Meet Kam Wickam

Thanks for sharing your story with us Kam. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My passion for photography started when I was in High School in the late 2000’s. My closest friend was into photography and I was her muse. I’d put on “high fashion” make-up, doll up my hair, and buy cheap outfits from local fashion stores. We would drive around my small sleepy town, taking pictures at abandoned mansions, hotels, country houses, cornfields, etc. Whatever caught our eye, we had to explore it. Eventually, I wanted to get behind the camera, so I purchased my first DSLR camera, a Canon 5D Markii. I began photographing weddings, product photography, and real estate photography but my passion has always been portrait and fashion photography.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Art, expressing myself, has always been my passion but I took a long detour to get where I am today. When I was growing up, I took ten years of art lessons. I remember my first day of art class, I kicked off my shoes and began to hum tunes to myself as I learned how to use pastels for the first time. When I was in my late teens and early twenties my focus was money. My passion was art but I thought to myself there was no way I was going to make money on art so I needed to find a career path that was lucrative.

When I entered college, I was a business major and HATED it. I ended up dropping out. I ran into my former art teacher in my hometown a couple of years later and she was infuriated. She said I needed to go back to school for art. That always stuck with me. I went back to school and although it was for psychology, I wasn’t miserable. I had what I thought was a temporary job at a bank during college but I was still working there ten months post-graduation when I finally said enough is enough. I’m going to do what makes me happy and money, business, and banking. These things are not bringing it.

With the support of friends and family, I made the best decision of my life and pursued photography, my medium of art, full-time. My advice is to always keep your passions close and don’t ignore your intuition when deciding on a career path.

Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I started my business about ten years ago and it keeps evolving. Right now, my focus is portrait and fashion photography but you can still catch me shooting weddings. During COVID-19 due to a lack of clients, I started a series of self-portraits. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from them and I plan on continuing the series.

I’m proud of my company because not only do I strive to capture the best energy of my clients but I try to make a strong connection with them as well. I’ve always had a passion for writing and that has been coming out a lot recently on my social media captions and blog. I love to engage my followers and hear their voices on topics. If I’m going through something, I try not to be shy to share. There might be someone out there who can relate and needs to know they’re not alone. I believe being a photographer isn’t about just posting pretty photos. It’s creating a network of followers who not only like your photos but interact with you.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I believe you have to create opportunities. With any business, it takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to build. As a photographer, you have to study not only how to use the latest editing programs but also marketing on the ever-changing social platforms. I’ve read multiple books on social media marketing, but by the time they’re published, most of them are already beginning to be outdated. You have to stay on top of things and stay in tune with other professionals in your field. It’s a lot of hard work and you can never ever stop learning.