Daily Inspiration: Meet Eric Dearborn

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Dearborn.

Hi Eric, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born and raised in L.A. At a young age I was repped by Ford Models and Innovative Artists. In hindsight I realize that I was extremely fortunate. I was in ads for Tommy Hillfiger, Abercrombie and Fitch, Axe deodorant, Pac Sun and many more. I then got to a point where I entered an acting class and roughly a year later I became a cast member on All My Children. I was living a near perfect life. By 30 I had my dream car, was making great money, was flying all over the U.S. for work and was married. Unfortunately I went through a divorce about a year later and my life was quickly thrown into a tailspin. I was in a dark place and no amount of money was gonna save me. At this point I went back to the drawing board and tried to figure out how to bring joy back in to my life and I realized I wanted to spend more time behind a camera. I enrolled into Santa Monica College’s photo department and after the 3rd semester I had gotten photos into the baseball hall of fame’s photo archives and started booking work so I left decided to leave school and later I wound up leaving the modeling and acting world once they were conflicting with my photography schedule.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The first few years were difficult finding work. Luckily all I wanted to do was photograph so I embraced the struggle and hustled harder.

Once I was traveling to a family shoot but first I had to go to a commercial casting. While in the commercial casting I had my dream car stolen with all of my camera gear in it. Once a few of my clients found out they chipped in and purchased all of my camera gear back because they believed in me. That was never something I considered an option so to know that others wanted to help me out meant the world to me.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I would say that I am mainly known for my sports photography. I started out wanting to only shoot baseball so I never imagined that I would be shooting so many different things. The last 3 jobs I shot in 2025 were family photos and corporate headshots. The first job of 2026 was more headshots. This morning I had a zoom call regarding an alumni event for Harvard Westlake and later today I will have a call with Angel City Sports (this is NOT my average day but it just so happens to be the perfect day to give an interview lol) I never imagined that this was possible but I always kept myself open to photographing anything so I’m not shocked that things have lead to where they are.

I will love the day that I can say I am known more for my portraiture than my sports.

I think the thing that sets me apart from others is my decades of being on sets. Each one of those jobs was a class in lighting and professionalism and I didn’t even realize it. I think that now that I am the one behind the camera I am able to help people feel more at ease since I’ve been in their shoes.

What are your plans for the future?
I’m not 100% sure what my plans are for the future and that is a great thing! I’m currently trying to figure out how to take my business to the next level. Maybe it is better marketing, maybe less sports, maybe work on my lighting more. I have no idea but I do know it is part of the journey so I will embrace the bad as much as the good.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.ericdearborn.com/
• Instagram: @27up27down

Image Credits
I took all the photographs