We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Isaiah Owens. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Isaiah below.
Isaiah, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I love this question so much, I have a lot of people that will ask me all the time where does my work ethic come from. As crazy as it might sound, its me, my work ethic comes from me. I motivate myself every single day, the reason that I motivate myself and keep working hard is because my life could of been so different. When I was born I had a whole in my heart and had to have open heart surgery and seven surgeries and plus more after that. A lot of doctors doubted that I was gonna make it through but if it wasn’t for Gods grace and mercy I wouldn’t be alive right now. God saved my life and gave me another chance. I remind Myself every single day about what happened when I was born and tell myself that if I can accomplish that, then I can accomplish anything I put my mind to. I go so hard when I’m taking photos and put all my effort into editing the photos because I want to create the best work ever for my client and also turn all my work into reality and make the art come to life. If anyone follows me on social media they will see that every single post on my page is always a quote and inspiration. I want people to know me as a photographer that is trying to change and inspire the world and not just be this dope photographer that can take photos.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My name is Isaiah Owens also known as IRO, I am a local photographer/Videographer out of Detroit Michigan. I am focused on helping create women and men of all ages to become professional models. The way that I built my resume and got clients was by hosting model workshops to help people that wanted to become models but when I was doing that I gaining more clients that wanted to work with me outside of the model workshop and let me become there main photographer. I feel most excited about summer 2023, I am starting to get into car content something that has been on my mind that I have been wanting to get into for a couple months. I am excited to see what I can create this summer besides shooting models, Shooting cars I know will be a challenge for me but I’m always down to challenge myself and grow. I know that there will be big opportunities coming my way and I want to be ready for all the good ones that come my way. I want to get into traveling with my photography business, wether it is doing photoshoots for a model or beginner model and going to another state to do a photoshoot for cars I would love that. I am ready to expand outside of Michigan.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I Would have to say willing to learn, being consistent and being determined. The reason that I say willing to learn is because I have at least 5 plus articles published and have done multiple magazines I always feel that I need to learn more and grow in my craft. I am always willing to learn a new lighting technique, new editing style and new color grading. I feel that I wouldn’t be where I am at if I didn’t want to learn. being consistent is one of the number one factors of getting yourself out there. I learned that I couldn’t just post everyday I learned that I had to post quality content while also posting consistently because that’s how you gain more clients and grown your brand. You have to be determined if you want to be in this business, the reason that I say that is because there is a lot of photographers all across the world, what makes you stand out of everyone else, why should people book you, why should people follow your social media pages and stay up to date with your content. Some advice that I will give to people that want become photographers is that the road isn’t always gonna be easy, your not always gonna have a great shoot, not always gonna like the edit of the photos, but I promise you the more you work at it and keep going and practicing you will love your work and fall more inlove with it. Always be willing to learn and be marketable. When I say be marketable I am talking about use all the big social media platforms to get yourself out there. Instagram is the biggest app to use to promote your work and tiktok.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
The most impactful thing my parents have done for me is just always believed in me and never gave up on me. I know there was a period of time I was not listening to nothing they were saying but they knew that I was gonna come around sooner than later. Another one is investing into my business, bought me my first camera, SD Cards, MacBook Pro laptop which are not cheap. My parents till this day at the age of 24 they are still here and always helping me out, and I just love my parents so much and happy and blessed I am able to thank them in this article, love you mom and dad.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @iro_entx2 @focusonyourownbag and @nevaehab_
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/WqEDAOftRq0
Image Credits
@acebugey – New music out right now
