Photographer and filmmaker Nate Dodge (@Nate_Dodge) has a different office nearly every day of the week. One day you’ll find him in the backcountry skiing, and the next day he’ll be wading into the water with fly fishers. Nate has centered his photography and filmmaking career around the outdoor industry – a niche he’s deeply passionate about. Nate uses his Sony Alpha cameras and lenses to tell relatable stories of nature, adventure and outdoor products. We chatted with Nate about authentic storytelling, gear that supports his brand and how others can emulate his success.

Product Preview – In This Article You'll Find:
–Sony Alpha 7 IV
–Sony Alpha 7 III
–Sony Alpha 7 II
–Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 G Master II
–Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II
–Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master
–Sony 24-70mm f/4

From Coding To Clicking

Growing up, Nate frequently had a camera in his hand. His parents were skilled photographers and they nourished that in Nate, however he still never thought of it as a career path. He ended up in college, studying computer science and entrepreneurship. He had been planning on pursuing a career in that field, yet he noticed that while his classmates spent their free time coding, he was interested in other hobbies including fly fishing, working on his photography, and spending time in nature. He started to think that maybe he wasn’t as passionate about coding as his classmates.

Photo by Nate Dodge. Sony Alpha 7 III. Sony 70-200mm f/4 G. 1/800-sec., f/5.6, ISO 160

Then Nate had the opportunity to study abroad in New Zealand. Knowing this is one of the most beautiful places in the world, he went out and purchased his first professional camera kit. He bought the Sony Alpha 7 II and the Sony 24-70mm f/4. He spent six months in New Zealand, backpacking and photographing, as well as posting his images on Instagram. He began growing a following on social media for his images.

He returned to college for his senior year and people knew him from his Instagram. He started landing paid gigs and had the realization that photography could be a viable career path. After graduating he moved to Colorado, began building his network and portfolio, and decided to give freelance photography and filmmaking a try. “I was like, this is the time to go for it as a freelancer. I don't want to settle into a corporate job and dream of one day becoming a full time photographer. I thought I would just try it now and if it doesn't work then I have a good degree to fall back on. But that was kind of the motivation too to make it work because I didn't really want to do computer science anymore.”

Blending Adventure With Commercial Work

Since then, Nate started and continues to run a successful photography and filmmaking business. And what’s more, he’s created a niche of work surrounded by his passions. “I've kind of made my commercial work around stuff that I want to be doing, so I try to work in all of my outdoor hobbies like fly fishing, mountain biking, skiing and all that stuff. So I've targeted brands that work in those industries. By pursuing fishing brands and stuff like that, that means that we get to spend our days out on the river or out on a backcountry ski tour and that's the office for the day, which is pretty awesome. So, I've just kind of always prioritized that and I think that helped me really find my niche.”

In addition to building a niche that he’s excited about, Nate heads into these projects with a bit of a leg up because he knows the subject or activity so well. “By having experienced those activities or by hiring models who actually fly fish or hunt or whatever, we add a layer of authenticity to the content. It doesn't look fake or reproduced.”

Nate's work is roughly about half photography gigs and half filmmaking gigs. Though he’s trying to pursue more video work due to the growing need brands have for high-quality video content and the larger budgets that come with video productions. But at the end of the day, Nate loves storytelling. “Especially in terms of commercial photography, if you're not building a story around the product, it’s going to end up being super dry and unrelatable content. With pretty much every commercial shoot we do, we'll pitch stories to the client in advance. What we want is to  take the product out on an adventure. For example, we'll tell the story of this person, bringing this bottle of whiskey on a horseback ride in the mountains and then sitting by the campfire and we'll capture the whole experience so that when people see that imagery they can relate to it.”

“People always ask me ‘are you worried that AI could eliminate your job at some point?’ And the answer is no, not at all because real stories with real people are always going to need the personal touch of the filmmaker. To tell that is not something that you can ever fake or generate. So I think by bringing my personal life experience to whatever story we're telling offers a unique perspective that you can't fake.”

