We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mike Cook. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mike below.

Mike, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

About twelve years ago, I started taking pictures with a $50 camera at my daughter’s soccer games when she was eight. I was the only parent doing it, so I became the Team Photographer by default.

Fast forward a few years, and my son David is playing travel baseball. I now have a fancier kit camera that I bought off QVC. An upgrade, to be sure, but nothing spectacular.

At some tournament, my son’s teammate Jonathan scored a dramatic run. Slides in just under the catcher, dirt flies, and he’s safe. I get the shot, and I show the back of the camera immediately to Jonathan’s dad. He gasps and says, “Are you a professional photographer?”

My reaction is ha, don’t be silly, Jonathan’s dad. Of course I am not a professional photographer.

But on the long car ride home, I thought, why can’t I be?

That question planted the seed, and so among other things, I needed to upgrade equipment, and I had to choose a name. “Mike Cook Photography,” or anything close to that, would not work. It just doesn’t flow off the tongue. And a business name with the word “Cook” would confuse people into thinking I take pictures of food.

The business name I came up with was inspired by Jonathan’s dad. He could take my picture of his son scoring that big run and post it on social media. Show it off to all his friends. And by showing it off, I mean he could brag. A dad bragging about his kid. Dad Brag Photography.

Yes, the quality of the work is important, and it is also critical you treat your clients well. But like it or not, a great business name is essential. I have as many gigs as I can handle, and then some. That might not be the case if I had called the business something like “Sure Shot” or “Mike Cook Sports Photography.”

Very few athletes ever address me as “Mr. Cook” or even “Mike.” Instead, they know me as “Dad Brag.”

True story from a couple of years later. Let me set the scene: After they won the state championship, I shot the next season’s home opener for a high school soccer team. The girls were so fired up to play their first game since winning the title. A huge crowd of their classmates filled the stadium to see the conquering heroes. There was even beautiful Golden Hour lighting for the start of the game.

And right before the game starts, a kid in the stands sees me and screams out “DAD BRAG!” That’s their usual greeting. “Dad Brag” in this context can mean “hi” or “please take my picture” or “wow, the moms hired the photographer for this game.” It is like “I am Groot” if you watch the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

So, one kid shouts Dad Brag, then another, then another, and then I swear to God this is true, about one hundred high school kids start chanting “Dad Brag, Dad Brag!”

I did not know if I should laugh, cry, or nearly die of embarrassment. I probably did all three.

I texted my daughter to tell her what happened. She replied, “Dad, that’s how you know you’ve made it.”

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?

Parents want to enjoy their kids’ games, and they want quality photos. It’s impossible to do both by yourself. I mean, no parent is getting a decent photo of their kid with their cell phone taken from the tenth row of the bleachers. And even if they were satisfied with those phone photos, which they are not, they aren’t able to properly pay attention to the contest.

I market myself as a solution to that problem. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the game. Be in the moment. Cheer. Let Dad Brag take care of the photos.

I can get the angles and closeups. I stick my lens right into the huddles during a time out. I camp out behind the lacrosse net, putting myself in a bit of danger. I am in the locker room for the pre-game pep talk.

I try to stand out by capturing the emotion of youth sports. Yes, clients love the photos of the touchdowns and the goals. But they love the photos where they get to see the passion, or emotion, or even sentimentality.

One tradition a local school has is players ringing the Victory Bell after a win. I always get a pic of that. Every photographer does. But one of my most popular photos ever was a shot I got of a lacrosse senior glancing up at the bell after her last home win. It was a sweet moment, just the athlete holding on to a memory for an extra couple of seconds.

When I posted the pic on Instagram, moms bawled. Just completely lost it. I am tearing up just telling you about it and I hardly know the kid.

While there are exceptions, I currently do work mostly for teams in three schools. I have also done some work for SB Live Sports, which is a partner of Sports Illustrated.

Team parents pay me on a per game basis, and that includes all the digitals. They can also order prints through my website. There are other business models, but that is the one that works best for me.

I never thought my business would be more than just sports, until one of the soccer moms asked me if I did Senior Pictures. Sure, why not? How hard can it be?

Well, holy smokes, it is difficult.

But after faking it for the first few shoots, I started to get good at it. I studied other photographers, I’ve taken some classes, watched some YouTube. Fast forward a few years, I’ve won a few national awards from industry magazines. And that is just spectacular for my ego and the bottom line.

Senior pictures were boring when I was in high school. Everyone went to the same studio, sat in front of the same background, posed the same way. Then, their faces were airbrushed beyond all recognition. The late eighties were weird.

