Speaker 1: 0:13

hey guys, a John McNamara host Ron in Vegas. We're talking local sports, business, real estate. If you guys like what you see, subscribe, follow us on Ron and Vegas podcast Guys we got a special guest today, noel Dahl, with Photo Studios in the house.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Noel Dahl, photo Studios. Right, got it right. Noel Photo Studio. Noel Photo Studios. Okay, cool, well, thank you for being on. I appreciate you. We're excited to have you on. So let's get to know you a little bit better here, you know, tell us about your background, your story, where you're from.

Speaker 3: 0:54

Sure, thank you for having me Before anything. Yeah, I'm from Mexico, but I've been living here my whole life.

Speaker 1: 1:04

Oh, wow, okay.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Yep, and I started doing photography 12 years ago, okay, and it's been very successful since day one. I started just posting the pictures on Facebook back in the day when Facebook was really big and immediately took off, and I think I'm lucky that people really like my work yeah, you do a great job, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:34

How did? How did you get into the industry? What?

Speaker 3: 1:38

it was just basically playing with the camera. I'm playing taking pictures with friends and family, and when I posted on social media, people went crazy about it.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Yeah, cool. Well, what part of Mexico are you from? Sinaloa, awesome, okay. And then Northwest, northwest Okay, I'm not familiar. I'm pretending like I am, but I'm not. That's cool. So how long have you been in Las Vegas?

Speaker 3: 2:11

that's cool. So how long have you been in Las Vegas? Well, we were. I was here until from when I was four until when I was seven. Then we went back and came back when I was 19 19, so that was in 2001.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Wow, so you're like a true local. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, cool, that's awesome, all right, so yeah, so tell us more about like a typical day for you of doing a photo shoot. Do you kind of have it like all set up ready to go, like an idea prior, or do you kind of go with your gut? What does that look like?

Speaker 3: 2:47

I always have something to do with photography either editing, networking, social media, photo shoots. It's always something going on in my life. But, yeah, it's like I usually never planned a photo shoot, because when I used to do it, it never worked out. What do you mean by that? It was always the weather, it was something came up. The model wouldn't like give me what I was looking for, so I decided to start like doing photography just instead, like when we're ready, we'll just come out with ideas and we'll see how it goes and usually turns out really cool turns out cool.

Speaker 2: 3:35

Okay, it seems like you have like a lot of hats, though, because your your photo, you do the editing, you do social media. How do you like kind of, uh, do it efficiently, or you know? Um, I'm going to try and have a little balance to running your own business and wearing all these hats.

Speaker 3: 3:50

It's a little difficult when you have to do the business side and you have to do the creative side. It's when it kind of like crashes Either you are in full creative mode and then you have to do the business side. It's a little difficult, but if you're good at it you find a medium.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Okay, cool. So do you have any good like photo shoot stories for us? It could be good, it could be bad, it can. Whatever you want to tell us. You got like a juicy story for us on a photo shoot stories for us. It could be good, it could be bad, it can. Whatever you wanna tell us. You got like a juicy story for us on a photo shoot that happened.

Speaker 3: 4:30

I think every photo shoot that I've done. There's something like a little story on each photo shoot. Like, I get so many stories that I can really have like a reality show and and show the behind the scenes on the shoots. I got a couple of times where the models went crazy and they almost died. Oh my god, what happened. One of them was in a motorcycle.

Speaker 3: 5:04

So we're like out of the desert trying to get a photoshoot for an underwear designer. Oh, so we got everything. We got the models, we got the underwear designer, we got the assistant, we got like so many people working on this project and we went out of the desert and the model fell out of the motorcycle. Oh my God. So, thank God, nothing happened Right. And we went out of the desert and the model fell out of the motorcycle. Oh my god. So, thank god, nothing happened right. But, um, when I found out uh, the, we found out that the model just got the bicycle so he didn't know how to drive it oh, yeah, very well okay but but it came out really good, Like we got the pictures.

