Meet Jesse Becerra | Real Estate Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jesse Becerra and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jesse, why did you pursue a creative career?
I think my ability to remain a child at heart was one of the reasons why I still do this to this day! As a father to a little girl she is always asking to play and for me to see where her imagination goes gives me inspiration to come up with new ideas or even brainstorm to see what she thinks too. Also as life continued and having to decided between having a job and working on something that takes my mind off of stresses of life, work, and having to provide for a family lets me be creative with how I have to problem solve artistic issues keeps the kid inside me alive.
I have had to in a sense “grow up” and pursue a career in administration but I never lost hope in making a living artistically, real estate photography is my pathway to get there.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
For me this all started in high school in a graphics design class that I wasn’t even suppose to be in. I thought then that I wanted to learn how to play instruments and was stoked about learning to play guitar but was instead handed a cello. My interest fell from there and came to find out that a few friends of mine had a graphics design class that I ditched my instruments class to see what this was all about. I loved it! That was my first time opening Photoshop taking photos manipulating them creating something new I was hooked! I could not wait to finish my school year to take the class myself! 10th grade I took the class with 9th graders, My work was like by the teachers so much that they jumped me from 2nd year to 3rd year at 11th grade, and by senior year they wanted to know what I learned the last 2 to 3 years and had me instruct a class of incoming 9th graders. They were graded on how great their work was and I was graded on how well I taught them.
During my senior year of high school, we had a visit from the Art Institute, where they showed me that this could be a career. I was imagining designing movie posters, album covers, clothing and shoe brands. The more I looked into it the more I wanted to do it and eventually I went from wanting to do graphic design to Visual Effects and Motion Graphics, a mixture of graphic designs and video. I spend the next 3 years getting my bachelors degree in VFX and Motion Graphics and half way through I started to realize the dark side of the art institute, that it was not all that it was made out to be at the beginning, the teachers were not professors, the were called “instructors”, the were suppose to be industry professionals that could help us break through this industry and show us new techniques. I had a decision to make here, drop out or see it though, and I did, I figured I can build my network try to practice as much as I could to make it. Even with working at Universal Studios as a Scare Actor for the halloween horror nights events hoping that something would pull through. Needless to say the school was a predatory school that eventually all closed down and even putting that we went to the art institute felt like it was reason enough for my resume to get turned down.
After Graduation I started to work. My first job was at a mom and pop shop that sold photo prints, I got to use a bit of my graphics design skills here and even learned about print media and film but it was not what I wanted to do. I later found a job at Century 21 Masters, doing video and IT 2017, and as luck would have it the IT guy that I was suppose to be helping ended up quitting and I was then made IT with all the video project pushed to the side. For the next 3 years I basically worked my way through the cooperate ladder, working as an admin and IT for a real estate brokerage, some of the agents I knew working here needed design work and would pay me here and there to do a few project. I never really fully left the creative part of myself because during that time I along with my friend from school would try and do projects together even try to do down the youtube rout, naming ourself “Le Dinner Table” which was what our group name was back in college, that was shortly lived. I realized and learned then that not everyone was as motivated to make it work like others were. I then started a podcast channel called “two sides of the same coin” with my best friend Shirley, The idea behind that we would do movie reviews and talk about movies from a creative standpoint breaking them down. We were off to a pretty good start till the pandemic hit and put a sudden stop to that as well.
By this time I was on my own, I did not know how to satisfy myself creatively, and those same agents that I worked with asked if I could photograph their homes for extra cash, so I did. I did not know anything about photography but I did know how to edit photos and video,I figured I could set it on auto point and shoot and make a quick buck! I did a few homes and then started to talk to other agents about this new thing I was doing and one agent gave me a shot. I know he did not mean this in a bad way but he told me that “the photos I took did not do justice to the listing”. I took that as my first lesson to learn how in the blue hell do I do this.I went on youtube, joined facebook groups and started following Peter McKinnon, a landscape photographer based in Canada! I then learned that your camera body matters, your lens matters, the equipment you use matters! During the pandemic and the next year and a half I learned and taught myself how to shoot! I learned that I did not like directing people, or posing them, I learned that shooting homes was easy for me because I did not have to talk to the house, I learned camera settings that taught me how to photograph homes to capture perfectly lit photos even of a dark room! I taught myself so much and I am super grateful and thankful of the agents that gave me the opportunity to teach myself how find my niche with Real Estate photography. Today, I am still building and learning more about my business to provide a better service to my agents and help their clients find the right home for them. I have had my share of difficult moments, but God was also on my side putting me in front of these agents to make these connections easier.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Los Angeles is a crazy city with so much to see! If I had a week to show my best friend around, I start off with a day at Disneyland, you can’t ever go wrong especially with us being movie nerds we can geek out about Star Wars and Marvel.
The following day, I would have to take them to have brunch at Toast in Downey, hands down the best lunch breakfast spot in the county! I think one of the best way to experience LA is taking the metro link. I would take them on the train and take a trip down to Santa Monica and just walk around the Venice boardwalk and Santa Monica pier. Next day take the metro train to Hollywood and walk around there see the Hollywood walk of fame go to Universal City Walk to walk and catch a movie! One of those night grab some Korean BBQ and just over eat! Finally the last thing I would do, is take them to my favorite spot, Elysian park. The have the best view of the LA skyline! Take some InNout for dinner and just watch the sun set on another sunny LA day.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Surprisingly enough for me, it was a combination of a movie and a book that got me moving. It was the Kevin Hart book “I can’t make this up” that got moving and the Spider-man into the spider verse that kept me going.

Website: https://jesserayphotos.mypixieset.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jesse_the_photographer

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkwCr5QvbWegpy_nFieZiSLAsfO-uI0f0

Other: https://linktr.ee/Jesserayphotos

Image Credits
These photos were all captured and edited by me