Discovering where creativity intersects with technology can be a life-changing moment. For Chris Miller of One Point Media, that moment spiraled into a thriving career that has transformed the way we look at golf course marketing, real estate, and even iconic music festivals like Coachella. Embark on this episode's journey with us, where Chris shares his compelling tale of overcoming personal challenges, and how his relentless pursuit for blending his IT background with photography led him to carve out his own entrepreneurial path.
Venturing beyond the mechanics of camera work, Chris delves into the essence of relationship building and the strategic use of social media that propelled his business into new heights. His candid revelations about photographing Coachella Fest over 15 years offer a rare glimpse into the evolution of this cultural phenomenon. Not merely content with capturing images, Chris illuminates the importance of constantly evolving with technology, embracing drones, and artificial intelligence to keep his company at the forefront of innovation.
As the conversation wraps up, we reflect on the inception of One Point Media Real Estate and Chris’s dedication to staying relevant amidst the ever-shifting business landscapes. Whether it's servicing the High Desert or the Coachella Valley, Chris's narrative is a testament to the power of adaptation and the magic of capturing life's moments through a lens crafted by passion and skill. If his story has piqued your curiosity, be sure to join us and share in the experience that is One Point Media's remarkable journey.
Discovering where creativity intersects with technology can be a life-changing moment. For Chris Miller of One Point Media, that moment spiraled into a thriving career that has transformed the way we look at golf course marketing, real estate, and even iconic music festivals like Coachella. Embark on this episode's journey with us, where Chris shares his compelling tale of overcoming personal challenges, and how his relentless pursuit for blending his IT background with photography led him to carve out his own entrepreneurial path.
Venturing beyond the mechanics of camera work, Chris delves into the essence of relationship building and the strategic use of social media that propelled his business into new heights. His candid revelations about photographing Coachella Fest over 15 years offer a rare glimpse into the evolution of this cultural phenomenon. Not merely content with capturing images, Chris illuminates the importance of constantly evolving with technology, embracing drones, and artificial intelligence to keep his company at the forefront of innovation.
As the conversation wraps up, we reflect on the inception of One Point Media Real Estate and Chris’s dedication to staying relevant amidst the ever-shifting business landscapes. Whether it's servicing the High Desert or the Coachella Valley, Chris's narrative is a testament to the power of adaptation and the magic of capturing life's moments through a lens crafted by passion and skill. If his story has piqued your curiosity, be sure to join us and share in the experience that is One Point Media's remarkable journey.
Welcome to CV Hustle, the podcast created to educate, inform and inspire entrepreneurship here in our Coachella Valley. Welcome everybody, I'm Robert Mraz.
Speaker 2:And I'm Fina Mraz.
Speaker 1:And this is CV Hustle, the podcast dedicated to inform, educate and inspire local entrepreneurship here in the Coachella Valley. And today, you know, we've got nothing but great guests Today. If you're into photography, digital marketing, this is the episode for you, because today we've got Chris Miller from One Point Media. Thanks for joining us, chris, great to be here. Thanks, man, we're happy to have you. Great to be here. Thanks, man, we're happy to have you. Happy to have you. So we want to take it we always like to start with our entrepreneurs and take it way back, take it to the origin story, not only of your business, but your origin story of yourself. So, are you a Coachella Valley native or did you grow up somewhere else?
Speaker 3:I grew up in West Texas, near Amarillo, texas, and my father was an entrepreneur. He always had his own business.
Speaker 2:What did he do?
Speaker 3:His big deal was. He was an independent oil and gas producer. Long story short, he drilled oil wells in West Texas and he always encouraged me, you know, like, bring me to the office, bring me out to the. Whenever they were drilling a new rig, he'd bring me out there. Um, he uh I remember this was like mid eighties he would, uh, you know, these, these rigs would cost a million dollars, you know, and he didn't have a million dollars, but he would get together groups of guys, you know, and, and he always shared with me.
Speaker 3:It was a cool thing. You know, it's like he'd tell me we'd go out to this rig and be like this is, you know, this is $1.5 million to drill, and I put in 300 and, uh, you know, john down the street put in a half a million and, you know, he'd show me and describe to me how, you know, like, if it's making 80 barrels a day, you know it's bringing in $3,000 a day, you know it's bringing in three thousand dollars a day, and then he would get that money and have to pay off. You know the percentages or whatever. Do some game right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was inspiring, to say the least yeah, I told you, we got to talk to our kids more about money give them the raw, hard facts.
Speaker 1:The kids were broke, sorry, yeah, so you had entrepreneurship in your blood, basically, huh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he, he always, always encouraged me and and inspired me to do that. You know, always, always told me throughout college attempts and everything else. You know, find something you love to do. You know, don't worry about the money, find something you love to do. And that was all his thing. You know, whatever it was, if I was doing something that I enjoyed and I and I, you know, put the work in and he was proud of me. So that was a great. I had a great start oh yeah, so you went.
Speaker 2:So first you were in texas and then did you graduate high school there, did you go to college there, or what?
Speaker 3:I graduated high school in texas, went to college at texas tech and, uh, long story short, burned out on drugs and alcohol, like when I was about 20, 21 years old. Oh yeah, and one of my dad's business partners was from Palm Desert and was a recovering alcoholic as well. And, long story short, my dad was divorced and he married his daughter Right. So we had some roots out here. And when it came my turn to get in recovery, papa Joe was my step grandfather, you know. He said get him a one way plane ticket to Palm Desert. And, and they did and flew me out here. Papa Joe picked me up, dropped me off at the Betty Ford Center for a few months and and I've been here ever since. Wow, what a story.
Speaker 2:See, I told you, we always learn.
Speaker 1:That's one way to get to the desert. Betty Ford, drop ship. So how old were you at this point? You were just out of college.