Speaker 3: 5:52

the designers were really happy. The makeup artists cover mostly all like the rashes and stuff and photo editing.

Speaker 2: 6:01

We did it Awesome. So nobody died Never. It turned out to be a really good one for you, thank God, cool, awesome. So what would you say is the most challenging part of your job?

Speaker 3: 6:14

I think the most challenging part it's the business side. Okay, it's fun at the same time because you have to like try different things. You know, like when you're paying for advertising on social media, it's like you have to find the way to do it.

Speaker 2: 6:31

so it's always like let's try something different this time and see if it works better yeah, so that's that's the most difficult part, I think, for every creative person, I think the business side it's always the most difficult part yeah, I'm not like a super creative person, but just being in real estate, like I you know, being into sales, and that was something that I really attracted to the business. The business part of it was like not the sexy part that I really want to do, but to be good at it, similar to yours, like we've got to learn that too, right?

Speaker 3: 7:02

so you have to work in the numbers and I don't want to do it, but you have to absolutely so.

Speaker 2: 7:10

What's, what is, what do you enjoy the most about your job? And like what are the most, uh, growth opportunities that you've had over the years?

Speaker 3: 7:19

I think uh, working with people, it's what I really enjoy the most, like doing the photo shoot um, it's, it's my jam. It's always fun. The boring part, I think, would be the editing. I have to spend like hours by myself working on the computer. But I mean, it depends on you, like it depends on the person. Like, if this is the boring part, you have to make it fun at the same time.

Speaker 2: 7:51

Makes. I've heard that before. I've never been like we do, like a lot of social media and everything, but I've heard in the business like editing is the most time consuming and not the fun part, so it sounds like it's similar to your business as well.

Speaker 3: 8:03

Yes, Because you have to like there's always doing updates on, like Photoshop and it's come out with something new and it's like so many options that you can go and try and, depending on your taste, like okay, let's see if people will like this more than what I did the last time.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Okay makes sense, and it seems like there's probably a lot of competition here for photography. So what really gets you to like stand out from other folks in Las Vegas? You know it's pretty, it's a growing city, Las Vegas kind of has an edge to it too. It's a different city. So what kind of stands you out, you know, compared to the other? You know, get seen so you can have more opportunities.

Speaker 3: 8:47

I think for me, like I have clients that come and do a photo shoot and then the next year they go and try somebody new, and they always come back to me they say, for some reason, working with you, you make it always really fun and your pictures have something like gets a lot of attention from when they posted on social media. They get so much attention, okay, that when they get to work with other photographers and they get the results, they're like, oh, these are cool pictures, but they don't get that much attention okay so you got, you have a good referral base now over the years.

Speaker 3: 9:30

Yes, okay, that's nice, I think I photograph. No, I know I photograph more than 700 people. Oh my gosh, 700 guys.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Wow, that's impressive. That's a lot of work, man, it is. Are you seeing like in your industry right now, because I know like with ours, we're starting to use AI technology to help us. Is that helping you at all with like editing, or is there any like AI tools that you're using?

Speaker 3: 9:55

Every time that I use AI, there's something wrong with it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:00

It's a little off for us too. Yeah, you gotta like.

Speaker 3: 10:02

Yeah, I have to go and double check. And when I see, I see like, for example, one time I was editing with AI and it came back, the picture came back with one of the hands have six fingers. So we're like there's something that we have to redo everything. So, there's always something wrong, so it's time consuming for me. So I try it a couple of times and I'm probably going to keep trying it until it gets better. But to me I'm like no, I'd rather do it by myself okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 10:34

Now, do you only focus in las vegas, or do you travel at all to do photo shoots, or because it seems like you have a really big following? Um, so do you kind of travel and do photos too, or you just stay here?

Speaker 3: 10:45

yes, I travel a lot oh, wow, okay, um, I've been traveling internationally all over the States. I think I'm really lucky to that. I get to to go to different places, but my base is here in Vegas, and that's another thing that living in Vegas. It always bring people to Vegas not just for the photo shoot, but they get to go out and enjoy the city and come and work with me.

