneurial mindset.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:00:23] Hello and welcome to The 19 Entrepreneur Edition. I’m Rochelle Reiter, President of Orange Label. In our digital world, image focused platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Facebook are continuing to grow and have over one billion global users. We all know the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” and today we’ll be putting that to the test. With over 20 years of experience and an impressive client list, including Nike, Samsung, Chevrolet, UCLA and more. Commercial photographer Erik Isakson is here to share tips, tricks and insights on how to take your custom brand photography to the next level. Erik, welcome to The 19, we’re thrilled to have you!
Erik Isakson: [00:01:02] Good to be here. Thank you.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:01:09] Let’s start off with talking a little bit about your background.
Erik Isakson: [00:01:13] All right. So I’ve always had an interest in photography growing up, studied in high school and studied it in college. I went to Brigham Young University and got a BFA in photography and always had a passion and an interest in photography. And while I was at BYU, I was trying to decide on my final project for my BFA final show. And at that time, the Winter Olympics were coming soon to Utah and there was a posting from an Olympic fencer who is training and for a couple hundred dollars paid me to do some portraits of her. I had so much fun getting creative with these portraits of this athlete that I thought, wow, I could do Olympic portraits because there were so many athletes that were training in the area to.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:02:01] Right.
Erik Isakson: [00:02:01] So I ended up doing 10 final portraits, half of them summer athletes, half winter athletes, and traveled some to photograph them and also locally there and it ended up being an amazing experience. That kind of spring boarded me into knowing, you know, getting into photographing athletes and sports lifestyle. I moved to Los Angeles in 2000 and was a studio manager for a photographer and really learned a lot of the ins and outs of budgets and working with clients and producing shoots and all of that. So and then I gradually got into doing my own work after a few years and to where I was working on my own as a photographer within a few years after that, so.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:02:50] Awesome. What are some of the brands that you’ve worked on?
Erik Isakson: [00:02:53] I’ve done work with Nike, Chevrolet, GMC, Budweiser, Modelo, quite a few ongoing shoots with Samsung as well. So a lot of focus on people, lifestyle, active sports, lifestyle imagery.
Rochelle Reiter : [00:03:11] What are some of the benefits that you see when brands use custom photography?
Erik Isakson: [00:03:18] Well, I had an experience even just this past week. I was in Salt Lake photographing for a tech company and up until this point, they’ve been using stock photography. And there’s a lot of great stock photography out there, but they knew that they needed to really customize it ...