Today, senior pictures are much better. However, I fear the industry is on the edge of being boring. Pics of girls all wearing similar white dresses. Or, worse yet, boys in their lettermen jackets, folding their arms and leaning against a tree.

I mean, I can be that photographer. I have taken some photos like that. But I’d rather not. Life’s too short for boring photos.

I tell clients they aren’t like everybody else. So, let’s ignore the photos that your big sister had taken. Instead, let’s attack this session like it’s a photo shoot for a magazine. You just tell me the magazine. Is it Vogue? Rolling Stone? The sports fashion issue of ESPN The Magazine? Let’s go!

Dad Brag shoots are over the top. I have had girls pose in a 100-year-old abandoned observatory, in shopping carts in rundown parking garages, and graffiti covered bathrooms at concert venues. I have followed multiple clients into lakes, set softball bats on fire, and dodged traffic with ballerinas.

Usually, I come home from a shoot and my wife wants to know why my elbows are bleeding, or why I reek of lighter fluid, or if it’s possible to not bring so much sand into the house. But anything for a shot, right?

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Word of mouth, and synergy.

An early client was Maddie, the daughter of an old friend and former co-worker. Maddie was an artsy kid, so I tried to capture that with some unique, artistic, non-traditional shots.

Other moms saw the pictures, probably on Facebook. One mom said, “Hey, that’s what I want for my daughter – pictures like the ones Maddie had done. Where can I get that?”

After a few weeks of searching, the mom realized that the easiest way to get pictures like Maddie’s was to actually hire the guy who Maddie’s mom hired.

Yes, I do a bit of advertising. I produce a comically elaborate online pamphlet each year, and I do a targeted mailer. But in the local photography business, word of mouth is the key.

However, my business model has some synergy. Shoot a boy’s baseball game, and then I end up shooting his sister’s senior pictures. Shoot senior pictures for someone else, and they have an uncle who coaches a team that needs a few game pics.

I might eventually do Engagement Photos, as that fits into the business model. “Thanks for letting me take your senior pics. Oh, you have an older sister who just got engaged?”

But I do not want to do anything else. Because if you do too much in photography, you’re not specializing, and you don’t have the chance to get great at any one thing.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I might eventually dabble in newer socials like Bluesky or Threads. I will stay on Facebook, as that’s where a lot of moms find me and hire me.

But the social media account that works for Dad Brag, and I assume for most photographers, is Instagram. Even though Instagram is trying to move content providers towards video, it’s still a great place to share photos.

I post a lot, and that’s important. Gotta feed the beast, right? But I think Dad Brag is successful on Instagram because I am authentic. I’m a dad in my fifties. I don’t try to pretend to speak the lingo of a hip high school kid. Some photographers try that, and maybe they get away with it, but I could never do it.

All my pop culture references are dated. Most of the songs I add to posts are from artists I grew up with. Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, They Might Be Giants. I once posted a pic of a soccer team celebrating a win in an absolute downpour. So, the song I used in the post was “I Love a Rainy Night” by Eddie Rabbitt. To me, it worked perfectly.

I am under no illusion there is a single kid on that soccer team who knows who the hell Eddie Rabbitt is. Sure, I could have used a song by, I don’t know, Chappell Roan? But the entire vibe then would have been “How do you do, fellow kids?” And that would have been embarrassingly fake. Teenagers see through that.

Look, I am just a dad with a fancy camera who your mom hired to shoot your game. So that’s my Instagram persona – Dad Jokes and old songs. It cracks the parents up, and based on the number of followers I have, the high school kids are amused.

My advice for others looking to build up their social media? Worry about the quality of your followers, not necessarily the quantity. If you are being followed by folks who live too far away to ever be a paying customer – how does that help you? It sure does not help me. For Dad Brag to be successful, I need local high school kids and their parents to follow me – nobody else.

I had a football mom ask me if I ever talked to referees during games. I told her sometimes they ask me which kid on the field is my child.

I then tell the ref that I’m just a freelancer hired by the Team Mom, and that I don’t have a kid in this game.

This mom tells me, with 100% sincerity, “Oh, that’s not true. They’re ALL your kids. You’re DAD Brag.”

That’s certainly over the top with its kindness and generosity. But having said that, I can take a compliment. And if that’s how the Team Moms feel about me and my work, I must be doing something right. My business with the clever name has made it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dadbragphotography.com
• Instagram: @dad_brag_photography_ohio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DadBragPhotography

Image Credits

CV1 Courtesy of Scott Gloger

CV2-8 Dad Brag Photography