Who is SHOT BY TROPHY? (The full story)

Who is “Shot By Trophy”?

Behind every camera is a story. Before I was the one creating visuals, I was the one living them.

My name is Trophy Tee, founder of Shot By Trophy, but my journey into filmmaking didn’t begin with a camera—it began on a skateboard in New York.

At 16 years old, skateboarding completely changed my life. Within my first year of skating, I was traveling across the country, competing, filming, and experiencing opportunities I never imagined. I earned sponsorships from DC Shoes along with several skateboard companies and local skate shops, and for the first time I understood what it was like to live in front of a camera.

Those years introduced me to photography, filmmaking, branding, and storytelling long before I ever considered becoming a filmmaker myself.

But none of that would’ve happened without my best friend, Wade Yates.

Wade is the reason I became the person behind the camera.

He had a vision of creating skate films, but we didn’t have anyone to film us. So instead of waiting for someone else, we picked up the camera ourselves. While Wade attended school for filmmaking, he brought home everything he was learning and taught me firsthand. Every lesson, every camera setting, every filming technique, every conversation became the foundation that would shape my career.

From there, I became obsessed.

I continued teaching myself, studying the craft, experimenting, making mistakes, improving, and falling in love with visual storytelling. What started as filming skate sessions slowly became music videos, brand content, events, portraits, and commercial work.

Wade also unknowingly gave me something even bigger than filmmaking—my identity.

He founded a skateboard team centered around Trophy GripTape and challenged everyone on the team to change their Instagram names to “Trophy” followed by their nickname. Mine became Trophy Tee.

The name stuck.

Friends, skaters, and eventually everyone around me stopped calling me anything else. What started as a skate crew nickname eventually became my personal brand, my creative identity, and the name people know today.

Then Came My First Business

In 2017, what started as an ordinary summer day ended up changing the direction of my life as an entrepreneur.

My best friend, Wade Yates, and I were on our way to go skate and shoot photos and videos for a promotional project we were working on. While we were riding the train, I noticed a woman wearing an incredible pair of vintage-style sunglasses. They had this old-school 70s hippie vibe that immediately caught my attention. I complimented her on them, and she smiled and thanked me.

A few moments later, she got off the train. As the doors were closing, I looked over and realized she had accidentally left her sunglasses on the seat. I immediately grabbed them and tried to run them back to her, but by the time I reached the doors, they had already closed, and she had disappeared into the station. Since I couldn’t find her, I simply wiped the sunglasses off and kept them.

I had no idea that those sunglasses would become the beginning of my first business.

Everywhere I wore them, people constantly asked me where I got them. They drew attention everywhere I went. One day while skating, I put them in my back pocket, sat down without thinking, and completely crushed them.

I was sick about it.

I searched everywhere trying to replace that exact pair, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. During my search, though, I started discovering all kinds of unique colored sunglasses and different styles. Eventually, I found a wholesale store that actually had the pair I had been looking for, along with every color imaginable.

I was excited… until they told me they wouldn’t sell me just one pair.

The only way I could buy them was to purchase the entire wholesale box.

So that’s exactly what I did.

I bought the whole box and took them straight to the skate park. I was excited to show everybody what I had found, and everyone thought they were dope. Before long, people started asking if they could buy a pair. I sold a few without really thinking much of it.

Eventually I ran low on colors… then I ran low on sunglasses altogether.

So I went back and bought another box.

Then another.

And another.

That’s when Wade, who had already started building his own brand, looked at me and said, “Why don’t you turn this into something? This is actually really cool.”

That conversation changed everything.

We sat down together and started brainstorming what this could become. Wade came up with the name HiLyfe Shades, and I immediately knew it was the one. From there, I made everything official. I registered the business, obtained my EIN, handled all the paperwork, and officially launched my first company.

From 2017 through 2020, I continued building HiLyfe Shades while also growing as a filmmaker and photographer.

Building HiLyfe taught me how to wear every hat imaginable. I created my own product photography, filmed my own promotional videos, designed my own marketing content, built my own branding, and learned how to market products, connect with customers, and grow a business from the ground up.

Owning my own brand taught me far more than how to create beautiful visuals—it taught me how businesses actually operate.

That experience gave me a completely different perspective as a creative. I wasn’t just learning how to use a camera—I was learning how visual content influences branding, marketing, customer trust, and sales. Those lessons still shape the way I approach every project today.

In 2020, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life and moved from New York to Atlanta, Georgia.

Leaving behind my network meant starting over from scratch. No established client list. No local connections. No shortcuts.

Just my camera, my creativity, and a belief that consistency would open doors.

As I continued building my creative career in Atlanta, HiLyfe Shades naturally evolved into HiLyfe 365—expanding beyond sunglasses into smoking accessories, rolling trays, apparel, footwear, and other lifestyle products. Continuing to build my own brand alongside Shot By Trophy gave me firsthand experience balancing creativity with entrepreneurship. Every product photo, promotional video, marketing campaign, and branding decision became another opportunity to sharpen my skills as both a business owner and a visual storyteller.

Atlanta challenged me to grow—not just as a filmmaker, but as an entrepreneur. It pushed me to refine my style, build genuine relationships, and create work that helps businesses, artists, and creators tell stories that connect with people.

Today, Shot By Trophy is more than a production company.

It’s the result of years of dedication, friendships, lessons learned, and countless hours behind the lens. Every project I take on is approached with the same mindset that started during those skate sessions years ago: create something real, create something cinematic, and create something people will remember.

To me, every client has a story worth telling.

My job isn’t just to record moments.

It’s to turn your vision into something that lasts.