Tribal Member Discusses Media Career One Click at a Time
Comanche Nation Tribal Member Dakota Wahkinney is a videographer and photographer for the Comanche Nation, El Reno Basketball, Nike Elite Youth Basketball League and Personal Content Creator for Lougentz Dort with OKC Thunder.
Wahkinney has worked with the Comanche Nation Police Department but focuses primarily on YK Media Camps.
“Where basically I go three to five days with our youth, and we just learn like the basics of videography, photography, editing, and kind of come on up with like a story base that's been like my biggest project, and I probably do it around the United States, and I've traveled probably to like 20 plus tribes to do this now,” he said. “Basically, just coming together, creating a narrative to let the youth know…let the world know what we're doing in our own communities and how we're striving to be better and just basically trying to influence the youth to get into media.”
As for projects outside of the Comanche Nation, Wahkinney is working for El Reno Women’s Basketball.
“I've been filming for about four years for those guys and just basically being their content creator for all of their social media pages, making highlights, photos, just different things like that and also working with the NBA, I gotta add that,” he said. “At the NBA, I work with Lou Dort; he's a starting five from the Thunder, so doing all his content creating and all his behind-the-scenes of his season, so it's been pretty awesome.”
Wahkinney said he’s enjoyed filming.
“Filming has been like amazing because something that I take value in is, you know, when people go through stuff, it's like the memories, but me being able to make the memories and film them has been like the best part I think to me because capturing moments that will last forever now,” he said. “And now that it's all digital so you'll always have it forever, you won't lose it on a VHS tape or something.”
The best part of photography for Wahkinney is capturing moments.
“A dunk, like the best part of the dunk, capturing that moment, you know, for the youth or the NBA player or whoever I'm working with or just capturing like happy moments, you know,” he said. “I do like birthday parties for like my family, you know now I'm the camera guy now, so anytime I go to any family event, they expect to have the camcorder rolling or the camera just taking shots so just capturing people's best moments, and they can live with that forever, and it's been very entertaining and very special to me.”
Wahkinney said there’s been a lot of personal growth as well compared to last year’s progress and the year before.
“To where I'm at now, it's almost like self-journaling, you know, you journal to yourself, and, for me, the filming thing has been like amazing,” he said.
Wahkinney said he focuses on mental health, especially because he travels a lot, and also for the youth and those in the native community.
