Today we’d like to introduce you to Eugene Drake.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
The story of how I got where I am today is a little long, but I would love to start with my home country.
I was born and raised in Venezuela, in a very close-knit family that had to go through tough times. After my mother’s death in 1996, our family became even closer, when my dad married the best stepmother in the world.
I have always been a sentimental person, so I’ve always been drawn to art. No one in my family has ever specialized in any branch of art (they’re all in business or oil and gas), but all the same, I decided to find a place for myself in the art world, and for years I did theater, studied design and flirted with photography.
I never thought that I would photograph couples in love. Self-employment was always something I did on the side while working for other people: designed for magazines and digital retouch for photo studios. I also created my clothing brand and a design market for two years and tried out a lot of ideas to focus on building new projects and things, so I could show the world what I loved to do.
One day, while I was in design school in 2007, I was asked to do a photography project involving a model, so I borrowed a film camera and called a good looking friend, who acted as my model and helped me with the project. My friend loved how the pictures came out so much that she told me “when I get married, I want you to take my wedding photos.” And I was like, ok, sure, because I didn’t believe her. A few years later, she called me, said she was getting married and told me to save the date because I was going to be the wedding photographer. To be honest, I was a little scared — I’d never even assisted a photographer in the past, but I had worked in a photo studio’s design and post-production department in Venezuela, so I had at least a basic understanding of wedding timelines. And I was curious, so I agreed and borrowed another camera from my boss (a digital camera this time!) and hired a photographer friend to help me and teach me about lighting while I was taking photos.
It was a crazy day for me. I had a lot of fun, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it full-time, so I continued with my design projects. After a while around the year 2009, my sister-in-law got engaged, and I was invited to the wedding. She asked me to do the post-wedding photos as a wedding gift, so I borrowed yet another camera and we created a different kind of concept for the session: with my background in fashion magazines and my knowledge of design composition, I decided to try something different, with a more editorial style. The finished product was excellent. The photos were a huge success and were featured on magazine covers across the city, and after that, my work became very popular. I started getting a lot of inquiries and requests to photograph weddings, and I’ve been working non-stop since then. For years, I lived off of this work and traveled all over Venezuela doing wedding photography.
Fast-forward to 2013, the year I met Andrea, the woman who would change my life forever. I was single after a stormy relationship, and I had decided to focus on my photography and design business. I had a few partners at my company and business was great. I’ll leave the story of how I met the woman who’s now my wife for another interview, but I will say that I wanted to marry her after I had barely been dating her for three months. So weird, I know! I don’t know if I caught the bug from so many wedding clients or what. Maybe what they say is true: when you know, you know!
The moment our hearts got tangled forever, we were having a casual coffee and talking about life. I could spend hours talking to her and never get tired. We started talking about our family, and I mentioned that my mom died in 1996 and that I always think about her. Silence invaded the space, and she told me that her mom also died that same year and that she shared my mourning; I felt like after that moment, our two moms came together to link our paths and since then, Andrea and I have been inseparable.
We decided to get married and leave the country in 2015. Our wedding was beautiful; it was everything we had dreamed of. After that day, it was time to pack up everything and change countries. I had always wanted to live abroad for the reasons that many people know about my country, but I was always afraid to take that step. But I feel like Andrea pushes me to fulfill my dreams and we can always rely on our plans.
Before leaving the country, I decided to take a workshop called “Personal Branding” at a prestigious business school in Caracas. It was about the value of your personal brand and how to define it based on a market that you have to develop yourself. The workshop was excellent: it helped me view my life as a timeline and helped me clarify the ideas I wanted my brand to project. At that moment, I understood that what I wanted was to stir emotions in the people who consumed my product; I wanted to take a visual approach to create empathy. Looking back on it, all of my life decisions have been driven by emotions, by specific moments that have made me who I am. But all of us are driven by a bigger emotion, aren’t we?
By the end of 2015, we were already living in Houston, Texas, with our hearts full of hopes and our heads full of questions. We have immersed ourselves into the unknown, and we have decided to hold hands and work together for a better future. We’ve been in this beautiful city for nearly three years, and I feel very fortunate to work here, doing what I love to do. People have been very receptive to my approach and these days. I can’t picture myself doing anything else. At first, it was difficult, but, thank God, we always stood firm in our goals, and today I feel like we are in the place we’ve been dreaming of. But I know the sky isn’t the limit, there’s a lot more out there, and if we keep it real with our goals, the very best will be yet to come.
Please tell us about your art.
We are a creative studio that offers photo and video services as well as design and media. We’re known for our work in the wedding industry with photojournalism and cinematography.
As I told in the little bio I wrote before, Emotions are what makes the world go round, and with the heart is the only way we work, we put our 200% in each project we have and we create a tailored work for each client, we love to meet with the couples before the wedding or session, to get known and meet their style and what they’re passionate about.
Our approach is simple: we’re storytellers. We’re intentional about getting to know our clients genuinely so that we can tell their stories better. We’re most interested in exposing the beautiful light of the real, deep moments and emotions our clients experience in the moments that they’ve invited us in. Along with capturing narrative as your story unfolds, we also love creating art along the way.
We are lovers; we are dreamers, we are a couple that believes in magic and the power of dogs, yes, dogs are our jam! We love capturing moments of genuine happiness and fun, feelings and emotions.
We aim to tell stories going a little deeper catching the unscripted moments of life.
Do you have any advice for other artists? Any lessons you wished you learned earlier?
Be disciplined, be consistent and believe in yourself, show what you are made of and stay focused, your ideas are like your child, protect them and watch them grow. Do not forget that a dream without action is an illusion. Have faith and do not forget to live every moment, enjoy the process and be proud of yourself.
I would have loved to learn to be more disciplined when I was younger, more consistent and less evasive. Face the adversities without being overwhelmed. With your head held high and with faith, everything is possible.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My Website is: www.wearedrakestudio.com
And my social media sites are:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eugene_drake. This is where I post most of my work, so you can go and show some AMOR and support!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wearedrakestudio
Contact Info:
- Address: 2502 La Branch St, Houston, TX 77004
- Website: www.wearedrakestudio.com
- Phone: 8323268676
- Email: hello@wearedrakestudio.com
- Instagram: eugene_drake
- Facebook: wearedrakestudio
Image Credit:
Eugene Drake
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