Speaker 2: 11:16

I know what you mean. Yeah, one thing I love about living in Vegas because I grew up in like upstate New York that nobody travels to, so now it's like I never have to really go see my friends. They always come see me. Exactly that are out of state or out of the country, so it's really easy.

Speaker 3: 11:31

It's a really easy sell for them to come to you very conveniently yeah, they, um, I lived in washington state and, uh, my friends never went there. Yeah, same thing with my family. They used to go once a year and now, since I've been here in vegas, um, they always come here. Yeah, we always have people. That was a fun time and I think it's. It's a we're lucky that we get to to work with a lot of people from all over the world. Yeah, so I get to like. I remember when I started working, I started getting people that I just saw the pictures online, yeah, and they will come to Vegas and they will contact me and they're like it's like, oh, my god. Like, when I look at the pictures, like, this is the person that I used to follow, that I saw, oh, ten years ago, that I wanted to work with this person. Yeah, and, uh, they come, they come and work with me wow, what are?

Speaker 2: 12:31

um, I have a couple questions more questions for you, sure. So what were your favorite? Since we're still on the traveling thing, what were your maybe your favorite state that you went to? And what's your favorite out of the country place that you went to, and why, and what's?

Speaker 3: 12:43

your favorite out-of-the-country place that you went to, and why Florida? What part of Florida? We did a road trip. We went from Orlando all the way to the Keys oh nice. So we stopped in different cities. Okay, oh, that's cool. Yeah, every city was a little bit different, but I think shooting the beach.

Speaker 2: 13:06

Oh yeah, it was one of the best experiences. That seems like it'd be fun. I'm a road trip guy so I totally get that, especially down the beach. Kind of like California too, but Florida's neat.

Speaker 3: 13:16

I did it in California too, but Florida was like, oh my God, breathtaking. Yeah, it's different out there, for sure. Yeah, so what's a, what's a cool country that you visited and you would do it again? Mexico, oh, mexico it's. There's a lot of, even hiding places that can you share one with us today? There's. Have you been in Cabo? Yes, this is city close to Cab cabo. It's called la paz. Oh, I haven't been there. You haven't been there. La paz, la paz, it's a. It's a really like, uh, it's a city, um, and it's really well known by celebrities. Oh, that they go there and they don't have paparazzi, they don't have the, that they go there and they don't have paparazzi, they don't have the media chasing and following. So it's really normal to find celebrities in this place, because it's a really beautiful city and they have amazing bitches and it's really cheap too, oh cool.

Speaker 2: 14:22

The prices and everything. It's really, really cheap. Yeah, I go to Cabo cabo like every couple of years, so I'll definitely check that out try that and they need between cabo and la paz.

Speaker 3: 14:31

Uh, there's uh the hotel california. When uh the eagles wrote the song, oh that, oh no, yeah that they have the hotel there.

Speaker 2: 14:40

That's cool and I thought that was in hell.

Speaker 3: 14:42

But no, that place, really it's a real place.

Speaker 2: 14:46

Now it's a museum wow, that is so cool. I would definitely check that out. That's my dad's like favorite all-time band, so I know that you have to do it.

Speaker 3: 14:55

Is he alive still?

Speaker 1: 14:57

uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so you you have to take him there okay really cool, cool wow.

Speaker 2: 15:02

I'm getting some good info on Mexico, all right. Well, back to photography. So cool thing about Vegas is we have a lot of like hot spots, like we have downtown, we have the strip, we have Red Rock. Is there like certain places that you like to shoot or you know, just kind of depend on the client it depends on what the client wants.

Speaker 3: 15:23

Sometimes a lot of the clients, especially the locals. They want some green scenario and we have Lake Las Vegas that shows a lot of green. Yes, but my favorite spot it's Ghost Town. Have you been there?

Speaker 2: 15:46

It's actually called Ghost Town, ghost Town, ghost Town. I don't know if I've been to the ghost town, but I've been to some ghost towns. Where is the ghost town?

