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

Zach, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risk taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

I’ve always liked photography, ever since high school really. (2004) I did it for a hobby for a long time until 2018. That’s when I decided to start taking it a little more seriously. Slowly started doing shoots for friends and family and kept growing. Then Covid happens…

During this time I still had a 9-5 job so when the stay at home orders happened I was out of work for a while. I took this time to document everything around me. Parks closed. Business closed. Streets empty. The George Floyd protests. Everything! I posted them to my photography page on Facebook and they really started to gain some traction.

The Illinois State Museum contacted me and gave me my own exhibit from the pictures I had been taking. From then I kept growing and I got to the point where I made the decision to make my passion my full time job. Quitting my job was one of the most nerve racking things I have ever done. The risk of not relying on going to work and clocking in made me extremely nervous. Having bills and daughters to take care of and not knowing when the next shoot was going to be booked really got to me.

Trusting the process and working hard has helped me see that this was the best risk I’ve ever taken. The freedom I have is unmeasurable. How happy I am as a person is also unmeasurable!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Zach!

I am a photographer based out of Illinois. Springfield to be exact. I am a father of 2 beautiful daughters! I got in to photography at a young age. I was alway the one that had a Kodak disposable camera in school in everyone’s face. My love of photography grew more the older I got. Years later I got my first actual camera and that changed everything. It woke up a passion in me that I didn’t know was that strong.

It took years of trial and error to actually figure out what I was doing with my camera. Once I did, it all clicked! I dedicated myself to not just taking pictures but to capture a memory. I knew I wanted to make people feel something from the pictures I took. That’s when I noticed that I was trying to make my work look like other photographers work that looked up to.

The moment I started doing photography MY way, I seen a difference in how my work looks and the attention it got as well. I found out I really like talking pictures and showing that person a side of them they’ve never seen before. I like empowering women with my photography. I like showing families the forever memory I just got for them or a little kid in their favorite super hero costume. I like connecting with people. I feel like I do that the best while having them in front of camera.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Being seen helped a lot. I’m at farmers markets, local events, grand openings, really anything dealing with community. I wear and sell my brand. It’s on shirts, hoodies, hats, my car, stickers everywhere. I promote being kind is cool. Positivity and being kind goes a long way.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to learn that comparing myself to others wasn’t doing me any good. It was actually hurting me. I can’t put an exact timeline together of when I was dealing with this but it was pretty early on. I completely compared all my success to other other photographers successes and if they were good enough.

I had to learn the difference between complaining and being inspired by others. I had to learn that it’s ok if other photographers are doing well, and that didn’t mean I wasn’t. Everyone is not my competition and that if I focus on me being my only competition I can then see that I can be inspired by other photographers and clap for them and be happy when they win.

Everybody can eat can from this metaphorical photography table. Even if some have more food on their plate doesn’t mean you can’t pull up a chair to the table.

That way of thinking clears my mind and allows me to interact with another photographer that may look up to me and might be going through the same thing I did. If I can show them that then it may help them too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://1221photography1.wixsite.com/1221
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1221_photography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/z1221Photography
• Other: https://1221photography.client-gallery.com/gallery/prints-for-sale?fbclid=IwAR3rIFR5YfTLkVKHzheOHDmBekeeJjNNMHxhSW5z6P5ERd4UYReRh1UH03g