Daily Inspiration: Meet Jude Brown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jude Brown.

Hi Jude, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
This whole idea started when COVID hit. I had to figure out some way to occupy my time during the lockdown. I had just gotten a new phone. It was the (at the time) brand new iPhone X. I was amazed by the camera quality on it, and wanted to know what I could do with it. For a short while leading up to the lockdown, I had found a hobby in drawing flipbook animations. This led to what became the start of my now full-time job.

I got into making Stop-Motion animations with my younger brother Deacon. We would build scenes and sets with Legos, write the stories and then animate them. I made an entire season of one of the stories called “Blue Knights Conquest”. It was the story of blue Lego knights fighti0ng through various battles. It was by no means amazing, but for a 14 year old and his 11 year old brother, they were pretty good.

That is what got me into visual story-telling. The animations were getting decent YouTube views as well. Nothing astronomical, only 1-200ish a video, but for me this was enough. Fast forward a few years, and I was posting regular gaming videos on YouTube and just having fun making content. Then my dad bought a camera.

My brother Deacon has always played soccer at a very high level. He is currently the captain of his high school team, a midfielder for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds PreProfessional academy, and plays in the Olympic Development Program out of Western Pennsylvania. My dad bought this camera so he could take photos at my brother’s soccer games. My grandma then gave us her old Nikon and my dad soon began using that instead, leaving me with the brand new Canon he had purchased.

That is when I got into photography, and I fell in love with it. At the start the photos were not very good, but I thought they were. Most importantly I was having fun.

Fast forward to December of 2024, I had gotten the camera out and was doing headshots for my brother before his practice one day. Purely for fun just to mess around. My friend Austin was over. He suggested starting a photography business. We all laughed for a few and then became serious about it. This was the moment that J.A.D. Productions came to be. Jude, Austin, Deacon Productions. Austin has since left the company, and Deacon works as our Broadcast Coordinator.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been anything but a smooth road. At the time the company was founded Austin and I were only juniors in high school. Deacon was in eight-grade. This posed a few issues. One, we couldn’t have contracts for clients since the state of Ohio requires you to be eighteen in order to legally enter into contracts. Issue number two, no one wants to hire high school kids to do a job in an industry dominated by older generations. No matter how much skill we have, they still lean towards the older photographers. It was hard at the beginning to get clients, for the first year we only had five bookings. After Austin moved on, I focused more on growing the business. I’ve done exceptionally well, but there are still struggles.

I would say that the main struggle, still to this day is the oversaturated market of low-ball photographers. It is hard to work as a professional in the industry and get clients willing to pay for the quality of work you offer, when around every corner is a kid with a camera asking for ten dollars for ten photos.

I am not bashing them in any way at all, that was me just a few years ago. You have to learn and grow, and that is the way you do it. It just becomes hard, especially for someone who is young like myself. I am not in high school anymore, I am a student at Kent State University, but due to my brother and his friends being in school still, I end up shooting a lot of sports for the school.

This has lead to an unbelievable amount of messages from Booster Clubs, parents, coaches, players, fans, asking if they can buy the galleries for five or ten dollars. I do photography because I enjoy it, but it is also my job. The amount of amateur photographers charging amateur prices, makes the people looking for professionals expect to see the same pricing, which can result in way less bookings than you may think.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a professional photographer, and owner of a multi-media production company. J.A.D. Productions. I specialize in visual story telling. Portraits, engaging sports photos, cinematic videos, filmmaking, those are my specialties. My company J.A.D. Productions, offers the best in multi-media in the Upper Ohio Valley. Whether you are producing a podcast, a commercial for your business, a hype video for your local basketball team, or need a live broadcast done for a game, or event J.A.D. Productions are the ones to make it happen.

I have worked in sports of all levels with both photo and video. Everything from u6 soccer at local rec-leagues to the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball. I traveled with Steel City FC, a Semi-Pro soccer team from Pittsburgh as a videographer for the USL2 national playoffs.

I am an Adobe Certified Professional in three categories: Video Design (Creative Cloud) Digital Video (Premier Pro) & Visual Design (Photoshop) I scored in the 95th percentile of all Adobe Professionals on each respective certification exam.

My now business partner and close friend Alex Hoyt and I took bronze at the SkillsUSA Digital Cinema competition. We were awarded this for placing top three of filmmakers in the state of Ohio. I am the first person from East Liverpool High School to qualify for the SkillsUSA National competition, I did so as a junior in the Audio/Radio production competition.

In the most humble way possible, anything to do with digital media, I can confidently say I am the best in the area, and I have the certifications, and awards to back it up.

What’s next?
As of right now I am not anticipating any major changes coming yet. I know there will be some one day, but those will come after I graduate from Kent State University in 2028.

One thing that will be implemented this fall, is the High School to Professional program at J.A.D. Productions. I have spoken with the instructors from East Liverpool, Beaver Local, and Steubenville multi-media programs, and have offered their students the chance to work on location with J.A.D. Productions. This will be beneficial to them as a way to get their feet wet in a professional setting, and get to experience first hand what it is like working large productions.

We will also be offering these students the ability to apply, and then come and work for the company immediately out of high school.

Another plan for the future that I have, but do not want to spoil too much about is the possibility of photography “summer camps”. Short one to two hour sessions over the summer where anyone interested can come out and learn photography from industry professionals.

Pricing:

• Customer Oriented. I keep my prices low so that the customer does not have to break the bank in order to make the most of a moment.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jadproductions.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jadpicsandvids/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588301825893
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jadsportsnetwork
• Other: jadpicsandvids@gmail.com