Speaker 3:I was 26 by the time I finally came to and was ready to get clean and sober and did it out here and I never wanted to be here. Actually, you know, I always wanted to get back to Texas.
Speaker 2:but why told me what was your thing about California, Just because some people either love Californians or they don't. Right, Is that what your thing was, or did you? What do you?
Speaker 3:I'm just Texas boy. I always have been. You know Boy, I always have been. You know that's, that's home to me, right, always kind of. I've always said, um, kind of jokingly like I felt like I got stuck here, but I know there's a lot worse places to get stuck. You know I come to appreciate it. But you know, rocks and sand is not where my spirit lives. My spirit lives in rivers, lakes and trees. You know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:So so like I still have family out there then and or in texas uh, my dad passed away from cancer about eight years ago.
Speaker 3:My stepmom and my mom both moved to palm desert in the last couple years actually families come in here, yeah, and uh, papa joe has a large family here. That's my technically my step family, but they've been my family for 30 plus years I'm not even sure how long it's a brick system, absolutely too but I have a whole big group of cousins, aunts and uncles. You know all from that side of the family that my dad married into many, many years ago so.
Speaker 2:So, after betty ford and they do wonderful things for a lot of people, which, thank god, we need we need stuff like that out there. Then what happened? Did you end up going straight into photography or were you still kind of like how did that all come about?
Speaker 3:They told me at Betty Ford don't go right back to Texas. You need to. You know you're going to go back there and you're going to run into the old crowd and right into the old scene again. It's not healthy. Just stay here for a year and just stay clean and sober. And I did. And in that year I got a job at Merrill Lynch. The Palm Springs office of Merrill Lynch Met Bridget there. She was my wife, bridget. She was, I think, 19 years old and I was 26 about, and I was a financial consultant trainee and she was just working there as a part-time assistant while she was going to COD and I had never finished college. You know I burned out before I graduated Texas Tech. So while I was at Merrill Lynch I ended up going through the training program. I was a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch for two or three years.
Speaker 2:You know, I've dabbled in that and it's very interesting to me and I think it's pretty cool. I mean just to see what you can do with money and how you can make money, work for you and help people, and we've had some great financial advisors and anyway. So that was.
Speaker 1:So you're on the road to becoming a financial advisor, then yeah I was, I, I was, I was.
Speaker 3:You know, got all my licenses, series seven and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know you need licenses to sell like life insurance too, which is part of all I got that also.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I have a. I have a large collection of harinets and name tags. Very good to quote. Uh, what was that?
Speaker 2:That's a name tag.
Speaker 3:Wayne's World. Oh yeah, yeah, I can relate to that statement. Anyway. So I fell in love with Bridget at the Merrill Lynch office, but she was just going to COD, she was going on to real college. So one day she told me I'm going to go to Cal State, San Marcos. You know, she's finished COD. And she was going to Cal State, San Marcos and I said I didn't know where that was or anything about it. But I said, hey, you know what I need to finish college too, I'll come with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we both quit Merrill Lynch together and I chased her down to uh to Neve County, san Diego, and while we were there we both graduated from Cal State. San Marcos got married. At that time rented a condo in Oceanside.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that's one of the best places you can go to college, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was awesome. It doesn't get more beautiful than that. So it was great. But then we'd been married a couple of years and graduated college. I had a job at an IT consulting firm in Vista North County, san Diego and I was starting to get into photography and photography. We both wanted to buy a house and start a family and at that time I remember it was like $500,000 to buy a starter home in San Diego. That's a while ago. Two kids basically right out of college, like $500,000. It was incomprehensible. And Bridget has strong roots in Palm Springs, obviously born and raised in Palm Springs, and you know we. You said you know what we go to the desert, buy a house, you know. So we came back to the desert, bought a house and and the rest is history.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned getting into photography. How did that come about? Was that something you did in school, or was that something that? You had an interest Because you go from Merrill Lynch to photography. That's a big change in your profession, right?
Speaker 3:What I always thought that I was going to end up doing and what my plan was was IT. I always liked computers and tech stuff like that was. That was what I thought my it was for a long time that was what I thought my it was. For a long time it was computers and IT, but with my dad inspiring my entrepreneurship, I wanted a business degree. So I got a management information systems degree. So for those that don't know, it's basically a business degree with a specialty in tech, right, okay?
Speaker 2:Management information systems. So are they teaching you how to code and do things like that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it took three or four semesters of programming and, along with accounting, finance, marketing and all that other stuff, that's a little bit of everything. It was a perfect degree for me, actually, and at the time I thought, right, so I got the IT degree. I went to night school in San Diego at the time and became a Microsoft certified systems engineer. To hang another name tag on my wall tag Right, yeah. So, but I also have always had this creative side, um, probably musically more than anything. I love to play guitar and was passionate about music and creativity in general.
Speaker 3:And at the time the first digital SLR camera came out this would have been, oh, you know, 2004, maybe something like that the Canon Digital Rebel, you know. And my mom had given me an old film camera when I was young and I always like playing with it, right, and I was taking pictures of sunsets at the beach and stuff with it, right, and I was taking pictures of sunsets at the beach and stuff, and while I was working this IT job and I had this brand new digital camera. Photoshop was basically a new thing, you know, and I realized well, back up a little bit, a good friend of ours was starting a wedding coordinating business in Palm Springs, and she knew that I was into photography and she said I have this young couple that's on a really strict budget and can you know, could you think you could photograph their wedding? And all I'd ever photographed was like sunsets on the beach and surfers maybe a little bit right, but like landscape photography was my thing. And I thought, hell, no, I'm not going to photograph a wedding. And I said, well, they have an $800 budget and I thought that was how much the next lens I wanted to buy was. And I thought, well, how cool would it be if my camera, you know, buys the lens you know like, generates the revenue to pay for itself, to pay for the new lens. So, like, I'll do it. And that was my epiphany. It, and that was my, my epiphany, like I had this advanced piece of hardware and software, you know, this new digital camera and Photoshop, and it's earning my money. Like it's earning me money.
