Through the various ebbs and flows of life, 33-year-old Ricky Ray has finally found the job he feels best fits him. After spending the past 2 ½ years in marketing for the City of Early, Ray opened Ricky Ray Photography full time in May.
“Eighty percent of what I do now is real estate photography,” Ray said. “There’s been a lot of jobs in the past where I did fine, but I never felt like I was a master at it. I always felt like I was a jack of all trades and master of none, but real estate photographer is the closest I’ve got to mastery.”
Ricky Ray Photography is not just limited to real estate, however.
“I also do weddings and portraits and commercials for certain businesses downtown as well,” he said, “but real estate is my main thing and I really enjoy doing that.”
Regarding his passion for real estate photography, Ray said, “I get to meet new people everyday and get to go to new places everyday. Also, I love doing something that I feel like I’m good at. It’s very rewarding to do something you’re good at and know you’re going to make your clients happy with what you deliver.”
Further elaborating on real estate photography, Ray said, “Photography just makes sense to me, and real estate photography is very technical and takes a lot of skill and knowledge that I’ve been able to understand easily. I’ve tried to describe how I do things to people, but it just makes sense to me.”
Ray’s sentiment for photography developed after he graduated from Howard Payne University.
“I became a reporter for KTAB and I used a camera everyday,” he said. “I was also meeting new people and telling stories. It wasn’t about just pointing and shooting a camera, but being creative in order to tell the story. That’s where I first said I wanted to do this on my own. My wife Ciera and my parents all pitched in to buy me my first large DSLR camera. From there I just started learning on my own and watching YouTube videos, Google searching how to do things, and taught myself photography.”
Ray is also teaming up with Jarvis Green to form Green & Ray Productions, which will video Brownwood Lions football games this fall.
“Jarvis and I are going to take over for Scott Coers after he left for Oregon and we’re excited to be doing that,” he said. “Five years ago, Scott Coers contacted me and asked if I wanted to film for him. He needed someone to film from the press box while he filmed on the field. We stayed as a team for the last five years and brought Jarvis on last year, and we were on the field while Scott was up in the press box. This year we’re bringing on Tate Sullivan, who is going to be in the press box while me and Jarvis are on the field.
“We love it. It’s so much fun to go to the football games and we’re doing two things we love – watching football on ground level while also filming. It’s not work when we’re there, it’s a lot of fun.”
Ray, his wife Ciera and their 2-year-old daughter are members of Midtown Church, where Ricky teaches fourth, fifth, and sixth graders.
“We’ve been foster parents but currently we have no children in our house right now other than our own little girl, but we are foster licensed,” he said.
Ray also serves on the board for Knit Together, an agency that supports foster parents.
In his spare time Ray enjoys fishing, golfing and, of course, photography.
“I’ll photograph sunsets, chase storms, find whatever wildlife I can,” he said. “I like to show off Brownwood and Brown County. There’s a lot of people who have captured the beauty around here, but I like to add to it as much as I can myself.”