About Outsider Graphics

Name: Michael Adams
Birthday: 07.22.1980
Location: Cleveland, OH
Status: Single
Drink/Smoke: Never even sampled!
Hobbies: Art, technology, sports, Monster Energy

I have always been an ambitious, creative, determined, passionate, but very modest individual, one who likes to let his work do the talking. I have had no classes, nor help from friends, or mentors. Everything that I have learned I have taught myself, through online tutorials or trial and error. I gave up everything to follow my dreams. Friends, women, and personal entertainment have all taken a back seat to my work. The way I look at it is that this is my only shot at life and I want to make a living doing what I want to do.

Art is a passion of mine, but it has it's rough times. The term "struggling artist" is very real and there are often a million reasons to quit. Artists are often under-appreciated and underpaid. The flake rate for potential clients who setup shoots is just unbelievable. I kid you not that it's over 90%. Very rarely will someone follow through with their word. It can get very hard to stay positive sometimes, to have any hope. Every single day is a battle.

My eyes really opened up to photography for the first time in 2003 with an old girlfriend. This may sound a little cheesy, but we both enjoyed being in front of the camera and her mother was just picking up photography as a hobby. We would all go out and do photo shoots, capturing the love we had at that time. I was amazed with the results.

I got my first camera in the fall of 2004, a slim Casio Exilim 5MP/3x zoom, for the most part just to help me with my graphic designs, but I was anxious to go out and take some shots. I started going out and taking pictures of anything and everything and posted them online. People were complimenting me, saying how good I was doing, so I just kept shooting. A couple months later, a clothing company found one of my graphic designs online I did for a friend and asked if I took the shot. I did not however, but I did tell them that I was just getting into photography and felt confident that I could produce the same image. I had a meeting shortly after and was hired for my first job, shooting 2 models on a beach and designing an ad for a magazine. It was then that I decided to attack being a photographer.

In the spring of 2005, I was out with some clients late at night, just a few blocks from my house. We celebrated a model shoot and envisioned some future plans. On my way home, which I was walking alone, I was robbed at gunpoint by 2 teenagers. They stole my camera, wallet, and my shirt. That same month, I got laid off from work. I was devastated.

It would be a little while until I would get my next camera, which I was determined to have it be a significant upgrade from my first one. In February, 2006, I got a Panasonic Lumix 8MP/12x zoom. I quickly got back into the swing of things by making 2 trips to Miami, Florida by the spring. I loved seeing new places and documenting them. This is where my passion for traveling developed.

In the fall of 2006, an aspiring model and her fiance discovered me online and flew me to Deltona, Florida for a week to shoot her. They invited a friend to model, and by the end of the week we ended up at Daytona Beach, with a huge crowd of people around us, some letting us use their motorcycles and Hummer as props. Even one of the life guards let use shoot on his post. It was an amazing rush that I will never forget.

In early 2007, I started exploring old, abandoned, historic places, landmarks, and graveyards. Some of which have been very difficult to find and unsafe to browse. It is an amazing feeling however, to feel a part of that history, something very different from modern society. It also feels great in a way to document those places in their current state, which to me, kind of preserves them, so people could see what it really looked like at the time I took the shot. Lots of these places often end up vandalized from trespassers, natural decay, or in the case of graveyards, sinking into the ground and disappearing.

One horrible thing about seeing these graveyards and historic places however, is the neglect they take from people. Nearly every place I have been to had fresh soda cans, beer bottles, and chip bags laying around. Some would steal artifacts and worse yet, destroy them. I have seen tombstones with graffiti on them, and of course, many that were knocked over and broken, which all were not done by natural decay. This abuse deeply disgusts me and I would lose my mind if I ever saw it happen with my bare eyes.

In the summer of 2007, me and my roommate (also a photographer) decided to take a huge chance, and make a move to Miami, Florida. With very little money, some help from friends and family, we were going to try our luck with a local hospice or see how long we would last in our car.

It did not last long.

We got denied at the local hospices because we did not have passports, despite their buildings being on U.S. territory with us being U.S. citizens. All our friends and family did was pretty much avoid us or say "well that sucks, good luck". It was simply just too hot at that time of the year to sleep in the car. So we just came back to Ohio days later.

We were drained and disappointed. It was not a horrible experience though, I would not exchange it for anything. We took a chance, a risk, and sometimes you never know how something will work out unless you try. We took a very scenic route, which got us some great shots. We started out in Cleveland, we then went to Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Virginia Beach, Daytona Beach, and Miami. It was amazing to see all of those places. It motivated me to work even harder to get where I want to be.