Speaker 3:You know, I was working for this it firm at the time, on an hourly rate. I don't remember what it was like 25, 30 bucks an hour, which was great, you know, 25 years ago. I was a professional, you know, but I also knew that he was billing me out at like $250 an hour. We were managing servers and networks and backup systems for law firms, accounting firms, cpa firms, construction companies and IT. So I was going and managing these, these servers and networks and stuff for these IT firms, making $25 an hour and my boss was billing out at 250 and I got it. You know, I got it. He's taken all the risk, he put up all the money for everything you know and I'm getting a paycheck whether or not the phone rings you know.
Speaker 3:So he's that's his money, right, but but I knew well enough from my experience with my dad that I wanted to be making my money. So when I had this technology that I could also express myself with creatively and make my own money, that was it.
Speaker 1:That was your light bulb moment.
Speaker 3:That was it. It's not IT, it's photography, and fortunately the IT background served me well and still does to this day. I run my company off of a server that I built that's serving multiple photographers and overseas editors and all this stuff like it's. It's high tech. You know, I got the tech stuff dialed in because I yeah, so I had the background.
Speaker 2:so when you went to this, did they were okay with you being kind of a newbie at shooting for weddings? Did? Did they know that? Oh, yeah, yeah, did they like their photos?
Speaker 3:Full disclosure. Full disclosure Sign here. I don't even remember. All I remember about it was it was an Indian wedding, which is cool because it was very colorful. Oh, colorful, yeah, the camera likes color and I would shudder to look at the photos. I hope nobody ever takes them up.
Speaker 1:It's one of those things. It's the first one. I just was going flying by seeing my pants right on the first. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So did the Photoshop. Did you start using Photoshop with their wedding?
Speaker 3:Well, I had used it to like touch up my landscape photos, my sunset photos of the beach and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but I was using. So what year was your first photography? Getting what? What year was?
Speaker 3:that was probably around 2005, 2006, something like that.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah and you're back in the desert at this point yeah, so we, we were wanting, we were, I was discovered this new career. We wanted to buy a house, um, so we came back to the desert and I literally printed up business cards that had chris miller, computer technician, on one side and on the back side chris miller, photographer, jack of all trades, literally a two-sided business card. And and I got my cv hustle on and I signed up for all the, all the chambers of commerce, meetings and bni and all that stuff and I would go to those and depending on who I was talking to would be which side of the card that I was. Yeah, and I sort of I supplemented my you know sparking in my photography career by, you know, the bread and butter stuff was, you know, doing some like freelance it stuff, and I did that for a couple years before the photography really took off and I didn't need to do the it anymore wow, so you had multiple streams going at that point, huh well they were.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you call it a strip what was what did?
Speaker 2:so? They did a bridget end up going into photography right away too, or she just was kind of going back into finance.
Speaker 3:She had always had the eye, always had the eye, and then she got really good at taking pictures and I started getting into a thing where I realized about 15 years ago that I didn't like taking pictures of people, you know, because people have opinions on the way they look and I would always get voluntold, you know, by her to take our friends and family's Christmas card photos and stuff. She's my good side.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and one year some good friends and neighbors of ours I was going to photograph their Christmas you know their Christmas cards that year Friends of ours and Bridget's and their new, their new child and and something came up. I couldn't make it. So I they just I gave her the camera. It's like just put the red square on their nose and turn this and set this at that and I set the camera up for and she knocked it out of the park and she's been off ever since. And it's been great because anytime you know one of my clients needs a headshot or whatever. And it's been great because anytime you know one of my clients needs a headshot or whatever, there it is.
Speaker 2:Call my wife. Okay, so you started kind of with this, with this photography, so are you still? Are you thanking the girl that gave you the opportunity for this wedding?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, oh yeah, we still talk about it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, oh yeah. So then what, what? What happened next after that? Where did the photography business start really evolving?
Speaker 3:I got hooked up with Deidre Buck at the time, 20 years ago. She was the premier. Do you know who she is? She was the premier wedding photographer in town, certainly. If not, you know estate, you know big deal. How did you meet her? We got when we were at Merrill Lynch. We got uh, I don't remember how this came about, but they were Palm Springs Life magazine was doing this wedding advertorial thing, okay, and they needed a bride and groom. Oh, I remember it was the, the, the shop where Bridget got her wedding dress from for our wedding. Uh, you know they were. They were doing the wardrobe for this shoot or whatever. They need a bride and groom. So they asked us to do it and like, yeah, that'll be fun. I didn't think that'll be fun, but anyway, long story short, we got, we were the models for this shoot and deidre was the photographer and I was getting into photography, so that it's kind of fuzzy, but you know.
Speaker 2:So this was a long time ago, but deidre and I were off after that and we photographed hundreds of weddings together so what I tell Bobby is, every time we're interviewing people, the same thing we hear is the pieces just kind of all lined up and I'm like seriously the universe aligns and you see the path right before yeah, so then you two hit it off and then she's like hey, I need some help and you know, would you be willing to help me out?
Speaker 3:yeah, I was her second photographer for a long time and she was struggling with. I was helping her out too in this way.
Speaker 3:She was struggling with transitioning from film to digital oh yeah, right, oh yeah, because during that time everything's go like that's a transition time her, you know, for many weddings that we did together she had her trusty film camera on one shoulder and a new digital camera that she did not lock on her other shoulder, you know. And she was coming to me saying, you know, with the technical aspect of it. So I was her, you know, second photographer slash tech consultant, you know, for her digital cameras that she hated Wow, oh yeah, that's where your IT background really helped you kind of build.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had already had the digital cameras down by that point. Yeah, and that was a new technology at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I remember that time it was like there's no more. No more going to Walmart and picking up your pictures anymore, right? Or remember that to go to Costco and go through the AMs and find your, find your pictures.
