Kruiz Cooper-Pullen is a normal high school student just like everyone else, but with one exception. He has a very successful and profitable photography business.He has worked for many famous companies and people from doing videos for famous baseball players signing and worked for an important sports network.

When Kruiz first started out he thought he’d only take photos for family or close friends, or just do street photography. He never could have imagined how successful it would become.

“I always thought of it as something like, oh this will just be something for like family who needs it or friends who need I just kinda started doing street photography. I really didn’t think I was gonna make money off of it and I didnt think It would turn into a business,” Cooper-Pullen said.

Kruiz started from taking pictures at his church to taking videos of famous baseball players signing.

“I did a video for a signing his name is Niko Horner he’s a second baseman for the Cubs I liked it #1 he’s on the Cubs, I watched him on tv because I love baseball and stuff and I got a video of him signing my camera and he came up to it with a marker and I put a glass in between and he signed it, and it was a good experience,” Cooper said.

This passion didn’t come from anywhere; he was inspired by his father who also did photography and many other things.Inspiring Kruiz in his journey with journalism and his business.

“In his life he wanted to do music but he also wanted to make his own production company and make it his business,” he said. “Everything I do, I do it for my dad so when I started my business and I got into it I never knew that he did it, I found a photo of my dad taking photos for people and I was like this is what I wanted to do and I wanted to continue it for my life and be successful in it to make him proud.”

This journey hasn’t been easy though, with the struggle of funds making it difficult to compete with others. He also has to purchase his own equipment, making his business a very expensive venture.

“The money aspect of it and finding clients who are willing to pay for a 16- 17-year-old’s services because nobody wants to hire a 15 or 16-year-old. . . . But once they see my stuff, they’ll be good with it. The other struggle is definitely getting enough money to start your business.”

With Kruiz being his own independent boss he had to learn many things and had to make sacrifices and learn new things and needed to drain himself to become successful.

“The biggest things I’d tell upcoming photographers and influencers is be consistent, and if I were to give somebody advice for content creating and photography there so many different things I could say.The biggest thing is I see a lot of photographers in this area and people my age just giving up an there’s this one guy who comes back for to months and gets burnt out and he just gives up on it you gotta post as much as possible you gotta get your name out there and outreach, email and talk to people.”