Roaming Vanlifer, Rambunctious People Person, Enthusiastic Photographer
Hi, I’m Adam!
I chose a lifestyle that fits me; free, explorative, creative, interactive, hospitable, philosophical, and somewhat unpractical. I went from being a fine art charcoal artist who loved the craft but hated the isolation, to a road living photographer that looks at walls as something to get over rather than an important part of my shelter.
“We all hug our children the same way. If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it a million times.”
This is to say when we shrink our circles down to the smallest groups, our families, ourselves, you and me; we find so much more understanding in each other. There’s more we can relate to than we cannot. It’s when our circles grow larger and larger we forget that about ourselves. The world has so much to offer at us that allows us to categorize and classify each other into titles, granting us the simplest freedom to judge someone we never met on something that almost always has nothing to do with family. So…
“Don’t judge anyone before you eat dinner with them.”
This is my practical philosophy. When we sit down to eat with each other, we start by sharing our culture through food. We share our love through hospitality. If for no other reason other than the sake of having a pleasant meal we offer each other our attention and resolve to find a common understanding. Most importantly there is no open invitation to the entire globe to leave their two cents about what we are discussing. This is how I remind myself everyday what the proper thinking and approach to life is.
So if you really want the clearest mission of my photography, it’s to eat dinner with you. To know who you are truly. I want to photograph what you love most and give that to you in a way that evokes your deepest emotions. I want you to hang that on your wall for you to revisit every day you have a moments break. It’s why I took the print studio with me on the road.
My Brief Story
The first time I ever truly realized I had creative talent was in my sophomore year of high school in New Rochelle, New York. We had a project where we had to select a black and white photo from a magazine that we were gonna draw using a grid method. We drew a perfect one inch grid on the photo and then redrew the same grid on a blank piece of drawing paper. Using graphite drawing pencils we had to redraw the photo by hand, with the grid helping us track the angles and proportions. I blazed through drawing this woman’s face but I couldn’t figure out the thick knitted sweater. I quit on the sweater more because we were out of time than anything, but my art teacher still gave me an A+. Looking around at the other students’ work it was pretty obvious mine was more accurate, not to toot my own horn or anything. Skipping out a lot of the details I spent a large part of the next 10 years of my life going after charcoal art, first recreationally and then eventually I tried to make a living with it. Here are some of my favorite pieces.
Becoming a Photographer
The first time I bought a camera was some time around 2010 shortly after I completed a large drawing that was my first surrealism. I took photos of my roommate with my cellphone, trying to capture details that I could put together in a rough draft drawing to create what would be him as a centaur on his hind legs, holding up a small globe in one hand a sword in the other, all in front of an epic sky of clouds with the sun shinning through. It was 5 feet tall by 4 feet wide and it took me about 65 hours to finish. It was incredible. The rough draft took me about 4 to 5 hours alone. So my brilliant self thought it would be worth the investment to buy a camera and take random photos of things that I could compile into Photoshop and create a more realistic rough draft to then draw. Of course compositing is it’s own mastery in the never ending world of Adobe Photoshop, and even as a near masterful retoucher with many years on the program I still lack the skills to composite images together in such a manner. I decided to stick to just redrawing actual photos.
But here I was with this Nikon d5300, a new laptop with Lightroom and Photoshop, and a brother who was quite the enthusiastic photographer (professionally he’s an architect) to kinda help me out. I started taking pictures of friends and family any chance I could. I was driven to improve by all these incredible images I saw online from photographers that were far and away more accomplished than little old me. It was never really a thought in my mind at the time to go pro. I was just really interested in it all. I was still trying to go pro (whatever that means) as an artist. I decided to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator and develop my own logo for my art brand, Adam Mark Arts (don’t look it up). I really enjoyed making logos all of a sudden and decided I could make some money building brands for others. I reconnected with a friend I used to work with who was looking for a logo for his coffee brand. We connected and after connecting with his crew I found myself moving to Brooklyn in order to get closer to the creative world. My main goal was to get a creative studio I would primarily use for drawing. That’s when everything changed.