Speaker 3:We used to do that back in the day. I never really did that.
Speaker 1:I was just. I'm a 21st century little boy. You're ahead of you, know. So that's, that's where the IT comes into play, so that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So when you were taking all of these photos for her, so were you the one doing all of the editing and and all of that, or did you guys give that over to somebody else, or how did?
Speaker 3:no, we edited our own. I don't remember if I edited her stuff as well, um, I just don't remember we were doing our own editing um so you said I'm kind of tired of people, and then yeah, so my, my first love in photography was landscape photography.
Speaker 3:Right, and I had this epiphany when I was, when we were out here in the desert and I was photographing a lot of weddings which I didn't particularly enjoy. It was incredible training for me, because a good wedding photographer is a good photographer period, because you're shooting fashion, architecture, event, everything. You know a wedding is everything, and not only that. You get one shot, you get one shot at the kiss, one shot at the dance. You know like you got it, you got to nail it better, be on it. Yeah, so I I have no regrets for all the time that I spent photographing weddings. It was extremely valuable, but landscape photography was my, was my passion, so I was, I kind of wanted to keep doing that on the side. And one thing I noticed 20, 25 years ago the golf courses. Out here I would see billboards of golf courses and full page print ads in Palm Springs Life of all these amazing golf courses. Sure, the backgrounds of mountains, but it looked like a lot of these look like they sent the golf pro out to stand on the signature hole, you know, with a point and shoot camera and in in the worst possible light. You know, and I'd see them and go, oh god, if they would just do it, done it then. And you know so. Not like this was a brand new idea, not like it was my original idea, but it could have been done better. You saw an opportunity.
Speaker 3:Basically, my epiphany was that if I could practice landscape, my landscape photo techniques on these golf courses, I could take these you know this the marketing of these golf courses to another level. So I started taking my get my CB hustle on again. I started taking my landscape photography portfolio around to country clubs and golf courses. Right, wow, like, hey, I saw this picture that you guys printed, you know, paid ten thousand dollars for this ad. How about if I made it look like this and I would show them? You know, these romantic first light of the day kind of like, you know, more artistic and that that took off. That took off. And golf course photography was like my next thing that I got into after weddings and there's plenty of golf courses out here, right?
Speaker 1:oh, yeah, once. And the thing about those golf courses because we work with a lot of like country clubs is once one uses you, the next one will you. They are. It's all intertwined and incestuous, like all the employees like work at the same one. So if you get a good reputation, they start they start referring the same people. I'm sure that's what happened to you too. Yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Uh, so you added sales to your repertoire well, I'd had the sales like mary lynch.
Speaker 3:I went through two years of sales training with mary lynch and like all that stuff, but anyway, anyway, so these I was doing all this golf course work for these clubs and eventually, you know, I got. I developed great relationships and the general manager one day said hey, we got a new chef, he's got some dishes. Can you photograph food? You know, can you photograph dishes? And I lied and I said that I could and I went home and started reading how do I photograph food?
Speaker 1:I've what I don't do. I think I've done that too.
Speaker 3:Better figure out how to do it right. And then our real estate sales office needs somebody to photograph homes. Can you photograph homes? And I lied and I said that I could, and I ran home, and how do I photograph houses? And that was it.
Speaker 1:It just took off from there, huh. Yeah, and it just the referrals kept coming in right, yep, as most of your, as most of your business referral base. Like you do a good job on one project, it's just going to lead to the next.
Speaker 3:I would say more relationship based. You know our relationship with our clients is tight. Referral maybe not so much, but more like social media was huge for me.
Speaker 2:Really Because? Is it because, like the real estate company that you're photographing for is putting it on their page and you guys are cross promoting?
Speaker 3:or yeah, or you know a few of the, a few of the top real estate agents in the Valley 15 years ago started using me, you know. And then all the, all the up and coming agentscoming agents, like who's who they use and who they use and oh, oh, you do her photography, you do their photography. Oh, you know, maybe you could do ours. So, um, I developed relationships that way. I would say it's a big name game.
Speaker 1:Huh, just name drop and you'll get some jobs. Yeah, so we can't talk about your work though, though, without bringing up the Coachella Fest. Oh yeah, you were one of the pioneers on that festival, right, if I'm correct? Yeah yeah, how many years did you photograph that festival? 15. 15. How?
Speaker 2:did it come about, though? How did that come?
Speaker 3:about so my love of music. I'm a wannabe rock star, you know, mediocre, mediocre guitar player in actuality, but in my mind, you know, I'm a rock star in my own office, a star at heart man. I just always loved music. I always wanted to play music and be part of the music scene. And, uh, in that first year, like when I just started photographing weddings, back to to that point I signed up for Palm Springs Photo Festival, a big photo festival that happens every year in the spring in Palm Springs, and one of the things they had was a portfolio review and they had this long list of, you know, editors for national magazines, for example, like a lot of those types of people, and you could sign up for you could pick five. If you took the portfolio review options, you got to pick five people on that list to have 30 minutes to sit down with them and show them your portfolio. Wow, yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 2:That's like gold.
Speaker 3:And one of the guys on there was Henry Diltz, and I'd never heard of him. I didn't know who he was, but he photographed and Crosby Stills and Nash's first album cover, neil Young. He was Hendrix photographer, grateful Dead. He was the photographer in like the 60s and 70s and still to this day is, you know, renowned as kind of like the OG king of live music photography. He was on that list and I read his little bio, you bio. You know, like I'm signing up for this guy. Sure, I didn't even go to any of the other ones. Oh wow, I didn't even go to the end. I had a portfolio of wedding photos and sunsets of the beach. So I sit down with henry and he's like what do you got to show me? I'm like I don't, I don't. You know, you can look at this if you want, but that's not really why I'm here. You know, I I'm passionate about music and I'm passionate about photography and I'm fascinated that you were able to combine the two and I just wonder if you could, you know, share with me, you know, give me some insight on how to do that. And he was so gracious and so kind, uh, and he basically said, first and foremost, there's no money in it. Forget about making money off doing this. There's no money in it. You got to do it for the love of the music. And I said, well, I'm in it for the love of the music.
