Meet chase prikkel | portrait & wedding photographer

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

Hi chase, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
i kind of fell in love with it over “pursuing it”. i was in school for social science education & i met some photographers and fell in love with this medium of creating because of them. i’ve always been into art & creating, but i looked at photography kind of as unskilled creation. i don’t remember ever being moved or inspired by photographs until i watched my friends create. while painting & drawing are very secluded outlets for me, photography is so community oriented.

i picked it up as a creative outlet & hobby, then i started doing family & senior shoots, but i said i’d never do couples or weddings. then i took some photos of friends that were couples and fell in love with the love stories that could be told through the lens. at that point i knew i wanted to try to do this as a career as long as possible. and i guess i’ll stop when it doesn’t inspire me anymore! i tend to hold art pretty loosely & i don’t want to sour my love for creating with the need for money.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
i’m a photographer that loves the wild & intimate moments. i love creating on the fly, inspired by specific moments. i’d say what separates me from others is i don’t like specifically posing couples, but that is becoming more of a common theme, as often people want those candid moments… what i will say i do differently is capture the subject in their truest form. interacting with people, it’s easy to pick up what makes them uncomfortable and what they enjoy, so i try not to force a shoot to go the way i think it should or how i imagined it. if a couple is goofy & laughs a lot, i want to document that. if a senior is stoic & reserved in nature, i don’t want to force a smile or shove a camera in their face. i think reading people helps me showcase their uniqueness.

i am most excited about the fact we just finished up our first actual elopement out of state. we went to moab, UT and photographed an intimate ceremony, i married the couple, and we spent the day running around moab, getting photos & doing some hiking. it was a dream come true & i hope it leads to us doing more intimate weddings & elopements, even here in OH.

getting to this point was not easy. i spent two years after college working in an insurance agency full-time, and taking on 15 to 16 weddings a year along with senior, engagement & family sessions. i would get up and edit photos before work, edit on lunch breaks at work, and do shoots in the evenings and edit after my wife went to bed. it was taxing. only way to get through it was to just keep pressing on until photography work outnumbered my day job.

over this experience thus far, i’ve learned that taking on & doing well with small shoots can lead to bigger & better things often with the same clients. i’ve learned to enjoy the breaks when work is slow.

i would want the world to know that getting your photo taken doesn’t mean you have to look awkwardly at a camera with some random person behind it. it can be so much more personable, intimate & free.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
first off, best place in dayton is pettibone coffee. great food, amazing coffee & the coolest atmosphere. a great brunch spot is red berry in troy, hanging around downtown troy is a great time, followed by dinner at basil’s.. i go on bike rides a lot, so taking the bike trail from troy to tipp city is always a great time to me. if i have friends in town, i like to go hiking & taking photos at oakes quarry park.

walking dayton’s historic oregon district, we’d go get dinner at thai 9, shop some records and cd’s at omega record shop, then go get drinks at tender mercy, or if we’re feeling beers we’d go to the barrel house which is a nice little taproom.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
my wife, family & friends are the only reason this has worked at all! my friends are so encouraging and try to send people my way when they can. we create together, travel together & collaborate together. they inspire me to think deeply & they inspire confidence in me. my family always went to bat for me when this was just a pipe dream. when people would doubt or question if i could do it, they supported me. they were also my guinea pigs and let me take photos of them.

and my wife is the biggest reason this works. she helps me on wedding days and challenges me when she believes things can be done better. she has sacrificed a lot to help move this along. she doesn’t think she’s a model, but she’s easy to take photos of, so i’m thankful she lets me practice portaits even when being in front of the camera is not something she cares for.

Website: https://www.chasingfather.com

Instagram: @chasingfather

Facebook: Chasing Father