We recently connected with Adrienne Bednarz and have shared our conversation below.

Adrienne , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My current photography project is called 33 Business Women, with the mission to photograph and interview 33 different women in business in New Jersey, and New York City. It’s supposed to be like a photographic love letter from women today to their younger selves, giving advice on what they wish they knew or how they would do things differently if they were to start the business today, knowing what they know now. At the same time, the body of photographic work is done in a documentary/photojournalistic style that the women can use on social media to grow their social media presence.

The reason that this is meaningful and important to me as the work that I choose to do is because I’ve had conversations with women both in the corporate and entrepreneurship worlds. One thing that they all speak about is how it’s sometimes difficult and lonely to be at the top of that ladder–they’re paving roads in something that maybe has not been done or not done often enough to the point that there is no representation or role models of women that they can look up to, that they can go to for advice and mentorship. The other thing point that always sticks out to me in the conversations I’ve had is how women often undersell their own successes. One of my bosses in the corporate world told me that as women, we often give so much of ourselves to others as mothers, partners, wives, friends, colleagues that we end up never asking ourselves what it is that we want and when we see something that we do want we always think that we don’t have the years of experience that are asked for, or this or that thing that is listed in the necessary qualifications for a role or for running a business. She said to me then that the truth is that we’re more than qualified but we hold ourselves back because we’ve always been told and conditioned to believe that we can’t.

And so I want this project to capture women in different industries who truly own their business (not that they appear to own their business, which is really owned by their husbands as that happens as well in order to get funding) and share their stories so that some day our daughters, nieces, and granddaughters can look up to them, see themselves in these stories and pave their own path as business owners or corporate CEOs and break glass ceilings. Representation of ourselves is so important and helps so much in believing that we too can do it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a portrait and personal branding photographer. I fell in love with photography when I was 8 during a trip with my mom, and often found myself capturing the spirit of the cities and locations I’ve traveled to in order to preserve a moment in time and tell a story of the place. I’d document people I love, and places both loved and new because life is dynamic–things change sometimes very quickly and over time, and what once was may no longer be. While I had my start in the documentary world of travel photography, over time I became drawn to photographing people–women especially–when I noticed how little of ourselves we capture in images to leave behind as part of legacy for our families and loved ones; how often we’d take pictures of ourselves, look at them, and delete them because of whatever reason.

I offer both portrait and branding sessions for clients with the premise of documenting you today as you are, because you are beautiful, gorgeous and worthy of being photographed. My goal is for us to have fun during the session and just enjoy being in the moment, while I capture you–we will laugh, we will cry, and basically we treat it as a girl time event, same as if you would go with your girlfriends to a spa or to coffee. Often times, my clients have said that working with me is like having a photographic therapy session, because they can just be themselves and tell me what’s on their mind without there being any judgement on their action.

I’m proud of moments when I capture the essence of a person in the photo. I had a client in her late 40s or 50s–she was a powerhouse of a business woman and I took her headshots for her. I showed her the image of her that I had just captured where she is so confident and full of feminine power, and she started to tear up. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that this is the first time that she sees an image of herself as a businesswoman where she feels beautiful–she had previously gone to a photographer whose photographs had her crying in the bathroom wondering if she really looked old and wrinkly. With the headshots that I captured, she felt like she was truly seeing herself the way she always sees herself in the mirror. And this moment will never leave me, because I was so shocked and hurt for her when I heard that her self-esteem and confidence suffered at the hands of someone else. It makes me proud when women look at their images and realize that they are worthy and beautiful as they are, no matter what they look like today.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I actually work a corporate job at a financial institution as an Anti-Money Laundering compliance supervisory, and it’s where I got most of my funding for the equipment I use. I started working there in 2015, took a few years to build up rapport with my coworkers and advance my career in the field a bit, all the while using the money to purchase the equipment I wanted. This was especially important after I drowned my camera during a trip to Hawaii in 2018, and it resulted in my jump from DSLRs to mirrorless cameras, and I’ve never looked back since. I still work there as I find that I enjoy the work and it helps balance the slower days/seasons as I’m still building my clientele.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Surprisingly, it’s been pitching.

Hey, I know it sounds crazy, because pitching has been lauded as the most ineffective method in all marketing tools. But I’ve tried social media–Facebook and instagram, though namely instagram is my favorite–and I’ve paid for marketing, but aside from some requests for Time for Prints (“TFP”) that I simply do not do, I haven’t had much success. So when I decided to do my 33 Business Women project, I said F it, I’m going to try pitching to the different businesses.

I did some research on google and on instagram for women-owned businesses that are local to me. Like I would even search some of the markets for brands and businesses, and then research them online via their websites to see who owns it, and if it was a women-owned business, I’d add it to my list of women owned businesses. I prepared the pitch, and over time I’ve ideated it (and continue to do that).

Now I’m pretty certain that every person that gets my email thinks it’s a scam, but I’ve also had so many positive responses from women via email that it’s been amazing and overwhelming. And they love the project concept so much that sometimes they’ll recommend that I reach out to a different person who has an interesting story, or they will introduce me to other women who have really interesting stories, and so that’s how the concept has been getting around.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.adabednarz.com
• Instagram: @adabednarzphoto

Image Credits
Ada Bednarz Photography https://www.instagram.com/adabednarzphoto/