Speaker 3:And he told me his secret was he developed relationships with these musicians. A good example is the Crosby Stills Nash's first album cover. Is Crosby Stills Nash sitting on the porch of this old, dilapidated house in San Francisco, like run down, like a foggy day, and they're sitting on the porch, you know, with instruments, right. But he had befriended those guys in San Francisco and hanging out with them and they would. Henry played harmonica. So he was like hanging out at their house, like literally just hanging out at their house jamming on the front porch. And he stepped out to the street and took a picture and the album cover. That was Crosby Stills and Nash's first album cover. So it wasn't a stage production or anything Not at all Real and raw.
Speaker 3:And he has this incredible portfolio of behind the scenes photos and he said if you get to the point where you're doing this for a living, you're going to be in the photo pit. You're going to be in a photo pit with 100 other photographers all taking the same picture. He said that's not where you want to be. You want to be backstage, you want to be on the stage. You got to find something that everybody else isn't doing. So I started developing relationships with local musicians and hanging out with them and to this day some of my absolute best friends in the Valley are, you know, music scene pioneers here in town and I developed a portfolio of local bands just in the style that he taught me to do Hang out with them, go to rehearsals, get on stage, you know. So I developed friendships with these guys to where you know they would love for me to come on stage with them. You know?
Speaker 2:yeah, they're like hey, come on, you're part of the team yeah so.
Speaker 3:So I was able to share that portfolio with uh, a contact that I had at golden voice, and they said all right, we'll give you a shot, you know, we'll give you, you know, a photo. Pass one year, you know, and the next year they hired me. And you know, 15 years later I was still there oh my gosh, 15 years.
Speaker 2:So would you, when so, say so you got the gig right, so to speak, and so were you. Were you shooting way in advance before Coachella actually started, because you were talking about relationships. So if it started on a Friday, were you there? Like you know, monday, tuesday, wednesday, we'll see, you know, taking photos of things setting up.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, we always did. You know pre-production photos and stuff. But the great thing about photographing Coachella for Golden Voice is exactly what Henry taught me is we weren't. I didn't have a press pass. I wasn't standing in the photo pit with the press photographers I I didn't have a press pass, I wasn't standing in the photo pit with the press photographers.
Speaker 1:I was on stage, I was backstage.
Speaker 3:You had an artist pass though I was on the back. Production, yeah, production. So I went where I needed to. I was allowed to go where I needed to to get the best shot, and all the press photographers in the pit were looking at me on stage.
Speaker 2:You get up there. Well then, so walk me through how that would work.
Speaker 3:So you, you took how many, I mean how many, I don't even know how many pictures you would take in one weekend the evolution of coachella was, uh, one of, I mean it's, it's, you can see it when you go to, if you've been going to the festival for 15 years it used to be me and bill fold in the photo pit, like you know, the one of the founders. You know I was. I was there with just a few guys.
Speaker 1:It was literally just a few guys as it was not and it was not a huge zeno festival at the first start. It was just a festival in the desert, you know, weekend. They ended up two weeks a little while, took a little while to get out. So what year did you start? What year?
Speaker 3:15 years ago 08, 09, something like that.
Speaker 1:So it was still kind of evolving. Golden Boy still owned it at that point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's what I was getting at. I always took the staff photo every year and I remember the first one. It was like 15 people on the stage and a few years ago it was hundreds of people.
Speaker 2:I used to have to do it with a drone because there were so many people you had to do that and get way back.
Speaker 3:But Coachella evolved as it had to. I suppose AEG bought it out, you know, and it went from. You know, go get them, chris, have fun. You know, can't wait to see your pictures next week. To you know regimented schedules and shot lists and assignments, and you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, real corporate, so okay, so I want to go back to Coachella, and so you would shoot probably thousands of pictures, I would assume. Who is deciding what pictures they get? Or were you just giving them everything and letting them decide?
Speaker 3:when, when I could, basically, you know, to the way it is now, is there is a, the photo team, and each photographer on there has an assignment or a bunch of assignments. You know, call time at 8 30 AM for a pre-production meeting all the way to. You know the guys that have. You know, the Sahara assignments are there till two, 30 in the morning, maybe. Um, and the other thing is golden voice, wisely adapted to controlling the, the media coming in and out of of coachella. So there are now uh, runners, card runners, literally like we're in when we're in the photo pit for a headliner. We shoot, you know one song and there's, there's a runner there. We give them the memory card, they hand us another card, they get that, just like, run it to the production tag flag uploaded and distributed to the world, like literally you know a few minutes after I'm taking the photos.
Speaker 3:That's all social media driven right.
Speaker 1:Everybody's gotta be first, first to get the shot, right? Yeah, so that just makes it a race against time there's takes the artistry out of it, right? I mean, if it's just a little yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 3:A little bit they were. You know, the idea was the that gold, golden voice wants the world to see what they want to see of coachella, right? So they started giving out far fewer press passes and we became they became more reliant on us, like and I'm talking about the official photo team, and that team grew to I don't know, probably 15 on the photo side and probably 10 or 15 on the video side, and they're doing the same thing with video, which is insane, right, all the live YouTube feeds that are going on, those are all. That's all done in-house, basically. I mean, there's obviously some contractors involved and things like that, but it's all in-house. If you see a press release or a photo of a headliner at Coachella, it was taken by somebody on our team, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:Or Getty At least, if it's not approved by them.
