Meet Yared Berhane | Professional photographer

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

Hi Yared, what makes you happy? Why?

In my life right now what makes me happy and puts a smile on my face every morning and daily is my babies team twin and my beautiful fiancé.

I love my life and I am always grateful for each and every step as a new father plus I am trying my best to build my photography brand to provide for my family. I am always grateful for every opportunity that comes my way, especially media coverage as a photographer for celebrities’ red carpet. Every opportunity I get hired to be part of as a photographer I just look at it and work to go above and beyond to provide for my loved ones and hopefully one day when they grow older they look reflect and say our father did all this hard work for us. They could look back at their father’s accomplishments. Family and being creative as a photographer is where my happiness is, and it is my happy place.
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My journey as a photographer is to have an opportunity working with big industries such as Hollywood red carpet Bet Awards, Oscars, Vogue Gala red carpet, Grammys awards red carpet, concerts top fashion runway that would truly mean a lot and it is my dream to be part of as a photographer since I was the age of 12 years and it would be a dream come true.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

I love this question! My work is for me to capture people and make them look stunning and beautiful as a photographer and I do love capturing the moments and creating memorable moments and stunning images for my clients to look back at and say oh wow look how amazing I look, or oh my god look how young I looked at this photo I remember this moment many years ago, as a photographer we love to hear stories of clients reflecting of an image we took of them and when it brings them memories and happiness it is always a blessing and make us always thrive to always continue delivering stunning photos, with great quality to make our clients happy.

Photography and being a professional photographer is truly amazing and I enjoy it plus I am super passionate about what I do. What separates me from other photographers is that I don’t fear challenges from clients and or collaborators for me to showcase my work and creativity , another thing I am very versatile.  Lastly, What makes me stand out as a photographer is my lighting skills and techniques which many people always love about my work. I hear many compliments of my lighting skills and colors plus my post production editing skills where I bring out my subjects more and I always focus on my quality before delivering the final product.

Starting out I have faced many obstacles in my life, Going back to my childhood a young kid coming to America as an immigrant and not speaking a word of english, making friends was difficult because I couldn’t relate nor understand any english, for that reason I made a great friendship with an old film camera my sidekick we built a bond, I took my camera everywhere I went from cookout, park events, festival, graduation, sport events and family gathering and etc that was my friend that I could communicate with and we understanding each other well.  Another obstacle I have faced in my mid 20’s I haven’t figured out what I needed to do for myself so I struggled finding myself and figuring out what I needed, so for a year I was  homeless living in my car, my family never knew because I was assuring them that everything was going good I just want to build myself in my own. Even though I didn’t have a roof over my head I was working at Safeway and a few months later lost my job because of new management. After getting fired from Safeway, I found new ways by buying products from the flea market. products such as hats caps with area code prints buying more than a dozen for $24 and selling hats $25 for each hat and that helped me with my journey to finding low income housing and focused on going back to school majoring in Biology. While going to college, I found a seasonal summer job as a wild firefighter for Davis fire crew in 2006 that really helped me a lot income wise and uplifting my spirit, I loved being a wild firefighter because we helped families homes and lands from getting burned by the fire. As a Biology student, I was never happy because it wasn’t something I could see myself doing for life. I made the decision and felt that I would do it for my parents to make my family happy because they came to America as immigrants, for us to have better life and education and get away from the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea East Africa, so we could live the American dream. As a young Eritrean kid at age 12,  I loved art and being creative and photography was something I was truly passionate about.

Lastly, In 2015 I have faced the worst obstacles ever in my life, that was I almost lost my life. It was 2015, while standing next to my parked car, I heard an explosive loud sounds, I was trying to find out where the sound was coming from, sad part is it was to late a car crashed into my parked car and my car landed on me dragged me 35 to 40 yards and I was underness getting dragged. God was good, I doctors surgent’s told me that I would lose my legs and never walk again, but by miracles and god saying it is not my time I was saved and didn’t lose none of my legs plus I pushed hard to get back up at my worst life experience ever  which I managed to do so and I am so grateful for being in this earth again. From that time I knew that I have a purpose to be alive and having a second chance in life. That is when I turned into making decisions to make myself happy and focus on me and my future, so from that day I decided to grab my camera my best friend from the age of 12 years and made the decision to get back into what makes me happy and that is photography capturing the beauty, moments, celebration of people plus their expression that tells many stories. My family supported my decision and from there I decided to use social media platforms to share my gift to the world. Within three years on social Media I started to get reached out for many great opportunities. I don’t regret anything about my change of heart to getting back to what I love doing best. Photography.

After all these hardships and obstacles, I worked hard, saved and bought a house and got engaged to my beautiful queen and decided to live the life and I am now a professional Photographer getting requested and called living the happiest life with my family now.

– I remember that I started as a family photographer and many more which I loved but I decided to focus more on photo-shooting portraits, celebrities red carpet, and runways plus my favorite fashion for editorial where I use my creative mind to create fabulous images with stunning results.

I am a published photographer in multiple magazines, articles and have been interviewed in podcasts as well. My journey as a photographer has led me to working with many great people and creative minded creators. Creators from many platforms, businesses, makeup artists, fashion designers, runway coordinators, and PR-agencies have reached out to me to be part of their projects because of my photography quality, skills and results from the Instagram social media platform. I worked with so many talented artists and fashion designers plus celebrities at red carpet events and I was reached out through my social media to coordinate fashion shows for the city of Elk Grove Ca multicultural festival which I was grateful for all the amazing opportunities and acknowledgment of my creative mind. My journey starting as a photographer led me to coordinate fashion shows for the city of Elk Grove multicultural festival event for the community and I have received my invitation to celebrities red carpet events, runways, and I have recently received emails to many more great opportunities to collaborate with the Pinot Noir project collaboration team. Opportunities, such as Pinot Noir and working with very popular creators, influencers and brand owners and Hollywood makes me feel grateful and I feel all the hard work and the obstacles I have faced in my life and the beginning of my photography journey and there was times that I have gotten discouraged and give up multiple times but I just kept coming back and better myself because I never like giving up but took time to work in areas I was weak and need to develop. What made it happen is my strong supportive systems of friends, family and my loved one  believed in my vision and talent. Things started to fall in the right direction and I am enjoying my journey as a photographer today.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Great question! Having my friends over and visiting me in California, the places that I would tour my friends to are the NewPort beach, and Los Angeles best of LA bus tour, or Los Angeles: Hollywood Sign Walking and Pictures Tour and to the Hollywood walk of fame.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to give a shoutout to God for blessings me with my talent and my amazing parents Rest in Heaven mom & Dad, mother Workenesh Halimichael and father Tekleab Berhane without them I wouldn’t have been born and be able to share my talent with the world or be where I am at and a father of two beautiful babies and my fiancé. My other shoutout is to my family for believing in me and supporting my journey, especially my queen and my siblings plus friends whom supported me from day one to use my gift and talent as a photographer and share it with the world. .

Shoutout: To Groups that have opened doors for me to reach my goals and dream , I would love to give a shoutout to team Echoing Sounds Agency and Kfields PR agency and team Hollywood live to be part of their celebrities red carpet media coverage as a photographer for trusting my work and giving me the opportunity. Other shoutout to JQevents and Bay Area Visits

Website: https://bwirie-photography.pixieset.com/

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

Facebook: https://facebook.com/yaredberhane

Image Credits
Model: shiuli chakravorty