We were lucky to catch up with Gage Vota recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gage , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?

I went into the pandemic owning a concert venue called Thunderbird’s Event Center and touring in a pop-punk called Stage Moms. March 20th 2020 was basically the day that everywhere collectively decided to shut down and I was in Austin Texas on tour. We had to cancel the tour and drive 21 hours straight to get home. During that drive we ran out of money and had to post online asking for donations so we could get home and my landlord saw the post and decided to message me saying she was going to raise my rent by $200 a month until the pandemic was over. She gave me a deadline of April 1st to either pay her the extra or get everything out of the venue or she’d change the locks. Thunderbird’s permanently closed on April 1st 2020. In January 2022 my band Stage Moms broke up due to the stress of each member living in different states, struggling financially and just not really getting along with eachother. I truly believed in both Thunderbird’s and Stage Moms and it destroyed me when both of those dreams fell short.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I do photography under the name GMV Photography (@gmv_photography_ on Instagram) and I started doing photography when I went on a trip to the Smokey Mountains with my family in the summer of 2018. I picked up a couple disposable cameras at Walmart and took pictures of everything on that trip. I’ve always wanted to get into photography but didn’t really know anything about it so I just decided to start as simple as possible. I used disposable cameras until I saved up for a film camera I got off Craigslist and then got the camera that I use today in late fall 2018. I mainly do concert photography and I got started by shooting every band that came through the venue I owned at the time. I wanted to document that time period but wasn’t able to pay a photography for every show so it was kind of like the perfect storm. As of now I tour with a few bands steadily and I’m always looking to work with more artists, my photography aesthetic I’m going for is basically the pictures I’d see Hardcore and Metalcore bands have on MySpace back in the day mixed with what Rappers have on their Instagram now. For the future I want to continue to grow my Instagram page, plan on making a website and grow GMV into a brand that not only does photography but also makes clothes and unique products.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Honestly, I think the most rewarding part is right when I finish editing the last picture of the shoot and go back to review all of the pictures right before I send them to the client. I think it’s really cool to look at the finished product as a whole because you can get down on yourself if you think one didn’t turn out how you wanted it to but if you’re looking at all of them all together and they look good it’ll help you feel like you accomplished something.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I want to build a community with the people I work with. For the artists I tour with regularly I’m basically in constant contact because they’ve ended up becoming some of my best friends. For the artists I work with not as regularly I’ll reach out every so often just so see how they’re doing and what they have planned and if a photographer fits into those plans. Even if there’s an artist I’ve worked with in the past and they found a photographer who fits their vision better I’ll still keep in touch and let them know I see them killing it. I think a lot of people see the music industry as a competition and I just don’t have any interest in any of that. I want us all to win.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @gmv_photography_

Image Credits
Shane Pitman