Speaker 3:Getty's in there too. A really good relationship with Getty. The short of that is it went from me and my buddies in the photo pit going shooting whatever we wanted for fun to working. It's hard work.
Speaker 2:It's hard work 's hard work. And what do you, I mean? Are you literally like all day there?
Speaker 3:usually 10, 30 to 1, 30 was my typical, oh wow yeah, yeah, so that's a long long day and then waking up and doing that again.
Speaker 1:You know, over and over and over so for a long weekend you have some good stories. Well, in 15 years you've had to see, so you've had to see some pretty interesting things going on in Coachella yeah, that's an understatement, but you know, backstage obviously isn't as glamorous as always, is it as people think?
Speaker 2:it is. Did you meet that? You probably were. I mean, did you get starstruck ever?
Speaker 3:no really. I uh. My favorite was probably meeting Robert Earl Kane at stagecoach oh, wow, oh, so you do stagecoach. Well, I guess that's all kind of yeah, a lot of their festivals, yeah, okay, yeah, quite a few of their festivals. Um, a final story, the to to tie it in and wrap it up on the festival stuff is uh, desert trip. So uh, the the photo team for desert trip was very small, I think there was four or five of us maybe, like very small to that yeah very small.
Speaker 3:And so my my producer manager guy is telling me all the things that are going on. He said we have this, uh, this photo exhibit that we're featuring a couple of prominent music photographers. One of them's name's Henry Diltz. And I said, oh my God, you're kidding Henry Diltz. And he's like he's here, like yeah, he's here. We built a whole photo gallery on the grounds that you can walk through and meet him and stuff. And I told him the story about the photo festival, how he inspired me to start, and he's like, oh my God, that's incredible, we got it. You got to tell him we got it, we got to get you over there and to meet him. So anyway, long story short, I get to go meet Henry and he didn't remember me. Obviously you know it was a long time.
Speaker 2:But did you take a picture with him?
Speaker 3:Not only that. So I told him that, I told him the story and, like you inspired me. You told me to do this, I did it and now here I am, you know, like a lead photographer for the Super Bowl of music festivals. Like you know, there wasn't any greater honor I could have given him but to tell him you gave me advice 18 years ago. I listened, I did it and I'm here because of you. I'm here because of you and he was just like almost in tears. You know, just give me this big hug. And him and Danny Clanch was one of the other guys in there who's the, the Henry Diltz of the modern era? You know, he's Pearl Jam's photographer, foo Fighters photographer you know he's the new Henry Diltz.
Speaker 3:Anyway, long story short, it was those two guys, the new Henry Diltz. Anyway, long story short, it was those two guys and one of my best guys on one of my best friends on the photo team. So they got, jesse, the opening night of Desert Trip was Neil Young, and the four photographers that got sent into the pit was me, my buddy, jesse, henry Diltz and Danny Clinch. It was just us. I mean, there was a I think there was a a couple of Getty photographers there, actually, now that I think about it. But I walked in, we were walking into the photo pit and I was like guys, I was like it was so surreal, yeah, we take a selfie. And Henry was like, yeah, we'll take a selfie, I have a selfie of me and Henry and Danny Clanch and my buddy like walking into the photo pit for the opening set of Desert Trip, for the opening set of Desert Trip, and that was like that was it. I could have quit right then.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Hanging it up.
Speaker 3:Probably should have no think about it. The top of the mountain, everything after that. I kind of felt like Brett Favre in his Vikings years. You know, like I should have retired with Green.
Speaker 1:Bay Should have retired, tom Brady, I should have came back Tom Brady's last Patriot Super Bowl.
Speaker 3:Should have walked away at that point.
Speaker 1:Got to leave when you're on top. Man Got to leave when you're on top. So we go from festivals to now One Point Media. How did it take us through that journey and how you got to where you are today with One Point?
Speaker 3:So I told you guys I'd kind of discovered that I didn't like photographing people and I was doing a lot of these weddings, events, concerts and stuff. I was the house photographer at agua caliente for at the show at agua since the the day it opened, for six years probably. Great venue, yeah, phenomenal. I've been the house photographer at spotlight for years, you know. So, long story short, it was a lot of nights and weekends, event work, which doesn't pay well, and my kids were starting to go to school right, my kids are school age now, so those nights and weekends became infinitely more valuable because those were the times I got to spend with them. Sure, to spend with them.
Speaker 3:So I was learning how to photograph real estate and I was doing some real estate work from that connection at the one country club that I lied and said I knew how to photograph houses and that was kind of starting to take off. So I was doing real estate photography. My wife and I would always go to Texas to visit family, right, and we always kind of like fantasize. I always fantasized about moving back to Texas, you know, and she did too, like she got it when we were there, you know, and she a lot of times, whenever we would go visit someplace, like on the East Coast or Texas, she, you know, she'd always say do you think we could move here?
Speaker 3:You know, and we couldn't, because my portfolio was golf courses and casinos essentially Like that portfolio would translate well to Vegas, but I'm not going to move to Vegas. So, as I started doing more real estate, we were at my mom's condo in Dallas. This was maybe seven years ago and you know the fun question came up do you think we should move here? And I realized that my portfolio was now. You know I had a came up, do you think we should move here? And and I realized that my portfolio was now. You know I had a lot of real estate in it. So I Googled sit in my mom's living room. I'll never forget this.
Speaker 3:I Googled real estate photographers in Dallas Cause I wanted to see what the competition was like, right, right. And what I saw. What I saw was not when you Google that in this market or any small market, you're going to see here's joe's photography. Joe has a drone. Here's sue's real estate photography. You know sue does video. You know, but they're like freelancers that made a website on wix.
