Today we’d like to introduce you to Solomon Kennedy.
Hi Solomon, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My journey begins early on in life, as a kid, I was always drawn to art but for some reason, I wasn’t quite sure what form of art it was. Growing up, cameras were always relevant in my life one way or another. My grandfather was a candid photographer with tons of scrapbooks filled with old black and white film photos. My mother followed the trend of keeping photos, all throughout our house were pictures of some of my family members, along with a crazy amount of photos that was never framed or developed so much in fact before I packed up to move, I was able to collect some of them and I still don’t believe it would be half of them and following her my younger brother really inspired me from the pictures he took on an iPod he had in middle school launching his Instagram account Mascreations back in 2013 I quickly realized what he was doing could be done on a grander scale. So, I followed his trend and this lead me to my Apple product obsession mainly due to quality of its camera in comparison to the competitors, I played with different phone from different brands before making switch to an iPhone. I figured if Apple could do this with such a small sensor, what would the quality be like for something much larger?
Outside of that, I really picked up a camera for the first time shortly after high school as I developed a love for Longboarding which leads me to buy my first camera so that I could film myself and post to Instagram. As I begin to pick up steam, I was forced to take a step back due to injuries it really forced me to put it down and take a safer approach in hobbies. Following a few recoveries of broken bones, I started to take my photography seriously as an art form, a way to freeze time and put my unique view on it. This is when I put my plan into motion to launch my Instagram page @Solkenphotography and started posting pictures from my canon t3. The canon T3 was an entry level camera and that translates to a lot of limitations for someone really trying to push boundaries and maximize everything, it served its purpose well for the tile I used it. I soon realized the limitations of that camera and decided I need an upgrade, something that offered more! So, I used school as a way to jump-start my career in upgrading my camera and taking the time to properly learn my camera from head to toe. My start really came from a lot of plant photography and lunar photography I started with subjects that didn’t require directions to teach me the effects of angles and shadows, I feel it helped me improve in so many ways from understanding my aperture, ISO, and shutter speed to a better degree.
I feel none of that progress would have been possible if it wasn’t for a good friend of mine Jeff Jones, he taught me how to gain access to more creative control within my camera. At this point, I knew I was ready to work with people, do events, family portraits, and even sports while captivating moments that would last forever! My very first photo shoot came to me from a high school friend who was getting married, I agreed to shoot his entire wedding in exchange for a battery grip and batteries, Safe to say it was a valuable lesson learned but also an experience that I would never forget! I soon realized that there was so much more to this art form than just capturing and editing a picture, social skills became a must, reaching out and networking became my go-to way to build my portfolio using Instagram as my go-to app for networking with local aspiring models and photographers alike. I spent a lot of time just mastering my workflow, developing a flow that was comfortable allowing me with some downtime while having to maintain a full time job, The area I grew up in, in north Florida was very closed-minded lacking a lot of creative expression early on making it really difficult to grow a small business due to most people not being willing to pay prices or having other people they weren’t familiar with and already well established, even in such a tight net playing field I was determined to make the most out of every opportunity afforded to me.
Considering all this took place within the first five years of me being self-taught in most of what I know, I feel as if my mark was slowly carved in my city before my departure, being an influence for younger kids, family members and help other photographers grow along the way. I realized that it would be a really difficult climb for me in my home town and I believed I was ready for more, leading me to move to Miami at the start of 2019. Since living in Miami i’ve moved back to tallahassee and now do more work traveling in between Florida and Georgia. After leaving my job im hoping to maintain this full time the way i desire. The sky isn’t the limit, the limit is what we create it to be.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My journey has been long and very difficult coming from a low-income area I used the best means afforded to me to grow. Working a nine to five it was very hard going to school for an AA degree and trying to balance out learning photography from the confines of my small home town. My biggest hurdle came early in my career with losing my father not only did it have me give everything a back seat It forced me to fight for everything I wanted, so many times I wanted to just give up because I had lost one of the lights guiding me, It was hard having to be kicked into adult life in that way while trying to maintain my drive to continue to grow in photography, longboarding and just keeping up with my own happiness was a challenge for a long time.
The next hurdle that I had to tackle was networking with people through Instagram as a small growing photography page, that number holds a lot of weight when trying to connect with people often being ignored or just completely blown off, this was one of the things that really made my first three years of photography very difficult causing me to just take breaks from it for a few months at a time. Then, the next hurdles were finding a set of hashtags that would work best for what I was posting from time to time and even now, I still shuffle around sets of hashtags in hopes of maximizing my reach. In this current time frame I have done enough work to where it typically comes from different sources about monthly but i’m trying to push that to daily and weekly now that I have more free time.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a hand drawn artist, digital artist, photographer, videographer, and model. I specialize in primarily photography and modeling. I’m known for my photography work from miami to tallahassee, from most interaction my work speaks for itself I feel like it shows my love for what I do. What I’m most proud of is the connections i’ve made and maintained despite all the trails that have come in my life, I use all my art form as a source of fuel to keep push the needle forward, for whoever maybe looking. The thing that sets me apart from others is I knew since I was four that I wanted art in some way to be what i was known for in whatever way possible, it started with a pencil and my imagination going wild. Having diabetes since I was eleven I was told my whole life what I wouldn’t be able to do. Today the same things that people said I could do other people are find appreciation and joy from it so its safe to say i’m loving the life i’ve created.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
There’s is no reward if you don’t have something to lose. Throughout my life I’ve had a drive and trust in the most high that things would playout this way and I came to understand that the moments i’ve seen the most change is when I risked everything on something in hope of a better result and time and time again its played out in way that allows me to move off faith versus the fear of risk and losing. If you only identify a lose as that, that is all it will ever be, what we have to do is take those L’s and turn them into lessons of growth and prosperity.
Pricing:
- Travel bundle – $575
- In town Studio Price – $275
- In town Outdoor Price – $175
- Art comissions – $110
- Videography-$395
Contact Info:
- Website: https://solomonkennedy95.wixsite.com/solkenphotography
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solkenphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SolomonTheArtist/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@skvisuals850/videos
