About
I'm Corey. I run Cook Media.
Small studio out of Erie, Pennsylvania. Photo, video, livestream, and live sound for the people getting married, the bands going on stage, and the organizations that need their day captured well.
Operating principles
- Personal service, documented process.
- Backups for gear, files, dates, and client communication.
- Every job should have a quote, contract, payment trail, project folder, and delivery record.
The story
I started Cook Media because the way most people experience getting their wedding photographed felt off to me. You spend a year planning the most personal day of your life, you hire someone you barely know, and on the day you're too busy to even notice them. Six weeks later you get a link and that's the relationship.
I wanted to do it differently. When you book me, I'm the one you meet. I'm the one carrying the camera that day. I'm the one editing every frame. There's no second-photographer handoff, no studio assistant doing the actual work while a name on the website takes the credit.
Before I shot weddings I spent years running live sound for bands in Erie — late nights, loud rooms, learning how to read what's actually happening in front of you. That training shows up in the photos. The shot you remember from your wedding isn't the posed group portrait. It's the second your dad realized you were really getting married, the look between you and your partner during the toast, the room when the band played the first dance. I notice those.
Cook Media is small on purpose. I take a limited number of weddings a year so I can give every one of them the attention they deserve. If you're shopping around, I'd rather you find the photographer that fits than book me because I'm available. The work has to be right.
Approach
How I work, in four lines.
I show up early.
Half my job is reading the room before the day starts. I want to know the venue, the timeline, who's a closer-friend-than-family, what you're actually trying to remember. The pre-event questionnaire is short but specific.
I shoot what's actually happening.
Posed portraits have their place — and we'll do them — but the work that holds up is the candid stuff. The hand on the back. The laugh you didn't know you made. The exact second your grandfather cried. Those are the photos.
I edit every frame myself.
No outsourcing, no AI batch-processing, no studio assistant. The look of your gallery is the look of every gallery I've ever delivered. If you've seen my work and liked it, that's what you get.
I deliver in 30 days.
30 days for the gallery, 30 days for the highlight video. Not 12 weeks. The contract guarantees it. I'd rather under-promise on dates I can't control and over-deliver on the one I can.
What I bring
The equipment side, briefly.
Two professional cameras, all weather-sealed. Backup of every lens I use that day. Backup memory cards in dual slots — every frame is written to two cards as it's captured, so a single card failure can't lose your wedding. Off-camera lighting for receptions, fast lenses for low-light ceremony work.
For video: dedicated cinema body, gimbal stabilization, a drone (when included and conditions allow). For livestream: encoder, multiple-camera switching, dedicated audio chain — no laptop-on-a-tripod setups.
All of this is in the agreement under Section 10 (Professional Standards and Backup Procedures). The short version: redundancy is the answer to most things that go wrong.
Start with the assistant. Finish with a real project record.
Tell it your date, your venue, and what you're picturing. It captures the details Corey needs, checks the basics, and starts the workflow that becomes your quote, contract, invoice, and delivery hub.