Going “Pro”
The hunt for a drawing studio was a slap in the face. The reality was I didn’t really have a budget for it. And honestly, I was falling out of love with it because the social aspects of photography were just so much more rewarding than drawing in a room by myself. I found myself with an opportunity to really get into the thick of it with high school sports and started shooting wherever and whenever I could. I bought a Nikon d500, a great camera, as an upgrade to better handle the demands of sports photography. I fell into a trap a lot of photographers do early on. I thought since I was invested I deserved the financial returns that I was seeking. I mean I wasn’t looking for big money, but I wasn’t focused on earning it. In photography earning it means you’re willing to learn on no one else’s dollar but your own. You have to be dedicated to refining your skills, and then once you’ve gotten good enough with that you have to refine your client’s experience, and learn what it really means to be your own boss.
That’s when my friend gave me some of the best advice I ever received, “You need to start a project where your focus is growing an audience instead of growing a profit.” And that’s what I did.
Faces of Mets Fans
In 2018 I decided to launch a project that would combine all of my passions and interests. I loved photography. I was an avid Mets fan. I worked for decades serving tables and I loved hospitality and the conversation with people I just met. I was a huge fan and follower of Humans of New York. So at the start of the baseball season I launched Faces of Mets Fans. My mission was, and still is, to connect Mets fans through their photos and stories. I randomly approach Mets fans at Citi Field, our home, and I pitch the mission and ask them to share a personal story of theirs pertaining to the Mets. After recording their story, getting their Instagram handles, and taking their portrait and group photo I hit the next group to get some more. I would edit at home, transcribe the interview into a caption for the post, tag everyone I could and the community grew. Mets fans fell in love with the concept from day one.
I grew as a photographer, learning how to take and edit a proper photo. I found myself enjoying taking portraits and my drive to learn all types of photography really took off. On the side I would read up on how to use an on camera flash appropriately, which lead to my curiosity with creative off camera lighting setups. Mets fans were tipping me in the parking lot for the experience, and I learned the value of the experiential side of being photographed, not just getting your photos at the end. In 2019 I learned how to edit a photo on the phone from another Mets fan photographer who goes by Geeque and I got a little mobile printer, a Canon SELPHY CP-1300, to hand out a free print right on the spot after getting their story and photo. I was earning tips rightfully and people were asking about buying more prints.
Weddings & Proposals
On the very first day of Faces of Mets Fans I connected with, believe it or not, a Philadelphia Phillies fan who was there with a friend. Bryan Sargent was and is a talented wedding photographer who had his film camera with him, and he took a photo of me I still cherish to this day. This was the first time I really realized the networking value of just saying hello to strangers and giving out free photos. As my skills were developing in 2019, I bought my third camera, a Nikon Z6, one of the first Nikon mirrorless cameras on the market. I had invested in on-camera flashes and was ready to start my career as a wedding photographer. I begged Bryan to let me shoot alongside him for free, and some of his lovely clients gave him the go ahead to allow me to do so. I shot 3 weddings with him and I remember the emotion that came over me watching two people I never met before express their love for each other in the most sacred of bonds. I knew I was dedicated to succeeding as a wedding photographer. In October of that year Bryan sent me a proposal client that he couldn’t shoot himself because he was already booked.
I went all out for this proposal. I had a lot of confidence to capture this very important day and when it was all said and done it just reaffirmed my love for photographing people in love. Some of my friends sent me some clients, and those clients sent me their friends so I could shoot their proposal as well. I bought a DJI Osmo action camera that I had strapped to my backpack on my chest to record these shoots from my perspective. The first one I did this for was Patrick & Melissa, captured in the rain at the elementary school they went to together. I had connected with another fantastic wedding photographer, Joe Curry, at a coffee event thrown by my friend, Javier, for his company, Espresso State of Mind. Joe sent me some leads and the first of which was a proposal shoot in Central Park. I took some time to put together somewhat theatric 10 minute documentaries of these proposals. It was simple really. I just placed the unedited frame over the video every time you heard the camera shutter go off so that viewers could see exactly what I was seeing as I was shooting. I put some music to it all, played around with some effects, and showed some friends the final edits. They loved it, and one of them said, “Look at you! You’re like the proposal guy.” And so I started my YouTube channel and took on the moniker, The Proposal Guy.
I started reaching out to as many wedding photographers as I could during 2019 through 2021. What I came to realize was the cutthroat nature of honestly most wedding photographers I had met. I got a seriously sour taste in my mouth about further pursuing weddings and decided to skip them entirely and focus mainly on proposals while filling the rest of my schedule with other types of shoots, including events and family sessions. I still photograph weddings, having booked my client in North Carolina in 2023, and I love shooting them. But if it’s up to me, and it is, proposals will always be the focal point of my client serving photography.
