ABOUT ME
Photography. Graphic design. Marketing. Carpentry. These are a few of my creative outlets that have become passions over the last ten years.
Family
My name is Blake Belcher and I'm from Oxford, Mississippi. I live here with my dog, Zook, and I'm surrounded by some pretty incredible family.
My mom, Chyna, was the Head Administrative Assistant to five head Ole Miss Football coaches over the course of 16 years. She has since created a non-profit foundation promoting safety awareness for athletes in Mississippi called The Mind Matters Foundation. With a passion for helping people and a stacked Board of Directors, she hopes to bring safety awareness to athletes, coaches and parents all over the state. Please click here to check out her cause!
My dad, Mike, and my stepmom, Stephanie, have owned their own very successful Car Accessories and Communications business in Arkansas for the last twenty years. I also have two sisters, Karlee and Meg, that are both incredible young women with extremely bright futures ahead of them.
The rest of my family is made up of the most incredible friends someone could hope to have. I've surrounded myself with the most supportive, authentic, and hardworking people, which are always pushing me to be the best I can be, whatever that may mean. I'm grateful for everyone I've mentioned, every single day.
SCHOOL & WORK
I graduated from the University of Mississippi with a Business Degree in Marketing and Management. I was very involved with my fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, and still currently serve on the Board of Trustees. I worked at the Office of Outreach on campus throughout college, and was involved in various campus organizations throughout the years.
Since graduating, I've worked in Nashville, Tennessee briefly, then returned to Oxford to help two friends start a Medical Waste Management company, called GreenServ, Inc. and served as their Operations Manager for almost three years. While there, I was exposed to every aspect of a start-up business including
insurance and business licensing; creating policies and procedures; purchasing trucks and software; daily operations and marketing materials; branding, accounting, human resources, and account management. I will forever be grateful for my opportunity with GreenServ, Inc. and my two bosses as they showed me all the facets that go into bringing a business idea to life and creating a successful company.
After almost three years with that company, I was offered the opportunity to become the General Manager of two Servpro franchises, one in Oxford, and the other in Jackson, Mississippi. Since I started with them, I have had the opportunity to work on emergency planning for fire and water emergency restoration, managing a larger staff over two different offices, and working on restoration projects of all monetary sizes.
getting started
I first took a photography class when I was a freshman in high school under the legendary journalism teacher, Beth Fitts. It was much more than just a class for me. It was the first way I'd ever found to express myself artistically and my first discovered passion. With the help and push from the late Dan Phillips, I continued to develop my skill set and started shooting weddings, portraits, sports, and everything in between. That led into photography with the University of Mississippi and shooting photos for a couple of media guides and shooting headshot for various student campaigns.
Graphic design was a natural evolution for me as it went so well with photography, and fortunately opened even more doors. Through my mom's work, my developing business skills, photography, and graphic design, I was lucky enough to land the marketing internship with Morale Entertainment in 2009. This company took five NCAA Head Football Coaches to the Middle East to boost morale, sign autographs, and run scrimmage football games with the troops that were stationed there. One year later, I was given the opportunity to be the Logistics Intern and Official Photographer of the 2010 NCAA Head Football Coaches Tour. The images I got and people I met during this time are forever imprinted on my mind and I think of them often.
Since then, I have focused on developing my graphic design abilities, using photography as a foot-in-the-door, and trying to find any opportunity possible to help people bring an idea or project to life. Wedding, rehearsal dinner and save-the-date invitations; logos, business cards, marketing materials and stationary; websites, menus, and t-shirts have been the major project categories over the last several years. I’m grateful for every opportunity I have to work on a project because it gives me the opportunity to help people bring their ideas to life, move their businesses forward, or makes their wedding just that much more unique.
This website is dedicated to some of those photos, projects, and designs that I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved with since I got started.