Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Cain.
Hi Eric, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I picked up my first film camera in high school. My art teacher had always seen a creative side of me, but I was terrible at drawing or painting etc..and the moment she put a camera in my hand it had kind of just clicked. After high school, I played music in a band for a few years and once that subsided, I went back to college and studied photography for a number of years. I spent two years specifically on film, shooting, developing, scanning, printing etc… the whole process, followed by another two years of digital photo design and photojournalism, and I fell in love with it. Since then I’ve lived around the country in a few different places working on bigger productions whether it be producing, modeling, assisting, etc.., and a few years ago ago I decided to really go for it and started working professionally. I currently shoot for the Austin based country band Shane Smith and the Saints and also work full time on the creative team at Allen’s Boots which is incredible. I get to travel the world and photograph music and cowboys, it’s a bit of a dream. Apart from that, I work with a number of other brands and artists, generally in the country and western scene. I somehow managed to put all the things I love together into a job, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely not. Haha. I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Iowa on a cattle farm with no background of really anything artistic. Not to say no one in my family was artistic, but there wasn’t an emphasis really on stuff like that. I somehow just picked up all these interests and ran with it. Even after finishing film/photo school, I still felt like I would go nowhere with a camera. It was like, well hey, you did it but what the hell are you going to do now. I’ve kind of felt like an underdog my whole life, but I use that as fuel to prove to everyone what I can accomplish. I’ve been burnt by so many people and have done so much work for free (and favors), but you’ve got to realize that’s part of the journey and just keep pushing through and keeping your head down and working hard. If you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a professional photographer and a creative director. I also do a lot of modeling, producing, and some video work. I am mostly known for my music and western photography. I shoot full time for Shane Smith and the Saints, but have shot photos for a multitude of different artists including Ryan Bingham, Wilco, Red Clay Strays, Gary Clark Jr, Zach Top, Silverada, and many more. On the western side, I’ve done work in the past with Boot Barn, Wrangler, Lucchese, Stetson, and more. But as I mentioned earlier, I’m now working full time in-house at Allen’s Boots as a co-creative director/lead photographer, and it’s truly a dream job.
Some of my prouder moments include photographing Red Rocks, The Grand Ol Opry, Royal Albert Hall in London, The Ryman (luckily 4 times now, Wembley Stadium, the list goes on and on. Like I said, incredibly grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Well I as I said, my high school art teacher deserves credit for introducing me to a camera, but it honestly goes back to my mother before that. Mom was always filming us with a handheld camera when we were kids, so that gave me familiarity with it. She had the old school video camcorders and polaroid cameras and kept old photo albums of us kids.
My college professor was this older, long haired badass harley rider that really showed me that photography was “cool”. He encouraged me to go shoot literally everything and figure out what you love. He was always putting old print magazines in my hands, and it showed me a whole different world of photography I didn’t really know existed.
Also, I owe a lot to one of my best friends and a super talented musician, Rob Leines. A few years ago, I had gone through a really tough breakup and was honestly going through one of the hardest times of my life, and he’s the one who really got my ass in gear and made me get back out on the road to shoot/tour. He took me out on one tour, which lead me to meeting Mike from Silverada (formerly Mike and the Moonpies) which lead me to touring with Mike and that opened me up to a bunch of different venues and artists/musicians, which inevitably lead me to Shane and all the other incredible musicians I’ve gotten to work with.
Lastly, my parents. They’ve been my biggest fans through everything I’ve accomplished. They’ve always pushed me to hang on even when the times are the toughest, and I truly couldn’t ask for two better people in my life.
Pricing:
- Depends on the project.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://eric-cain.format.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eric__cain/
