Today we’d like to introduce you to Dominick Barbero.
Hi Dominick, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I began taking photos at a relatively young age in Eugene Oregon, eventually I hit an age maybe late high school I was no longer satisfied with the lack of control of an automatic camera. When exploring options and transfer credits for the UofO at Lane Community College I got into one of the Photography courses and was given a good reason to finally purchase a fully manual camera, a late 70’s Nikon film camera. this was maybe 2001?
From there I pursued photography more and more after receiving an AA degree from LCC. Finding small jobs around town, shooting and assisting. eventually I realized this was something I could see myself doing for quite some time. Having made up my mind I applied to go to Brooks Institute of Photography in lovely Santa Barbara California in 2006, graduating in 2009 with a Bachelors of Arts in Commercial Photography.
I worked in LA for a year, assisting amazing photographers around town, working on sets at Warner Bros. and Paramount studios and really seeing how the industry worked. I had an opportunity to really strike out on my own with some help from a friend in Seattle, so I moved up North to see what was possible. I split time between shooting on my own and assisting in Large commercial studios working on projects for clients like: Starbucks, Costco, Tommy Bahama, and Microsoft. I soon got an opportunity from an old Brooks classmate to work for my favorite Photoshop plugin: NIK Software. That experience was interesting, splitting time between tech support, product. testing, and only a little bit of photography. In retrospect I was lucky Google purchased NIK and laid 95% of us off. At this point I moved back to Seattle and tried to get things restarted up there, that was a rough road for numerous reasons. Some unfortunate family news brought me back to Eugene in 2015. I spent almost a decade from there self-employed, doing commercial advertising photography, video, and drone work all around the state, for a couple clients across the US, and drone work around numerous resorts in Mexico.
Very recently I pursued an opportunity to work for a professions football club growing in my own backyard (or “Soccer” as Americans call it haha). As a huge football fan and someone who loves to travel overseas, see games, and invest time and effort into the sport it felt like a no brainer to go for it. I have recently taken on the role of Visual Assets Manager at pro club beginning in 2027. The nice thing is I can still run my studio but with less of a “when’s my next paycheck coming/hunting clients” mentality, it gives me room to breath, slow down and relax a little. Fall back in love with creativity, treat it more as fun instead of work.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road to success is paved with…..no, it’s not paved at all haha. It’s a choose your own adventure through rough terrain.
I think working with certain people will always have it’s struggles, wether that be difference of views/creative vision, hounding people to pay, explaining why investing in amazing imagery to represent their business over the terrible imagery representing them on their website/socials is worth every penny.
One big challenge I’ve had is having clients, consistent ones for 2-7 years on different occasions and then one day, they just stop using you. They love you, they talk you up, and one day…done. It’s hard, for me at least to not take that personally after they treat you like family and then one day decide for whatever reason…you’re not worth it anymore. None of them were smooth, they just one days stopped hiring without reason, started ghosting me, like any relationship it’s hard not to wonder what had happened, was it me, was it them, and after all that it’s difficult NOT to take it a little personal.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I work mainly in Commercial Advertising Photography. Business to Business.
If I could only do what I truly love, honestly I’d stick with Food & Beverage. I LOVE making food look delicious, when people see your imagery and they immediately compliment it and say: it makes them hungry…that right there is the ultimate compliment to me.
But that’s not the case haha, I do a lot of headshots, we shoot for some high end automotive collections, a bit of product, but mostly lifestyle. Showing how businesses run and operate and the key parts their employees play in this.
Most proud of…..oooo while it wasn’t the most flashy or attention getting projects I was contracted by a client and the 3M Corporation to shoot almost 30 locations across the US. Lots of meeting fun people, sightseeing, and exploring places I would have never taken the time to go otherwise…think middle of nowhere Mississippi.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Very high energy, goofy, I joke a lot, A LOT, which isn’t always good for the professional setting to be honest haha.
I grew up playing sports, riding bikes, lots of outside time, I stayed very active. If I was inside I was either drawing or playing video games.
I have a very outgoing personality so dipping in and out of different social groups on the fly was never an issue in school and made me lots of friends of different backgrounds.
I played baseball for 12 years, football for 3, and threw javelins for 1. I lettered in Football and Javelin oddly enough. Being part of a team was always fun, but Javelin taught me that when it’s a team of one, it’s all on you, you make or break it alone.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.DOMINICKBARBERO.com
- Instagram: @barbero_photo_llc
- Facebook: @Dominick Barbero Photography LLC
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominick-barbero-96b14966/
