Jay Vergara is a car photographer and videographer. He grew up in the Philippines and moved to the CSRA in 2017, now Jay travels the U.S. photographing for car shows and companies. He grew up in the CSRA and now travels the U.S. photographing for car shows and companies. His love for photography started when he was just a little kid. “I started photography when I was twelve years old. I didn’t have my own camera back then, but I had a friend who had a DSLR camera that I started using,” says Jay. “I fell in love with photography and kept begging my mom to buy me a camera. After a year, she decided to give me one of the cheaper DSLRs, which was definitely more than enough, and I was super happy about it! When I got it, I spent countless hours looking on YouTube trying to learn every single thing there was on a camera.”
“In college, I kind of lost interest in photography because everyone told me that I needed to figure out what I wanted to do and that I wouldn’t get anywhere with photography,” remembers Jay. He went to college for computer engineering for a year and afterwards, he joined the military. “While waiting to be shipped out, I took another course, which was information technology majoring in digital arts. So, it was kind of a mix of computers, but I still got to do art. I got back into photography then and actually started doing videography,” says Jay. “When I got shipped out, the military was conducting tests and we found out that I’m colorblind. Before then, nobody really liked the photos I made. They were ok, but they weren’t the best. It’s kind of hard to get into an art that requires you to see color when you’re colorblind.”
Jay became discouraged and felt there was no point in continuing photography. Others had told him that he wouldn’t be able to make money and needed to find another career. Four years went by without him holding a camera when he started watching Peter McKinnon, a photographer and filmmaker, on YouTube. “I just wanted to do photography as a hobby because it was fun. I didn’t really want to quit because I loved doing it,” he shares. Jay started researching how to use graphs and histograms to edit his photos. “When I edit a photo, I’m not even looking at the photo. I’m looking at numbers, so everything is a value to me,” says Jay.
“I didn’t think I would get anywhere with it or make any money. I was at a car show one day and a company walked up to me and asked how much I would charge to make them a video. I had zero clue because if I worked with a company, I had to let them know I am colorblind,” says Jay. He decided to work with the company and offered his services at a discounted price. “I was just surprised because when they got the final product from me, they told me how awesome it was. I never would have thought that I would have something like this,” says Jay.
To encourage aspiring photographers, Jay says, “Don’t be scared to pick up a camera. You’ll hear a lot of judgment from other photographers because they forget where they came from. We all started with a photo that someone probably made fun of.”
Keep up with Jay and see more of his work by following him on Instagram at @_jayvergara.