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Halee Bak­er’s “H Baker Me­dia”

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H Baker Me­dia is Halee Bak­er’s free­lance pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy busi­ness. Baker, a re­cent grad­u­ate from Maryville Uni­ver­sity, pri­mar­ily fo­cuses on pro­jects re­lated to sports, oc­ca­sion­ally do­ing se­nior pic­tures.
Bak­er’s busi­ness started within the last few years. She first worked for Maryville’s hockey pro­gram and helped with build­ing their me­dia de­part­ment. Af­ter that, peo­ple started ask­ing her to shoot games and se­nior pho­tos. It slowly pro­gressed from a side hus­tle into a busi­ness.
The biggest chal­lenge for Baker has been time man­age­ment and sched­ul­ing.
“It’s def­i­nitely a bal­anc­ing act to be able to fit every­thing in as far as you know, go­ing to games or do­ing some­body’s pic­tures. And then you know, also hav­ing time to edit those and get them turned around rel­a­tively quickly,” Baker said.
Baker de­scribes her cre­ative process as “a bit chaotic”, in the sense that every­thing is not com­pletely laid out be­fore a shoot. She starts with a list of shots in her head, but she is more of a quick-think­ing and “on the fly” per­son, so she will make changes and try new things de­pend­ing on how things turn out.

A picture that Baker took at Indiana Tech vs. Maryville DI Nationals. (Photo courtesy of Halee Baker)

Baker finds it re­ward­ing to see how peo­ple re­act when­ever they get their pic­tures and videos. She said with se­nior pho­tos es­pe­cially, peo­ple gain a sense of con­fi­dence, and she likes help­ing them have that pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ence.
She has also en­joyed as­sist­ing with Maryville’s hockey pro­gram and help­ing it grow, be­cause she has been work­ing with them al­most since they be­came a team. She as­sists with all as­pects of the Maryville Hockey me­dia port­fo­lio, which in­cludes de­sign­ing so­cial me­dia themes, cre­at­ing videos and or­ga­niz­ing spe­cial events.
Jeff Cren­shaw, the as­sis­tant coach and mar­ket­ing and me­dia man­ager for the hockey team, has been work­ing with Baker for years and he ap­pre­ci­ates her help. He said that Baker does great videog­ra­phy, pho­tog­ra­phy and graphic de­sign work.
His fa­vorite thing about work­ing with her is her abil­ity to bring ideas to life.
“She helps me put a vi­sion into re­al­ity along with com­ing up with out­stand­ing ideas and con­cepts her­self,” Cren­shaw said.

A social media design Baker created using one of her pictures. (Photo courtesy of Halee Baker)

One of the things that keeps Baker mo­ti­vated is learn­ing and try­ing new things. Many of her skills are self-taught. She first started do­ing pho­tog­ra­phy when she was in 7th grade, then she learned new skills on her own, and over the years she has grown a lot as a pho­tog­ra­pher.
Be­cause Baker en­joys sports-re­lated pho­tog­ra­phy the most, her short-term goal is to start work­ing with an ad­di­tional sports team so she can do this type of work year-round. In the fu­ture, she would even­tu­ally like to do pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy with ma­jor leagues, like the NHL and MLS.
The main ad­vice Baker has for peo­ple who want to start a busi­ness in me­dia or any other field is: “Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know.”
“Every­body kind of has to start some­where,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to reach out to peo­ple who might be do­ing some­thing sim­i­lar. Peo­ple are go­ing to be will­ing to help you way more than you think.”

Halee Bak­er’s work can be found on her web­site, so feel free to take a look at some of the pro­jects she has done.

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