Meet Dennis Herrera of Neo’s Photography in Firestone

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dennis Herrera.

Dennis, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Well, my story is simple. Take one man who is currently known as a creator and visual storyteller and who brings a fresh and new creative aspect to photography and visualize that person. Now think of the complete opposite person, daily corporate grind, I live and die by the numbers and stats, like sports I use plays that are designed for the desired outcome and are executed to completion…That’s been me for the last 41 years of my life until the day my wife said to me, “I think we should take better pictures of the cakes I’m making.”. My wife is the owner of A Cake Come True so she needed good content to promote her work and business. So we bought a camera, an expensive one for us at the time and of course and I did exactly what any new person would do with a fancy new camera that can do so many things…I put it on “Auto”. The pictures were even worse than the cell phone pictures we had always taken. So it was time for me to execute a plan and figure out this camera business.

Learning to use the camera was not too hard for me, I’m a technical person by nature and trade so that part of this journey was the easy part it was the creative part that wasn’t so easy. It needed a bigger catalyst.

December 2015 my mother passed away which was devastating to me because she wasn’t the first person in my family I lost. January 2012 I lost my 7-year-old daughter Isabella in a tragic incident so between losing her and my mother there was a hole in my heart a moon could fit thru. Leap back to December 2015 after losing my mother I started developing a pain in my mouth, six months after getting my wisdom teeth pulled I developed an infection in my jaw which required surgery, six weeks of my mouth wired shut, IV antibiotics for 6 weeks. In the 5th week, I developed an allergic reaction to the medicine and got a blood clot that forced the removal of the IV. I survived mostly……Over the next six months, I became sick from the side effects of the antibiotics and the trauma of the surgery, severely sick and needed to stop for a while.

This incident became the catalyst. My wife’s business was starting to gain traction and I wanted to be a part of it so I took a leave from my work and we focused on the business and here is where I dedicated the time to develop my skills, learn how to edit and be open to see what was around me and appreciate all that I was able to do and see. Capture those moments the way I saw them and share those images and ideas with people.

three years later my passion is photography and creating fine art, at least in my eyes. I’ve met so many new people who are creatives from the Colorado and Denver areas as well as people from all over the world who inspire me to keep shooting!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It hasn’t bee a smooth road and still isn’t. Seeing images at will is what the internet gives us on a daily basis, specifically for free, i.e. Instagram, Facebook, etc….It’s free content all-day, How do I turn photography into a source of income? Well, that obstacle is still here and I’m now faced with the challenge of a starving artist, it’s hard to sell what is free!

Please tell us about your work.
Neo’s Photography is a fine art company, at least that’s what I like to think anyway! I love to take the ordinary and make it look the way I would like to see it. Full of color, clarity and detail moods that tell a tale. I am not going to lie, I am a heavy-handed editor and have no shame in using my big crayon to color the earth the way I see it! Can I get a fist bump on that one? 🤜🤛

At the present moment, I’m working on expanding what I do into portraiture, landscapes, business, and lifestyle photography to see where I can grow there.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I don’t think I would or could do anything differently, the way photography developed for me could not have happened any other way. I needed a way to see and develop my creative side.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.neos-photography.com
• Email: dennis@neos-photography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neosecho1/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NeosEchoPhoto

Image Credit:
All photos were taken by me

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