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Sed ut perspiciatis unde.
SubscribeWe recently connected with Caleb Pickman and have shared our conversation below.
Caleb, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. When was a time you had to pivot?
When COVID hit in 2020, all my scheduled weddings were postponed or canceled. I had to pivot, or the business I had spent years building, Pickman Photography, would fail. My dad is a real estate agent in Kansas, and my in-laws own a real estate company in Arlington Heights, Illinois. I spoke with a college friend who does real estate photography in Saint Louis, and decided to start Realtor 360 Pro (R3P), a real estate media company. I initially planned to only do this until it was safe to have large events again, and resume capturing weddings full time. Over the past 2+ years, R3P has taken off! Its success has allowed me to hire another photographer in Chicago that shoots listings with me. I decided to expand the company to Kansas City where I have two photographers to run the day-to-day operations there. Now weddings are back and I’m a very lucky (and busy) guy!
How has COVID changed your business model?
The business model of running Pickman Photography and Realtor 360 Pro are very different. With weddings, I am booked months or even years in advance and I am able to develop a relationship with each couple. It is important to me to get to know each couple and understand the couple’s vision of their wedding day. I often do their engagement photos, will discuss timelines and offer guidance to make their day go smoothly, consider any changes to details the week before the wedding, and then spend 8-12 hours with the happy couple on one of the most important days of their lives. Then comes the real source of man-hours, which is hand-editing hundreds of photos and combing through hours of video. Online galleries and flash drives are delivered within 60 days from the wedding date.
In contrast, running a real estate media company is about satisfying a number of clients simultaneously so that they continue to come back to R3P with each of their listings. Once a realtor creates an individual profile on the website (realtor360pro.com), scheduling is automated online, packages are selected and details are inputted, and I arrive at the property to photograph the project. Property photos, 360 virtual tours, highlight videos, and drone photography are all uploaded to the project portal online with the next-day turnaround. On a busy day, I can shoot up to six or seven properties around the Chicago metro area. I have real estate agents who book projects that I’ve never met face-to-face and many agents with that I have developed strong business relationships through continued bookings over the past 2+ years.
By surviving “COVID-times”, I have learned how to advertise my businesses differently, manage my post-production time for the two companies, increase business networking, and continue to nurture customer relationships.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Oct. 8th, 2001: I had an MRI scheduled due to a Pop Warner football injury I received a few weeks prior. I had dislocated my shoulder and was struggling to grip a football. My dad took me to the hospital and I remember sitting in the waiting room telling him I was fine, and they were just going to tell me I couldn’t play football for the rest of the season. Once I saw the MRI trailer it dawned on me that this was not going to be anything like an x-ray. Being strapped inside a vibrating tube with loud humming and banging noises led my 12-year-old self to believe that this must be what a rocket launch is like. When the MRI was over they escorted us to a hospital room. I could tell something was off by the way my dad was talking with me, but I was clueless about the gravity of the news we were about to receive. Less than eighteen hours later, I’m laying in a hospital bed as a doctor is telling me a funny story about his dog eating the passenger seat of his Jeep. The night before, the MRI discovered that I had a large mass on the right temporal lobe of my brain and I was sent to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kanas City, Missouri. The doctor telling the funny dog story was the anesthesiologist who kept me smiling before I underwent a seven-hour brain operation. The surgeons removed a baseball-sized astrocytoma brain tumor which would have taken my life just a few weeks later, had it not been removed.
May 2022: My doctors found that the tumor was growing back, and decided they would attempt to kill the tumor by giving me gamma knife radiation. The radiation made me very sick for days. It is by far the sickest I’ve been in my life.
Sep. 5th 2022: I was put under to have another brain operation, as the gamma knife radiation was not effective. The doctors decided they needed to be more aggressive with this operation. This more aggressive approach paid off because I have not had another operation since. Unfortunately, this operation resulted in vision loss in my left eye, and partial paralysis in my left arm and leg. This would be an ongoing challenge to adjust to, and still to this day, I have to be creative and find ways to do two-handed tasks with one hand.
Life would go on fairly normal for a young kid. My mother worked at a bank in their information technology department. In middle school, I went to her office for “Take Your Child to Work Day”. They had it set up so we could see all aspects of the business. This is when I first saw/used photoshop in their marketing department and I was in love. In high school, my best friend’s mother knew I was interested in photography and she bought me my first semi-professional camera. My interest in photography would grow into a passion in high school. It grew so much, I decide to attend Hallmark Institute of Photography in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, instead of a traditional four-year college. This was a very rigorous program that required me to be in class or the studio daily, often from 8 am to midnight. I learned every type of photography possible; product, fashion, portrait, wedding, landscape, aerial, and more.
Can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
After I graduated from Hallmark Institute of Photography, I moved back to my hometown Atchison, Kansas, to start Pickman Photography and opened my own studio. In 2012, I moved to Kansas City to work a job that provided health insurance and did my photography on the side. I went back to photography full-time in 2015, shooting weddings and portraits in the Kansas City metro. I was voted a top photographer in Kansas City by Thumbtack and business was going well. At the beginning of 2016, I had my first seizure and was taken to the emergency room. I learned that this is not uncommon with people who have undergone brain operations. I was told that I wouldn’t be able to drive a car for at least six months until this was under control. For the next six months, my aunt drove me to all my photo shoots and I realized this arrangement was not going to be sustainable long term. My oldest brother was living in Chicago for several years, and he didn’t have a car or the need for one due to Chicago’s excellent public transit system. I decided to move myself and my business to Chicago in July 2016. Moving Pickman Photography to Chicago has opened a lot of doors for me. I’ve met so many amazing people, including my wife Alex, and my wedding photography business grew! Over the years, I’ve shot weddings in both Chicago and Kansas City, won multiple awards, and became ranked as a top ten wedding photographer in the USA by
wedisson.com. COVID forced me to pivot, and I created a second company Realtor 360 Pro. I enjoy running both companies which allows me to develop my love for photography in different ways.
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