Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dakota Reed. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dakota, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

Building a videography brand in the EDM scene was a lot more difficult than I could ever imagine. I started as a wedding photographer back in high school, but always loved the music industry. However; for me, weddings were easy and amazing cash flow for someone right out high school. At that time, my dream was to shoot bands and with Warped Tour but had zero idea how to do it. I finally got an opportunity to shoot Mayday Parade at Soma SD and I began going crazy to shoot all the local bands that I could. I believe shooting all these smaller shows when I was first starting out paved the path for what I do now.

In 2017, I got a call that I got approved to intern for Trevor Owsley, a videographer for Victoria Secrets and Vogue in New York City. This resulted in me dropping everything and I moved to Brooklyn. I ended up working on sets for Target, Avon, Vogue, Victoria Secrets, and many more. However, at the time I started dating someone right before I moved and I flew her out to New York for a week and when she left I knew I was in love with this girl and I had to go home. I ended up talking to a head art director and he told me New York wasn’t going anywhere and that was that.

From there I went to Cal State Fullerton and those were the years that shaped my EDM lifestyle. The only EDM artist I really listened to was Audien back then and he ended up playing at Time Nightclub. That night I saw the Killed with Kindness shirts on the videographers and made sure to follow them on social media (I never knew that they would be the people that would pivot my whole life). During my senior year in college COVID hit leaving me with lots of free time to learn new things so I started to learn to DJ, which led to learning to LD, which then led to throwing my own Shows and events. Around that time I also applied to work with Killed with Kindness. When Evan and Daniella called me to come in, I was instantly impressed with everything they were doing in the EDM Scene… I had to be apart of it.

From there on, I began shooting at Time Nightclub every chance I could. The first videos were horrible, but I began figuring out a system that work really well. When the festival season began, I used to look at lineups and literally message every artist with both email and social media. The first artist that got back to me was Steller for Project Z. After that I shot on Groove Cruise, then Beyond, EDC, Ect. My biggest Turning point for me was when I began shooting Maxlow ( which began with one of those pitching emails). After I filmed Maxlow at Noctural, They liked me so much I began shooting for everyone under their management.

Now im at a point where I’m booked out almost every weekend and a lot of weekdays. I don’t think the process is over either, I’m still just getting started. Over the last few months, I began shooting for Toa Group, My first image was in Time Square, I’m working on projects with EDM Maniac, and have lots of festivals with new artists coming soon.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I began everything in High School, My senior year I was in the photography club, president of the videography Program, and president of Audio Tech. I believe in high school, it’s one of the times in your life where you can truly find out what you enjoy while you don’t have bills and major responsibilities. The most important thing I knew from the beginning is that I was a people person and I didnt really know how to ever just stop and rest.

From starting out with weddings to now mainly EDM, I kept the same mindset… People want to get their stuff done and want to be quick about doing it. Every client I try to make sure lifestyle photos to ensure we have extra content and that clients get their stuff within 24 hours or less.

The biggest thing about me is that I understand how much media means to clinets and for some artists it takes a lot of their budget up… I get it…. And thats why it has to be great. For a lot of smaller artists, my goal is to make their content better than the major artists to ensure their marketing material can be used for months to come.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I believe there are two ways of running a business… Treating your clients like clients or converting your clients into friends. I’m someone that wants all my friends to be amazing and to be able to reach their goals. I treat every “Client” that way…We start working together, i’m going to do my best to deliver the best that I can to ensure my client grows the most that they can. I check on all the artists randomly to make sure they are doing well. You’re not just an artists/client when you work with me … so expect a happy birthday message and a how are things going message. Its growing season 24/7 when you choose to work with me.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My biggest dream was to go on tour at least once. With Dj’s it’s a little harder as many of them do weekend gigs as opposed to bus tours. However, I feel i’m getting extremly close to a tour life.

I do believe their are stepping stones to every goal and having them pushes every artists to ensure they don’t stay stagment. My first major goal was to film Illenium. It took me over a year of shooting and lots of trails, but it was worth it all.

My most recent goal was to shoot at Omnia for the Toa Group. I messaged all the main opperners and shot multiple shows there. It wasn’t until this last month that I offically shot for them with one of my favorite artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://inclinedma.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dakredphotography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dakredphotography

Image Credits
Dakred photography