Meet the OSU dropout who is a big photographer at New York Fashion Week

Just for a second, imagine if you could walk away from the midterms that have been driving you crazy and jump on a plane to New York City. While there you would get access to the city’s hottest event, rub shoulders with people too cool for school, and get to see Ben Affleck in person before his latest movie disappoints an entire nation.

If your name is Kyle Meeks then you don’t need to imagine it, because it’s just another day in the life of the OSU dropout turned pro photographer.

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“Photography really started out as an accidental hobby,” says Kyle, “I’ve always liked to take pictures but I never had a professional camera. Coming out of my freshman year of college at OSU, I switched majors which threw off my GPA. That led me to transfer schools, and it was a time of a lot of different transitions in my life and as I was going from one school to the next. I found photography kind of relaxing, as something to do on the weekends and something to do when I was procrastinating.”

Model Ashley Chew

As an entrepreneur myself, I ask Kyle the burning question of how his parents have reacted to his radical change in career path? He smiles and replies that “My parents have been extremely supportive, but that’s not the same for my extended family.” He continues “At first I would say that I was taking a break to see where this photography thing is taking me. That wasn’t a lie at the time, I wasn’t sure if I was going back to school or not. More recently I’ve been saying I left in 2013 and now I run a full time photography business. Which is accurate, I didn’t graduate in 2013, I just left in 2013.”

In the months after leaving college, Kyle began to post pictures of his work to Facebook and Instagram. It wasn’t long before he noticed that people began requesting to work with him.

Model Cassie Kahr

“There were a few bloggers in Columbus who wanted to work with me,” says Kyle. “They wanted me to take pictures of jewelry and their outfits and stuff like that. After doing a few of those, they were just for trade at first, just for fun. Once they had me on a more routine schedule, then they started paying me and that was when it kind of clicked that I’m providing a service that’s good enough to be paid for.”

Model Aaron Eldridge

After working with those types of fashion connections, Kyle was invited to his first ever Columbus fashion week. There he met people who he described as “Just genuine, fun and friendly warm people.” He shares the story of how they introduced him to other designers and photographers around Columbus. It was that kind of networking in Kyle’s mind that started some momentum for him, and got him asking the questions of what he want to do with photography, and where he wanted to take his photography business?

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Kyle then made the jump from comparably small time Columbus fashion week, to the grandest stage of them all NYFW.

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“One of the designers I met at Columbus fashion week decided that he wanted to show his designs at New York fashion week,” says Kyle. “He had talked to the producers, and arranged everything but there was some issue where he wasn’t able to bring the designs this season. I had already booked my ticket to help photograph all of his designs in New York, so the first thing I did once I knew that I wasn’t hired for anything specific was look up the chart that had all the names of the designers. I sent them an email saying ‘FREE photographer, I’m interested in shooting your runway show or doing any behind the scenes footage that you need.’ I got a lot of hits back.”

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Kyle continues by saying that NYFW was by far the best trip he’s ever had, and that the runway shows were awesome.

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He then shares an interesting story about his experience being from the Mid-West in the middle of NYFW.

“I was wearing my mid-west fashion,” says Kyle, “which in Columbus would be a pretty preppy outfit. In New York, however, everything is black, on black, on black, with maybe some white, but mostly black. I stuck out like a sore thumb. All the photographers were asking ‘So where are you from?’ It was hilarious to me and I just played it off as a strength because everyone in the room was looking at me.”

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He then goes on to describe how instead of trying to conform, or make himself more New York, he just let them all see the Ohio. One of the producers for the runway show took note of that and approached him saying “Wow you came all the way from Ohio to shoot our show?” Kyle ever so professionally replies with “Yeah, you have to go where the opportunities are.” After that she was so impressed she took his business card herself and has been in contact with Kyle for next season’s runway shows in September.

“Those are all jobs that I may not have gotten if I had just worn black and blended in.” says Kyle.

Kyle finished with words of wisdom for anyone who wants to follow their dream.

“One thing one of my mentors taught me is to introduce yourself as what you want to do, who you want to be, and where you want to go. So my name is Kyle Meeks, I am a fashion photographer, I want to specialize in editorial fashion, and I want to be the next Patrick Demarchelier.”

Kyle Meeks

You can find out more about Kyle and all of his work right here on Instagram, Facebook and his website Meeks Media.