Speaker 3:You know, when I, when I googled real estate photographers in dallas I did, what I saw were real estate media companies. You go to the About Us page on these companies in Dallas and it's here's the founder, ceo, president, or whatever. Below him or her is the photo team, here's the editing team, here's the customer service people, right, and I saw that person at the top. You're like uh-huh, that is who I'm supposed to be, that's I'm supposed to be, because it had always bothered me that our family income was dependent on me being healthy, right, true, if I broke my leg or broke my, you know, if I broke my, I was in a car crash and I became incapacitated for six weeks, I would keep my insurance. That would have been, no, that would have been six weeks without income, you know, and that always kind of bothered me.
Speaker 3:And then I saw, and then I realized like, not only should I be that guy, but if I'm that guy, I don't have to, you know, do the actual work, you know the manual, like literally the manual labor part of it. And that was how One Point Media was born. I'm going to make that. I'm going to be that guy I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be Joe's. You know, chris's photography.
Speaker 2:How did you come up with the name?
Speaker 3:Uh, my business partner Blake came up with it. Um, I taught him the one point composition, uh if you're familiar with it.
Speaker 3:The one point composition is, uh, basically straight on, for lack of a better word. So the. If you look at a one point composition is, uh, basically straight on, for lack of a better word. So the. If you look at a one point composition definition in an art book, the the last supper is the is the epitome of a one point composition. It's straight on to the table, everybody. Jesus is in the middle and, versus the typical standard real estate photo, you stand in the corner as far back as you can get the whole span in the whole span. Yeah, so one point media is a nod to the fact that we look for more artistic angles, and it's hard as hell to come up with a website name that didn't take it yet.
Speaker 2:So, oh, yeah yeah, cb hustles, let's see if that's available okay, that's available the website game.
Speaker 1:Gotta be tough on that. So you're in dallas. You realize, hey, this is what I want to do and you're thinking about moving to Dallas. What made you kind of go? Maybe we'll come back to the Valley.
Speaker 2:No, the mom, His mom wanted it.
Speaker 1:No, he was kind of like the family was kind of talking about it at that point right.
Speaker 3:Well, bridget and I always kind of like entertained the idea for lack of a better word, like for lack of a better word, like it'd be cool to move and, and we, we went and looked at a couple of places to move, but our roots are are here, our kids are happy here, bridget's family is here, my family is here actually, um, and frankly, it was a lot easier to start a real estate media company here, where, my, where I was so well known for that Right Cause.
Speaker 1:You'd be first in the game if you built that up, right, yeah?
Speaker 3:and in dallas I would be, you know, a very small fish in a very large pond right, I've flipped that around rather be the big fish in the little pond. That's right, and then right, and then dig the pond out further as they go yeah, and get it.
Speaker 1:You know, just build it up from that pond, you know yeah and it's still small.
Speaker 3:I've got like four contracted photographers, a small team of editors, um, but, and I'm still shooting because I enjoy it. But you know I have to. I remember that first year it was about five years ago we got a big bear for a week every summer and that first year where I had other photographers, you know, and I was, I was sitting at a cabin and big bear I had. I had to do a you know an hour or two on a laptop a day, but I was sitting there running a business that had a revenue stream, while I was sitting on a dark by the lake.
Speaker 1:I step in. It's late to go. Passive income, man, I mean it's not passive totally, because you're on the laptop but you're still not working and the money's coming in. And that's what you want to get if you're trying to grow your business.
Speaker 3:The trick to it was, though and this is still a great challenge to the question that was on the board about what was the greatest piece of business advice you ever got One of my professors in business school told a story one time. He said if you're driving through a small town on a road trip, especially with kids, and y'all are hungry, it's lunchtime and you see local Joe's burger on one side of the street and you see McDonald's on the other side of the street. You know, you know that local Joe's has a better burger because that's what mcdonald's, but three out of four times you go to mcdonald's.
Speaker 3:Why is that? Because you know what you're gonna get. You know what you're gonna get. And he said consistent he's. The lesson was like consistency, right, how important he's that's how is it wrong.
Speaker 1:That's why. So consistency, I mean, that's good business.
Speaker 3:Why do people go to McDonald's still, knowing that that's probably better? Because it takes the risk out of the equation of where to get lunch? It's as simple as that. Right, you go with the safe bet. The kids like it, people go with the safe bet. Yeah, that's true, and so that was. A great challenge for me was building a system for real estate media that I could replicate and not be the one shooting it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I have a question about the real estate thing, because you shoot some really beautiful, gorgeous mansions at this point, right? So what is the biggest home you've shot and how do you gauge how many hours that's going to take you and how do you price that out and things like that Last year I photographed a 28,000 square foot home it's a Madison house, madison club that sold.
Speaker 3:It was listed for 40 million. It sold for I don't know 30. Wow, like 32 or 33 or something like that. That was the biggest one, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2:Gosh. And so how long does that take you to shoot A?
Speaker 3:few hours At least. I've developed an incredibly efficient system for photographing. Yeah, it just happened. Today I was photographing some rooms at the Hyatt for their new remodel, you know, and the marketing director was like you done, Are you sure you're done already?
Speaker 2:I'm like yeah, yeah, that's true, it's all about processes right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I saw a meme or something not too long ago that said that I love, I love this. I'll never forget it. It said you're not paying me $300 for the 20 minutes it took me to do my job. You're paying me $300 for the 20 years it took me to learn how to do my job in 20 minutes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It relates to that for sure. Just because I can do it fast doesn't mean everybody can. You're paying for experience.
Speaker 3:So my system is built on that. All my photographers are trained in this very efficient system we have on our website. You can book photos to have listing photos done and our appointments are done in 90-minute blocks and that includes getting to the next shoot. Like if my guys can't get in and out of the house, even doing photo video, 3d tour, floor plan or whatever, if you can't get out of there in 60 minutes, you're not doing it, right? Wow, yeah, because it's all about numbers, right?
Speaker 2:so I don't know, I don't know if you know, but chris has done um a couple of shoots for us over at the thermal club and those are, aren't those cool houses?