Speaker 3: 15:51

it's by Nelson Nelson Landing. Where's that in the north, to close to Boulder City?

Speaker 3: 16:03

oh, it's that it's a really cool place, oh cool. It used to be like a mining place, so there's like a few houses that they're abandoned. But one family bought this area so they've been adding a lot of like antique spots and buildings, antique cars, um, in there it's. It's a really cool place to go and visit. Beyonce did a music video oh, I didn't know that. Um, there's a couple of movies that they they were shot there, cool, and uh, um, every time that you go there, um, there's always something going on, so you always have to check the? Um to see if the spot is going to be reserved.

Speaker 2: 16:49

But it's a really cool place okay, yeah, I gotta check that out. That's so interesting because I I feel like I've been to like the dam and I've, um, I've done like the what do you call them?

Speaker 3: 17:00

like the train tracks and they go through that little hike area, so but I've never I've never done a hike with gold strike so there's kind of like a road where, like kind of like, you're going to search light, okay, and there's a, there's a sign and, uh, you'll find it. Okay, I'm pretty sure I haven't been there. That's so cool. Just Just Google it Goldstown and Nelson.

Speaker 2: 17:25

Man, you're giving me all the hot spots. This is awesome, okay, cool. So tell me more about like what are your goals for the future? Like what is the next step for you? What's your vision for this business?

Speaker 3: 17:39

You know that Hollywood 2.0 is coming to Vegas. Yes, sir, so that's one of my goals. Okay, do you work with them? Oh, cool.

Speaker 2: 17:48

Tell me more about that well, there's always.

Speaker 3: 17:54

Vegas is always changing, yeah, so I think you always have to be ready to what's the next thing. Yeah, it's coming to Vegas. So what are you sure? If you want to stock in the same place, or you want to, like, do something different, like you're doing the podcast and doing the YouTube channel, there's always something coming up. So you have to step up on the game and keep doing more and more.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Absolutely. That's why I love this town. It's growing so rapidly and so many opportunities, so you see yourself like working more, like with, maybe, actors in the future yep, yeah, working more with studios, with studios okay, big companies cool stuff like that, you're gonna have a lot of opportunities.

Speaker 2: 18:34

Yeah, so, absolutely so. So tell us more about you, on the personal side, say, because you're obviously super successful with your uh photography business. You know what do you do, what do you do for fun, you know, when you're not working and I know you work all the time it sounds like.

Speaker 3: 18:52

But if you do get away like sundays uh, sundays in the morning I play baseball oh, you play baseball, oh cool so, uh, now that we're gonna have the the baseball team coming, to vegas there's something that's going to keep us more busy on Sundays? Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 19:09

What's your team? The Dodgers? Oh, the Dodgers. Yeah, well, they just won, right? Yeah, I'm not a baseball guy. I like all sports besides baseball. So I grew up like in the Northeast so I'd watch like Red Sox, but I'm not like a true fan. But Do you play any sports? Yeah, I played football when I was younger, and a little bit of hockey, so. So you're a big as the Golden Knights guy. I wrote for the Golden Knights. Yeah, for sure, I grew up being a Devils fan and then I, when I went to college, I just kind of stopped watching hockey until nights. So it's been cool to see the town get behind. I guess in northeast like hockey is very popular, um, but it was cool because here, like nobody was into hockey and then we have a team and and everybody's in and everybody's into it yeah, which is really cool because it's an expansion team, because even like I'm a big football guy got ra Raiders tickets.

Speaker 2: 20:03

I'm not a Raiders fan, but I'm like it'll be fun and I have not been able to get into the Raiders at all. I think there's something about like the homegrown team, it's a true Vegas team that all of us that are, like yourself, like a true Las Vegan at this point.

Speaker 2: 20:20

Like both of us, I've not spent as long as you 17 years here, but, uh, there's a lot of pride behind it because you because he was born yeah, I mean, this city is like just for me, being the last 17 years, it has changed so much, and you've been here since 2001, so it's even more changed, because when I remember it got here, everybody was like, oh, the city's doubled in the last 10 years and now it's done the same thing 17 years later. So it's it's a really unique place.

