More Community than Comp.
This is the back story if you must, to the post I shared of me and Jay.
The overarching theme is everything comes full circle. If we rewind time back to 2018 we find the origin of this collaboration. When we were living in Toledo, I first had the idea to bring people on board with OTI. The plan was to develop them as shooters, show them business tactics and take over the area. I started out with my Bro Charles Wilkerson (The Icy Shooter) and about a few months later Jay graduated and I brought him on board for photography. When this happened I wasn’t in the place to provide them with constant shoots by any means. In fact Jay came on board attracting a plethora of clients from a Free shooting campaign, something I hadn’t done since 2014. I remember conversations about pricing and promotion being the 2 biggest discrepancies between me and Jay and you can see the differences in how we run our businesses today still reflecting that.
Let’s fast forward to 2019 and OTI was disbanded due to me wanting to focus on other endeavors, and not sourcing clients for the team to build on and at that moment Jay L Productions was born. In the early days I saw things being how they are today for Jay because he had a killer work ethic and the personality to attract hundreds of clients, he only needed to develop his videography skills and overall industry knowledge..
In 2019, I put out a statement saying Jay would be the best video creator in Ohio soon and those words have came to fruition with his historic 2021 and now 2022 run. You couldn’t open Instagram without seeing a JL production.
Bringing us to spring 2022, I got a call from Jay asking could I cover a couple gigs he was double booked for and if I could handle photography on a few weddings he had coming up where he world do video. Little did I know this would turn into an ongoing collaboration for the remainder of wedding season. I know for me personally, the opportunity he gave me was timely because my work had slowed down and finances were starting to catch up to me. This is how God works though, I didn’t have to voice that to Jay but God redirected him to me and that was the fire I needed to get my shooting hand back hot. I remember him calling me a few times prior to the request and he would ask “when you picking camera back up”, “what your shootin”, “what you working on?” All phrases that encouraged me to get back in the game.
That is why I say this is really about things coming full circle. If it wasn’t for Jay providing me with the opportunity to shoot with his company, I may have still been trying to figure out how I wanted to pick the camera back up. And if it wasn’t for me exposing Jay to this lane back in 2018, who’s to say if Jay L Productions would’ve been birthed as soon as it was? Full Circle Moment.
This is a message to anyone who has people around them doing things that are great, it cost you nothing to support and believe in them. And you have everything to gain from seeing them succeed. If your lanes are shared, collaborate and grow together.
#Shoot2Kill🐅 x #JLP