Discovering Print
In 2020, during the lockdown, I was still posting Met fans’ stories from the year before and subjects of mine were reaching out about getting some of the photos I took printed out larger. With a lot of time on my hands I studied how to run a proper photo printer. I learned about color theory, color profiles, and the costliness of being inaccurate when trying to translate the color from a light emitting monitor to ink and paper. I bought my first fine art printer, a Canon ImagePROGRAF-1000, the smallest format of Canon’s highest quality printer. I bought a monitor with enough colors for printing. I bought color calibrating software and hardware, and after a few test runs I was ready to deliver.
The problem was I couldn’t close a deal. There was just too much friction. All of the software on the market wasn’t helping me seal the deal. I learned the value of a proper portfolio and ecommerce pretty quick. Throughout 2021 and 2022 I was still getting requests for prints and still couldn’t close a single deal. So, towards the end of the 2022 baseball season I decided to pack my printer into U-Haul and bring my print studio to the parking lot at Citi Field. The first day I had technical failures but I still sold a $100 twenty inch print. I shipped it out a few days later. I knew I couldn’t spend another $106 on a U-Haul so with my mom’s advice I ripped the back seats out of my Hyundai Elantra GT, a hatchback. I shoved everything in and went back the next day and sold another large print. After a couple of more successful trips to Citi Field I decided to tryout a proper tailgate. So week 2 of the 2022-23 football season is when Tailgate Studio Express was born.
Tailgate Studio Express
I made good money in that MetLife parking lot that first game. It wasn’t crazy money but it changed my perspective. I decided to hit the Jets game, then the University of Rutgers tailgate in central New Jersey. I was selling 4x6” prints for $10 out of my mobile printer and telling fans if they were interested in a larger print that I would meet them after the game to deliver it. I ripped the passenger side front seat out and built a narrow bedframe from front to back, put some memory foam on their, and went west to hit Ohio State University, Cincinnati Bengals, and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I just slept at interstate rest stops on the way and it wasn’t bad. I was having a ton of fun at the tailgates making good money, no bosses, getting fed and handed beers. I wanted to live the van life for a while and just had no clue how to make money as a client serving photographer on the road.
Tailgate Studio Express made me realize I could do it. Plus I could not pay rent, live a lower cost lifestyle, not deal with the conflicts of working in a restaurant while trying to book clients, or deal with the inconsistencies and struggles to get shifts. So I quit my job and mapped out a month long trip that took me back to the Rust Belt, then southeast from there to the Carolinas, and on to Atlanta and New Orleans after that. I tasted home made gumbo and boudin in Lafayette, Louisiana, before experiencing The Grove at Ol’ Miss and seeing Nashville for the first time. I frost my but off in Green Bay, and met some Detroit Lions fans in Michigan. I blew out my alternator on the way to the Cincinnati Bearcats on Thanksgiving night and was saved by hte good graces of some Ohio natives in a small town I couldn’t tell you the name of. I saw there for University of Michigan at Ohio State before I headed back home to take care of a lease I was closing up.
That was the most life changing month of my life. I was done with walls that didn’t live on wheels. My uncle was impressed with my dedication and being an outdoorsy adventurer himself he handed my a nice check from an inheritance that he wasn’t doing much with. I took that money and bought my first van, an exceptionally small Dodge Ram Promaster City. It was a convoluted process to move. I had a lot of stuff to get rid of, a landlord who just stole my security deposit, an address change for my business that was located at my parent’s house and they were moving as well. It was nuts. Now I can technically call myself a resident of Black Mountain, North Carolina at my cousin’s place even though I live on the road. My whole perspective on the world, my life, and my future changed, especially after year of hitting tailgates in 2023.
There’s a lot I don’t know, and uncertainties in my life prior would tear me apart. The stress would be too much to bare, but on the road, not trapped by a lease payment I can’t afford, these uncertainties are just accepted challenges. I’m now in the process of developing a new software application that will stream line the process of delivering these digital images to these random people I photograph, and open up new markets for me.
I’m excited for all of this, and the best part about it is I really am eating dinner with so many people, and that is the greatest perspective I have gained.
Thank you for reading my story. Cheers!