Speaker 3: 20:47

So it is and, um, I I'm really happy that uh, people went crazy with golden nights. Yeah, I'm not like I've been at the games and it's fun, but I haven't been hooked. Yeah, on the games, kind of like like I'm with baseball. Yeah, but I'm more like in the baseball side.

Speaker 2: 21:05

So I'm saying I'm not into, like, I'm not hooked on Knights, but I'm really into football. I've always grown up. So you know it's funny, I'm like a you know the nerd, for whatever reason. I like you know the basketball and football and now football is good, but they I think it's just cuz they've been bad.

Speaker 2: 21:22

Like I'm like I think I's just because they've been bad Like I'm like I think I just love they're probably going to be listening to this, no they know I'm very opinionated on this, but I think it's like I like the underdogs, like as soon as, because I grew up being a New England Patriots fan and they're the worst team in the league in football, and then they had like a whole dynasty, and now like it's cool that I haven't still Patriots fan, but it's, you know, they already did it, you know. So it's kind of fun to root for teams that haven't done it yet, if that makes sense, so yeah absolutely, I totally get it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:54

So do you ever go to like the most crazy Triple-A Stadium and in the world? And that you've been to the Aviatorator stadium?

Speaker 3: 22:03

I've been, yeah yeah, that place is gnarly, like it's fun, like yeah, you have to to be in, in, uh, in a really cool mindset, to like just go and enjoy it, you know yeah, no, I'm saying like I I don't pay attention, I drink beers and I could not even tell you what happens in the game, but I'm always like fascinated.

Speaker 2: 22:24

I'm like wow, like I can't believe we vegas spent 150 million dollars. I feel like we could have spent on better things, but you know, it is what it is hey, we, we have the option, so it's like it's good for us, it is good it's good the a's are coming here, I think and I'm kind of joking, but like that is a very vegas thing, right, we're over the top.

Speaker 2: 22:46

There's constant growth. You just talked about the new baseball stadium, which is going to be awesome Because I think, especially the Knights, because the Knights broke Vegas through and I always thought this before and it's crazy that nobody else caught on to it. I think a lot of Las Vegans knew this, but we're a sports town and then if you're a way team and you're not looking at the skip because you know, like, like I'm sure you, being a Dodgers fan, you're, you don't live in Los Angeles, but you probably go to a game or two here or you go to like, hey, I'll go to Denver and watch the Dodgers, like everybody kind of likes that away game once a year.

Speaker 2: 23:20

Yeah so like if you're looking on the schedule and you live in Minnesota game once a year.

Speaker 3: 23:25

Yeah, so like if you're looking on the schedule and you live in minnesota they're gonna las vegas right exactly yeah, it's like going to san francisco um last year and, uh, and me and my cousin were like, oh, they have baseball game, let's go to the game right. So it's like it's too bad that we don't have it in vegas, like now. Now they're working on it.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Yeah, it's gonna be. It's gonna bring in a lot of people, because there's I mean, if you have you gone to a raiders game before, no, okay, you're not missing much.

Speaker 2: 23:51

But uh but literally it's like 50, 50, um, you know, raiders, fans and then whatever the way team is, and we don't see that team is, and we don't see that as much in. We don't see that as much as night games. There's a lot of way fans, but I bet you when baseball is in town we're going to see the same thing. I could see a lot of people going to see the Yankees, red Sox, dodgers, because there's a lot of fans and there's not a ton of Oakland fans and there's something about the teams moving from the Bay here that has not been good for those fans, like they have not really accepted that or traveled well here. Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3: 24:37

I've heard a lot about it. Yeah yeah, it's like they're still mad that they left.