Speaker 3:they just, yeah, there's such a trip and summers my dad was also a car collector, so anytime I get to be around cars, uh, I feel my, I I feel my dad. When those race cars go by, I love getting to go out there, it's a great town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you definitely get revved up.
Speaker 1:At the McAloe man, where all the rich people go to play.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know what? That's okay. It brings lots of business to the area.
Speaker 1:Keep bringing them down here, because it only helps the local economy.
Speaker 3:Oh, I feel like I'm in Spewing.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, that's what we're here for. It's a podcast. That's what we're here all about While we're on time.
Speaker 1:So you hit on the first kind of question we asked at the kind of, towards the end of the interview, the best advice you've ever gotten. What's some of the worst advice that you've ever gotten?
Speaker 3:I saw that question also and I was thinking about that and it's funny.
Speaker 3:We've all had bad advice. I know I have, I don't know. But one thing that I thought of that I might be able to relate to a little bit is what my dad told me about find one thing to do. Well, you know that you enjoy to do and do it better than anybody else, and just do that, and. But what my dad didn't have, couldn't have predicted being, um, being a, you know, good old boy, you know, in the oil and gas fields in West Texas is adaptation. Um, I've really had to adapt a lot, like I can't do one thing and do it well anymore. Yeah, uh, ariel. Ariel is a good example.
Speaker 3:You know, I remember, uh, uh, one of my very best clients and a dear friend. That was maybe seven or eight years ago. You know she said we could, we gotta have the drone, we gotta have the drone. You know she said what it is now. She said I'm gonna you're, you're gonna do this for me or I'm gonna hire somebody else to do it. You know, and there it was, there it was real quick right.
Speaker 2:You have to evolve with your business. It's just what, what ai?
Speaker 1:is gonna push everybody else to do some, to do some changing as well. Yeah, it's gonna totally affect the way everybody does business. So the drone is just the first part of it. I think artificial intelligence is gonna make all of us entrepreneurs really have to look and and see. You know what our change the game yeah, see if our skill set's even gonna be relevant in 20 years. You know what our skillset is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, See if our skillset is even going to be relevant in 20 years. Yeah, you know, that's what you really got. So I had to go back to what I thought was the best business advice I ever got from my dad. You know that do one thing and do it better than anybody else. It wasn't video, it wasn't aerial, you know. It wasn't 3d, you know, or any of that stuff. It was photography, like, and I I fought it for a long time Like, no, I don't do that, I don't do that. I'm do one thing and it better than anybody else, you know.
Speaker 3:And I had to hire out a drone a couple of times, you know, or refer somebody, or whatever. But I had to. I had to adapt, like, okay, okay, I gotta have, I to do this, you know. So research and drones, and getting the license and the registrations and the training and learning how to do that. And then after that, it was video videos. Same story. You know, my client started saying, hey, listen, we got to have a video. You know you're going to do this for us or we're going to hire somebody to do it. Shoot, I got to learn how to film video.
Speaker 1:That was a whole, nother world, another world, a whole another world, right another world, you know, for a whole different setup and everything right yeah but, but sometimes those, sometimes that makes us better right, and that's also, you know, it's so it's, it's a good thing that they push you yeah, and it's the cool thing about it for me was like, in those two examples, uh, aerial work and video stuff, I always I never really wanted to get into those because I didn't see those as being creative.
Speaker 3:Like, how creative can you be pointing a camera at the ground? You know, yeah, or you know, with photography we do these things with lighting and angles and composition and composition blending and all this cool stuff, and with video you just get what the camera's pointed at. You can't do any. I couldn't do any of my tricks. You know, and I had a great uh mentor, uh, video mentor, brady spear, uh, spearhead media out of san diego, uh, and he, he took me under his wing and he started showing me how you can be creative with video. You know using movements and parallax and focus, you know shifting and all this stuff. And I was like, and I was like, all right, all right, I all right, I get it, I get it. Video is cool. Now, I love photographing video. Now, if I go to a house like that one like we're doing video, right, we're doing video right. No, okay, I'm going to do video anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but ever evolving, right. It's just the industries force you to kind of technology forces you to to kind of evolve.
Speaker 2:He also photographed the Shag House for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Did the Shag House? That was a cool one. Yeah, you had a lot to photograph. Yeah, that was fun, that was awesome. So we're getting up against it. But where can our listeners find you and your work if they want to reach out and kind of maybe pick your brain about a little bit more of the photography and digital?
Speaker 3:yeah, thanks, man. Uh, onepointmediagroupcom. Okay, um, uh, on the web, on instagram and on the facebook, we don't, we don't tick or talk or tweet. Yes, but I haven't evolved it sure is coming. I haven't evolved that, it sure is COVID.
Speaker 1:I haven't evolved that. Again, I get to those youngsters.
Speaker 3:You better be on that TikTok man.
Speaker 3:But the system that I built is I have photographers in multiple regions in Southern California all tied into the website and the system that I built. So when you go on onepointmediagroupcom if you're a realtor or you have a rental property or whatever that you need photographed, you type the address and on our website and it'll give you a list of it, cross references that to our my photographer's availability, location and skill set and it'll it'll bring up that photographer's calendar for you to book. Uh, you know a photo shoot online and that person has been trained by me to to do it my way, good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're all over. So it's not just Coachella Valley, it's all over Southern.
Speaker 3:California, yeah, arrowhead, inland Empire, high Desert service to anybody in Southern California basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome, awesome. Well, I sure learned a lot. I don't know about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I sure learned a lot. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:It was great to hang out with you guys. I always like hanging out with you.
Speaker 3:It's cool to do something other than a sideline although that'll still be my favorite, you guys, to hang out with you, still be there.
Speaker 1:You know we'll always be there, but so thanks for joining us everybody. If you found some value in this, like and subscribe and we'll talk to you guys next time thank you.