Gear That Supports His Storytelling

To tell those stories, Nate relies on his Sony gear. He shot on his beloved Sony Alpha 7 II for quite a while until he eventually upgraded to the Sony Alpha 7 III and then the Sony Alpha 7 IV. “I haven’t delved into the R or S series with Sony, I shoot so much blue hour content and the low light performance of this series is just immaculate.”

Photo by Nate Dodge. Sony Alpha 7 IV. Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II. 1/400-sec., f/3.2, ISO 100

Nate explains that over the past few years, he’s become quite known for his blue hour imagery. People on social media even know him as the “blue hour guy.” Nate says that it’s become part of his brand and that sometimes clients even ask for that look specifically, so he really needs gear that performs well in low light. “For stills it’s the Sony Alpha 7 III and for low light video I’m grabbing my Sony Alpha 7 IV. I work in pretty intense conditions. I’ve beaten the heck out of these cameras. They’ve been underwater, they've been dropped, they're missing a ton of paint, but the insides are still in mint condition, and that's what matters. So they definitely have a lot of character at this point.”

In terms of lenses, Nate uses the Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 G Master II. “I film 90 percent of my video with that lens,” he says. “That lens paired with the Alpha 7 IV is the most outrageously fast autofocus I have ever experienced.” He also just upgraded from the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master to the Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II, which he says has been a great addition to his kit. 

Looking Ahead

Moving ahead, Nate is working on shifting his business slightly. “I've been lucky to have the opportunity to work on a handful of really meaningful documentaries in the last year or so. Stories that are going to have an actual impact in the world in terms of conservation and environmental issues as opposed to selling products for my clients. Those types of projects are just so much more rewarding, so I'm making a real push to go in that direction.” Nate’s vision is to balance commercial work with conservation, passion projects. He would ideally like to do about 50/50 of each.

One of the projects Nate helped work on was The North Face Presents: Beyond the Summit, which was co-directed by Sony Alpha Ambassador Nate Luebbe. You can learn more about that film and what it was like creating a film in the remote Arctic HERE.

Photo by Nate Dodge. Sony Alpha 7 III. Sony 20mm f/1.8 G. 2.5-sec., f/1.8, ISO 1600

Advice For Other Creators

Nate told us that the question people frequently ask him is how to find commercial work, and he says that in his experience it comes down to two things: your network and your portfolio. 

When Nate first moved to Colorado he didn’t have connections or a strong body of work. To build up his portfolio he shot a ton of spec work. “I’d use products I already owned, for example a random ski jacket. Then I’d get a couple of friends to model and we would go to a cool location, like backcountry skiing or something. Then I’d come home with 10 or 15 very commercial looking images that I could build out my website with. And you do that for a handful of brands and now you have a professional looking website. Then when you approach a client, you have a much stronger portfolio.”

He continues, “Then when it comes to networking, this industry is truly about who you know. The bigger the network you have the more jobs fall in your lap, without you trying that much. So you have to go out and meet people.” Nate told us that the first event he went to in Colorado was a Sony event led by Nate Luebbe. He said there were a ton of hobbyist and professional photographers there and that was the start of building his network.

Photo by Nate Dodge. Sony Alpha 7 IV. Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 G Master II. 1/200-sec., f/3.5, ISO 400

Finally, Nate talks to how others can build niches around their passions as he has. “Know your values and know what's important to you and pursue that. If you do that and work hard you’ll find success. Don't just take on any random projects in any random industry just because you're desperate. Times might be tough early on, but if you show people what you love doing in your specific niche, I think you'll find success relatively easily.”

To stay up to date on Nate’s work, follow him on Instagram (@Nate_Dodge), subscribe to his YouTube Channel and check out his website.

To connect with a community of Sony shooters, join us over on the Sony Alpha Community Forums! We are talking all things photography and filmmaking, including topics from this article like commercial photography, marketing to clients and balancing photo and video work.