Pittsburgh Headshot Photographer
Chad Isaiah is the funnest photographer in town!
“OMG I’ve been a photographer for years and I love taking photos”
– every photographer bio.
I want my work to be meaningful, purposeful and help others succeed. God gave me a special talent and I want to share it with everyone I can.
My story starts in Cleveland, then South Wales, then back to 5 different cities in Ohio before ending up in Pittsburgh in 2018. There’s a creative gene that runs in our family with my grandfather being an avid hobbyist photographer and uncle being an accordionist. So of course I followed suit and played piano for many years throughout high school.
I started thinking about photography rather than pictures in college where I used to putter around the darkroom listening to Godspeed! You Black Emperor. I was one class short of a minor due to a scheduling conflict. But photography always remained a side hobby for me until I came to Pittsburgh. As an event photographer for my local church, I realized the impact of capturing one single moment in time from one single angle and perspective out of an infinite number of possibilities.
In November 2022, after years of searching, I was finally offered the blue pill I always coveted. My career was about to take off. But in the background, I had been refining my photography skills – I couldn’t see what was in my future, but my friends did. So I took the red pill and started building a headshot photography business.
Transitioning from mostly an event photographer into Pittsburgh’s top headshot photographer wasn’t easy. I found a mentor in New York who yells Shabang! all the time and worked with him weekly.
In January 2024 I became one of Peter Hurley’s Headshot Crew Associate Photographers – one of only 150 Associates worldwide, and the only one in Pittsburgh. We don’t really have formal degrees in photography, but the Associate level is the highest certification one can receive as a headshot photographer!
I absolutely love my calling as a headshot photographer and am so thankful that I get to do this for a living.