About
A marketing brain that happens to own a lot of cameras.
Most commercial photographers learned photography and then tried to learn business. This one went the other way around.
The Short Version
It started with the ads, not the camera.
Gabe read magazines for the advertisements. Watched commercials on purpose. Collected advertising award annuals the way other kids collected baseball cards. The obsession with why a thing sells came a long time before any interest in how to expose for it.
That turned into almost seven years in house as the only graphic designer on a corporate marketing team, which in practice means running campaigns, social, brand collateral, and working alongside PR. When you’re the only designer, you don’t get to specialize. You learn the whole machine.
The cameras came later. They’re the tool, not the point.
Today Gabe Rene LLC runs five divisions out of Kerrville, Texas. GR Studio & Co. is the commercial one, and it’s deliberately built to sit closer to an ad agency than a photography business.
Which is a long way of saying: we’re not going to hand you pretty pictures and call it marketing.
We're professional, but we cuss a little.
Credentials
The part that matters to you.
Not awards for their own sake. The specific things that suggest we can do the job you're considering hiring us for.
- 01
Published in Texas Monthly
An ad campaign for Altstadt Brewery that ran in Texas Monthly. The design and the photography were both ours. That combination is the whole argument for this studio: one place that can concept it, shoot it, and lay it out.
- 02
Global award winning photography
The wedding division has been recognized internationally. Different market, same eye, same standards, same crew.
- 03
Seven years corporate, in house
Marketing, advertising, and design as the only designer on the team. Campaigns, social, collateral, and PR coordination. That's where the strategy half of this business comes from.
- 04
Multi state client base
Branding and freelance work across Texas and beyond, including clients well outside the Hill Country. We are used to working remote when the job calls for it.
- 05
$123,000 in owned gear
Cinema and stills bodies, Profoto and Aputure lighting, professional audio, gimbal and rig, and a Part 107 drone. Owned, not rented onto your invoice.
- 06
Insured and contracted
Real agreements, real releases, real licensing. If your legal or procurement team needs paperwork, they'll get paperwork.
We're not in the photography business. We're in the business of marketing and selling. Photography is just how we do it. Gabe Rene, Gabe Rene LLC
The Crew
Small on purpose. Scaled when it counts.
Day to day this is a tight studio, which is why you talk to the person who is actually going to shoot your project instead of an account manager relaying messages.
When a job needs more, we scale up with people we have worked with for years: second shooters, dedicated video crew, senior editors, a Part 107 drone pilot, and design partners. Crews up to seven when the production calls for it.
What we don’t do is quietly farm your project out to a stranger and mark it up. If somebody else is touching your work, you’ll know who and why before they show up.
The Other Divisions
One studio, five doors.
GR Studio & Co. is the commercial arm. If you landed here looking for something else, here's the map.
01
GR Weddings
Editorial, cinematic wedding photography and film across the Hill Country and San Antonio.
grweddings.com02
TX Brand Audit
The research and diagnosis practice. Six engines, competitive analysis, and a written plan.
txbrandaudit.com03
Gabe Rene LLC
The parent studio, plus portraits, boudoir, and Trendy Booth photo booth experiences.
gaberene.comWhere We Are
Kerrville, Texas.
Hill Country based, working Kerrville, Fredericksburg, Boerne, Comfort, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston regularly. We travel for the right project.