Branded | Spikes of Reality
There’s a fear that lives inside me. It comes out in dark moments, usually after a tolling day with a schedule filled to the brim with meetings and errands. Peeking its head out when I’m most vulnerable when I don’t feel like I have a second to breathe. My chest feels heavy and the voice of my anxiety whispers to me, overwhelming me with self-doubt. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Will I end up being mediocre in my life?
As an entrepreneur, woman, and self-proclaimed over-thinker, these are the questions that keep me up at night. Yet there’s something inside me that drives me to keep going, to pack my camera bag, get out of my comfort zone, and continue creating the life I want to live. My vision, to create magic out of the ordinary, is what banishes that fear from my mind as I wake up to a new day.
I know, like the many that came before me, that sometimes good things take time. When I first met Asia Johnson, founder of Spikes of Reality, she was bold and straightforward with her goals, one of the most determined young women I’ve met, and may I say, reminded me a hell of a lot of myself. A whole year before ever meeting in person, she knew she was on the cusp of a game-changing idea, and she had a vision board with my name on it to help bring her brand to life.
As I listen to Asia tell the story of herself and her brand, she paints a picture as clear as any I’ve photographed.
“We race in running shoes called spikes, and every day I laced up those shoes, I faced a new reality as a student-athlete. I battled physical injuries, mental health breakdowns, and that overwhelming uncertainty of what life would look like after college.” The solution-seeker she is, Asia came up with the idea to create a career and entrepreneurship resource platform to help other students not only ease into the transition but excel.
I’m a firm believer in manifestation and I could tell through the way she spoke about her brand, that Asia is too. Here was this young woman, leveraging the laws of the universe to build the life she wanted, on her own terms.
Spikes of Reality is the go-to spot for students to set their goals, invest in themselves, and build a community of support. To fully bring the brand to life, we collaborated on a full-day photoshoot, designing visual representations of stories that will resonate for years to come.
When there’s a clear vision, a founder as inspired and bold as Asia, and a product that speaks for itself, everything else seems to align like constellations in the sky. Sourcing locations, props, and models is a challenging task for large brand shoots even pre-pandemic, yet for Spikes of Reality, everything came together perfectly in sync. Despite the fact that we chose a hot, August day to shoot five different story scenes, everyone on our team was full of energy and ideas that made the day feel like a walk in the park.
We had an early morning, I’m talking 7 am call time, at a local high school’s track and field. This was seriously the only time we could shoot outside, with the Arizona temperatures reaching over 100°F and our models were working hard to get the action shots we needed. Decked out head to toe in PeachyWear workout clothes, a past brand I’ve collaborated with and a perfect fit for Spikes, we were racing against the heat to capture content before heat exhaustion caught up to us. These photos embodied the feeling of motivation, hard work, and relentless energy that the brand cultivates in students. From jump rope sets to running up and down the bleachers, the air was fully charged with power.
One special guest flew into Arizona for the shoot, cheering Asia on from the sidelines all day. Asia’s grandma, an inspiration behind all of her entrepreneurial aspirations, acted as a support system and step-in model for some of our shots later in the day.
After our main story at the track, we curated more aspects of the Spikes of Reality story, including career-building, graduating, and recovering. That catchy phrase, “work hard, play hard” rang through my mind all day as we tackled all of the elements of her brand.
We moved through the day letting the story of an aspirational student’s journey through realistic career preparation and interviewing sessions over Zoom calls unfold. Although these day to day moments were important to speak to, the true power of the brand was unleashed not within the confines of an office or a coffee shop, but on the field where the true spirit of Spikes of Reality had been born.
It’s in those moments, where there is no time for self-doubt or hesitations, where the athlete shines. When the finish line is in sight and you’re this close to seeing your hard work and effort come to life, you remember exactly why you’re there and you feel the confidence you need to achieve.