Speaker 2: 24:43

Yeah, I think it would have been better, at least for the Raiders. I think it would have been actually better if Raiders had gone back to LA and the Chargers had come here, because it's like San Diego and Vegas are kind of more blue collar cities. Not as much now, like 10 years ago we were more of a blue collar city, but there's something about Oakland coming to Vegas. It really pissed people. I think it's going to be the same with the A's. It's just like I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 3: 25:08

Yeah, it's going to happen too, but hey, like you say, there's a lot of people that come to Vegas and it's like they have the option to go to the game. Yeah, like they'll do it. Yeah, we have options.

Speaker 2: 25:27

It's good, you know, we don't have like true raider. That's a problem, though, too, because we don't really have a lot of true raiders fans, so it's almost like going to like a bowl game where it's kind of neutral, like you know there's is there like a real home team.

Speaker 3: 25:33

But you know, I think we we're going to start getting a lot of fans, like really fans, when they start winning a lot that too.

Speaker 2: 25:39

Yeah, the draft's tonight, so hopefully we get a good pick. But exactly, I agree, I think it's going to take time because that stadium is awesome, I love the stadium, but it's going to take time to really build the fan base. And honestly, I was surprised because I thought for sure the a's were going to play in the aviator stadium, that's what I thought too, but it's too small yeah, yeah, still too small for it.

Speaker 2: 26:06

How much a shock, though. You're gonna keep that team in sacramento for three years. I know what does that do for you, because, because we're seeing the raiders now, it's like you got to almost like build that fan base a little bit and now they're just pushing that out another three years, but yeah I feel like they're gambling right yeah, I don't know. So what else? So like tell us more your personal life. So you love baseball, how long did you play? But you see you played baseball, baseball. How long did you play baseball?

Speaker 3: 26:34

for since I was little though oh, wow, okay uh, when I came here, um it was, I was like doing a lot of different things, you know, like hiking, going, travel, and yeah. And then I found out the league and I was like, okay, like I want to, I want to, I want to play. So I started playing and it's been like an addiction for 10 years now oh nice, I'm impressed I.

Speaker 2: 27:00

You can't really play football, but I kind kind of wish I grew up playing a sport where I could still do it. But also, like I know, I'll just get injured.

Speaker 3: 27:11

That's the thing. Every time that we're playing, we're like, oh my God, we're old. Yeah, and I was telling my mom that a couple of years ago I used to play three or four games in one day. Wow, and now, like, I barely finished finishing the second game. Yeah, I'm like and I was telling my mom, it's not the same. Like, like, your body changes and your body can't take it anymore. It does.

Speaker 2: 27:37

Yeah, I don't, like I must have been a lunatic. When I was a kid, I was playing football. We had double sessions. I'm just running full speed into people. I'm like, how did my body do this? Like I trip funny and I spread my leg for a week, like yeah, your body can, can, can do it anymore, yeah do you have any personal goals going on or any places you want to travel in the future? Yes, fun, I photography.

Speaker 3: 28:03

For fun, I'm always traveling, Like next weekend I'm going to San Diego and next month I'm going to La Paz.

Speaker 3: 28:14

Oh wow, yeah, it's, it's always something going on, it's always something traveling or um. I opened another office in pb in puerto vallarta, oh wow. So I get a lot of clients there, uh, when it's high season. So, um, or, depending on the client, if the client is coming to pb, um, and I got the chance of the time, I you know if, if you say let's go to the beach, um, if you say let's go to the beach.

Speaker 1: 28:44

I try to stop everything, to just go to the beach.

Speaker 3: 28:47

So I get a lot of clients from Canada and Europe that they go to PV and I always try to move my schedule around so I can be there at the same time and work and have fun. That's fun.

Speaker 2: 29:02

I like how you do that. That's savvy and it seems like you really enjoy what you did. When did you open your office? That was in PB.

Speaker 3: 29:11

Yeah, that was 2022. Okay, cool, awesome.

Speaker 2: 29:16

All right, man. Well, hey, I want to thank you for being on. Was a pleasure to get to know more about you and your business. Guys, if you're looking for a great photographer, noel is your man. Guys, this is ronald vegas. John mack, take care of yourselves today.