We recently connected with Adam Smith and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Adam thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I didn’t have a formal education in photography. In fact, when I was in college I studied Spanish and sociology. I’ve always liked the idea of photography and cinema, and found quite the interest in finding ways to capture scenes with a certain look that I have in my mind. I did a lot of hobby shooting, mostly while traveling and learned the ins and outs of how my camera worked and wanted to keep pushing the limits of what I could capture. I upgraded cameras a few times and continued to just grow with the technology I had available to me while trying to branch out and shoot things I was maybe not quite as accustomed to. As my confidence grew with a camera, I began to wonder if I could make some money with it and that was when I decided to put together a photography business and capture people in their moment, rather than just moments. One of the hardest parts initially was getting comfortable posing people. I didn’t have a formal training in that, but I did look at hundreds (probably thousands) of photos and there was a clear look that I liked and one that I didn’t. I felt like a lot of photos looked so unnatural which made me cringe a little bit. I wanted to get people to look great obviously, but do it in a way that they were comfortable. This took a bit of fine tuning, but it’s actually quite rewarding getting people to look great and keeping the cringe levels as low as possible! I’ve had a lot of people tell me how nervous they were coming into the shoot but ended up having a great time, and this always puts a smile on my face.
Editing was another part of the craft which I figured out entirely on my own. This may or may not have been the easiest way, but it allowed me to clearly define my own style which I have absolutely no regrets about. Obviously, there are things in Photoshop that I still have to watch tutorials on from time to time, but most of my editing is exclusively in Lightroom. As far as obstacles go, I would recommend investing in the right tech to make your job as easy as possible. I started out with a fairly basic desktop computer and monitor for my editing. It got the job done, but when I started to get more clients and bigger shoots I made the decision to invest in something much more higher end and even picked up a color calibrated monitor. Day one with the new tech was a massive relief. Everything was quicker and smoother. It was amazing what a high resolution color calibrated monitor can do for pixel peepers like myself! Bottom line, just because you can maybe save a few bucks, doesn’t mean it’s actually worth it.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

So I’ve always leveraged social media to try and gain exposure and illustrate what I do and how I do it. While my business mainly deals with photographing people and weddings, I still do a lot of travel and landscape shooting for my own fun and creative refreshment. I share a lot of those on my website and Insta (well, before they absolutely killed that platform but that’s another story). Anyways, I got an email one day from someone claiming to be from a multi billion dollar cruise company stating that they would like to use one of my photos for the cover of a brochure that they were working on. It was one of those things that had some urgency and they wanted to move quickly, which made me question the legitimacy of the request. I’m very aware of online scams, and have had a few target me in the past, as I’m sure many people reading this have as well. I did some digging though and verified the legitimacy of everything to the best of my ability and decided to move forward with the sale of photo. It all worked out, and it was awesome having one of my photos printed on 25,000 copies of a travel brochure. I guess the moral of this story is to never be afraid to share your work – whatever it is! You never know who is looking…

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

Now that I’ve been doing photography work for 7+ years, I’ve started to build a pretty solid client base. I’ve done a lot of weddings in this time and met some great couples, now many of them are starting to have kids. Since I already have a relationship with them, from spending their wedding day with them and usually engagement photos too, many have been reaching back out to me to do some family photos. It’s been a fun change getting to see my couples again with their new little ones. It also makes me realize how absolutely fast time is going. I even did senior photos for a girl, then a couple years later she reaches out for an engagement shoot and I will be doing her wedding next year, so it’s truly great being trusted to capture these memories during various stages of life for my clients!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.adamsmithphotographywi.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamsmithphotographywi/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/photographybyadamsmith