We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Braiden Wade a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Braiden , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

You know when I started this creative business, I was a nervous high school kid feeling pressured into finding something that made me money as an adult. My uncle handed me a camera during a family reunion when I was a freshman in high school. In the picture I saw my grandma smiling with the sun beaming down on her perfectly surrounded by family. That’s when I knew I wanted to do photography as a hobby, but the reality of being an interior designer hit that summer when I job shadowed my uncle’ s friend. He saw I had my camera on me 24/7 the whole time I showed up to his office. We sat down after a meeting he had and looked through the photos I took and was like “Why do you want to do interior design?” I said because my mom wanted me to do something realistic and he said “Being in an office 24/7 sucks, but if I had to choose between taking photos for joy and getting paid I’d take it. I originally took photos because of the joy it brought me and the others I took photos of. That changed into boosting other peoples confidence who weren’t used to being in front of the camera. Then it changed again once I got to college. With each experience I had with photography and being a creative I’ve learned from the people I’ve shot with or been around. Starting as a way of creating joy it turned into a mission of inspiring, expanding, drawing awareness and proving that regardless of looks any one can be in front of a camera. My main mission now is to draw awareness with joy and inspiration being put into the projects I create. Projects such as “In Security” and “Take Me Out First” being the first few projects diving into drawing awareness. My mission summarized is to joyfully create spaces and shoots to draw awareness to different topics while having creative photoshoots alongside these projects.

Braiden , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Braiden Wade, a 20 year-old junior at the University of Missouri-Columbia majoring in photojournalism. Or if you prefer a casual one, I’m Braiden Wade, a photographer currently based out of Columbia/St. Louis, Missouri and other times Chicago, Illinois. I got into the industry due to my uncle giving me my first camera and friends and family supporting me from high school to present day. I do photoshoots of all kinds ranging from headshots to concert to weddings. I’ve also started to sell prints of my work recently as a part of my photography business. Most problems that I have solved has been when clients feel uncomfortable with modeling or being shot. When they book me or I happen to capture a photo of them during an concert/event, I try to respect their wishes whether its to not be posted on my social media, or be photographed at all. On the flip side, during a photoshoot when the client is nervous, I offer them time to calm down, while offering music that they listen to as well as giving the poses or options to become more comfortable while being photographed. If the client doesn’t like their left side, I offer them a test shot during the shoot from both angles. If they like it from the left side we’ll continue, if they don’t, instant delete and continue from the right side. If they like it, I start helping them become more comfortable with it through posing. However, I don’t force these onto every client, if someone immediately says “I don’t want ANY from my left side.” and they’re serious (I always double check) then I respect it and shoot from the angles they want. I try to communicate with my clients throughout the whole shoot while showing them the pictures in between pose switches. I’m most proud of the people I’ve met and how far my business has come. It’s been rough, but I’ve met other entrepreneurs/creatives who give me insights in between shoots. My high school self would’ve thought this stayed as a hobby, but it turned into a full time passion and a part time job. I also want to let everyone know that, everyone can be in front of the camera and look good, it just takes the right photographer.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn doing stuff solo whether it was with my business or creative things. It was more stressful for me because although I learned a lot doing things solo in high school. Coming to college with more resources and a bigger space, I thought I could handle it. I did freshman and some of sophomore year, but my first project “In Security” sophomore spring semester 2023 kind’ve made me realize how invested and inspired others were in the projects I did. My friend always emphasized for me that it was okay for me to ask for help on projects if I wasn’t able to do them alone. Bringing that into this year my second project “Take Me Out First” went way smoother because I asked for help ahead of time and planned with multiple people in on the project. I’m happy to ask for help now when I need it because as a creative you can do everything solo, but thats more pressure on you.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I was never a social media guy back in high school ironically. I had an Instagram but never posted, had a Facebook that I didn’t use, and didn’t have TikTok or twitter downloaded until college. Once I got serious about posting my photos I revamped my old instagram and posted everything junior year of high school. 2020 was covid year for me as a senior in high school and freshman in college, so talking to people would’ve been a struggle if it wasn’t for my brother. He told me the year prior that ” He wished he was more active in college. People just go to class then home. Go for the people, because you’ll never know who you’ll meet.” That combined with quarantine, I was set on meeting as many people as I could and I was a talkative kid so it was easier to meet a lot of people my freshman year. I didn’t really talk about my photography because I knew a lot about it already, I wanted to learn more about something else. If a person was talking about music or some other topic, I was invested because I wanted to know more. Conversation after conversation lead to me knowing more people and my instagram blew up because I gave it to people and they’d be like “You’re a photography!” I’d be shy about it like, yeah I am. To me what they did was cool, but if photography came up I’d tell them everything I knew about it like it was script. I had a script for awhile because I didn’t talk about it, people just knew about it. So I started doing more meaningful projects for me so it got easier to talk about it. Another thing I did was going into conversation less on promoting myself, but I just liked talking to people and it lead into exchanging instagrams or something and then other people would know about me. A lot of my following came from word of mouth or reposting. Back then I didn’t really mention my photography first because I felt like it was promotion and it wasn’t a genuine conversation, it was me promoting my business. Which is okay, but it wasn’t something I was trying to do back then because I still wanted to MEET these people. In a way the word of mouth and creating projects to talk about helped. I’m also involved on campus so it helped with promotion. Building social media presence, start talking with people first, have those genuine conversations and meet people. We’re not robots and you’re not a walking advertisement, so just talk with people. For me if a conversation turned to photography, I’d speak on it, but if we were talking about cooking(another passion of mine), then its not really a good Segway to promote my photo business. Look for good Segways when talking to people, so its not rude when you promote your business, its just a normal conversation about your socials now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://braidenwade.myportfolio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/braidenwade/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/braiden-wade-481044208/
• Twitter: ByTheWadePhotos

Image Credits
Braiden Wade for all SoundsBySa in the second image for the event curators.