Today we’d like to introduce you to Don Adams Jr.
Hi Don, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, you could tell our readers some of your backstory.
I got interested in photography as a kid, taking pictures with my dad’s 35 mm camera on family trips. While in college, I made a spring break road trip to California and shot everything I saw. When I returned from that trip, I realized I wanted to be a photographer. Fortunately I found a summer job shooting sports and feature assignments for a local newspaper. That job turned into a full-time position but added advertising to my duties. Eventually, I became the advertising director, but my passion was photography, so nights and weekends, I shot weddings, real estate, and sports, including team photos. I quit my advertising job and began freelancing for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, covering high school, small college, minor league sports, and feature assignments. That led to becoming the house photographer for the new 10,000-seat Family Arena, shooting concerts, hockey, football, soccer, and motorcycle racing, and becoming the team photographer for most of the clubs that played there. All that experience paid off when Lindenwood University—an athletics powerhouse with a fantastic campus—hired me to provide all their marketing and sports photography for billboards, websites, locker room walls, and hallways throughout the university.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, has it been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The hardest part of freelancing has been the long hours and late nights. Shooting games and art for feature stories is the fun part. Editing all the images is the hard part. It takes time to crop, sharpen and enhance the images before submitting them to a publication, webmaster, or agency. It’s not so bad when shooting for a daily newspaper requiring only one or two of your best images. But, when you have to deliver an extensive gallery of finished images, it can take hours of staring at a computer screen long after midnight. And daily newspaper deadlines can eat you alive. You want to avoid bothering a photographer or reporter on deadline! My kids found that out the hard way many times.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I consider myself a historian. Like most photographers, that’s because I’m documenting history, whether photographing sporting events, music concerts, or general news and features about interesting people or special events. My niche has been St. Louis/St. Charles (MO) area history, not world history. Since I started freelancing full-time in 1997, about 70 percent of my work has been sports related, so I’m best known as a sports photographer. I’ve captured some of the finest high school and college athletes in the area, including many who moved on to the MLB, NHL, NFL, MLS, NBA, and USA National Teams. The other 30 percent of my work has been some of everything else. That’s because I accepted almost every assignment that came my way while shooting for daily newspaper editors early in my career. Every assignment I completed increased my confidence and made me a better photographer. A client once said I see things and capture images others don’t see. That’s why I do what I do.
Before we go, can you talk to us about how people can work, collaborate, or support you?
When working for Lindenwood University, I readily advise student photographers on the sidelines to help them take better pictures, even if they’re too shy to ask for advice. Occasionally hobbyists will ask if they can shadow me. If the assignment allows it, I am okay if they watch me work. But it’s difficult for me to “teach” and answer questions while concentrating on capturing excellent photos. I can give private photography and Photoshop lessons to budding photojournalists or parents who want to learn how to take better sports pictures of their future hall of famers.
Contact Info:
- Website: donadamsjr.smugmug.com
Image Credits
Don Adams Jr.
