Why Manual Mode Makes You a Better Photographer with Mariah Adams

What does it actually take to get better at photography and how do you find a style that's truly your own?

In this episode, I sit down with Mariah Adams, a Sacramento-based street photographer and one of the original members of the Big Photo Hunt, who's been making images for nearly a decade. 

Mariah's path started with her grandmother's camera and grew into a genuine creative obsession, and she's refreshingly honest about how she learned by shooting constantly, experimenting, and never being afraid to fail.

We talk about why putting your camera in manual mode and leaving it there is one of the fastest ways to truly understand photography, how learning the relationship between your settings and your image - depth of field, light, all of it - changes everything, and why your "bad" photos are some of the most valuable frames you'll ever take. 

Mariah also shares why street photography became her genre of choice, how she learned to show the world through her own perspective, and what keeps her reaching for her camera almost every single day.

We also get into her gear journey, the playful creative experiments she loves, and what it's like to grow alongside a photography community from week one.

We also explore:

• Why shooting in manual mode accelerates your learning
• How aperture, shutter speed, and depth of field shape an image
• Why bad photos are essential to growing as a photographer
• Finding your style through street photography
• Staying motivated and keeping the drive to shoot
• How a grandparent's influence can shape a lifelong creative path
• Learning to see and shoot the world through your own perspective

If you're a beginner or self-taught photographer trying to build real skills, find your style, and stay inspired, Mariah's story and practical, no-nonsense advice will give you ideas you can put into practice the moment you pick up your camera.

Show Notes: 

Mariah Adams Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariahannphotog/

Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt, arguably the worlds friendliest photography community.

Some more stuff for you:

• The Big Photo Hunt is the world's friendliest photography community.
• Ken Deckinger created a YouTube channel for learnings and tips.
• And of course, the Big Photo Hunt is on Instagram.

Transcript

[00:00] I have a cousin that likes to model for me sometimes and she's gonna help me with this one. It's Sprinkles. Putting Sprinkles all over her. Like cupcake Sprinkles? Yep. So you're gonna dump Sprinkles where? All over your house? No, like attach him to her face. Oh! Yeah. Will you post that on the big photo hunt? Oh, absolutely. I would love to see that. Yeah, it's gonna be great. I'm so excited. Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt podcast, a show where we talk with aspiring and professional photographers to help us all grow and improve our photography together. I'm your host Ken Deckinger. If you're one of our community members and you'd like to be a guest on the show, please visit BigPhotoHunt.com for more information. [music] [music]

[01:02] Wow, I need to welcome you back to this podcast. Not because you have gone anywhere, but because I went somewhere. I took a unplanned hiatus and things just got busy. I launched a new YouTube channel, which has been a lot of fun and that has taken up a lot of time. We've launched tons of new features on the Big Photo Hunt, which has taken up even more time. One thing led to another and then next thing you know, months went by before dropping an episode here. So if you're still here, thank you. I am not only excited to be back, but I'm also excited for today's guest because Mariah Adams from Sacramento, California is not only a photographer with an interesting story, but she's a big Photo Hunt member. And I really wanna get more members on this podcast. That's kind of one of the reasons why I started this, to get to know and connect with amazing members of the Big Photo Hunt. And so I'm just full of happiness today.

[02:03] I'll let Mariah introduce herself as we get going. I hope you're great and I hope you're able to get some great photography in these days. The weather is turning, it's nice. You get some beautiful golden hour shots and lots more. And let's just do this. Without any further ado, Big Photo Hunt member, Mariah Adams. [music] How's Sacramento? It's okay. I don't love Sacramento in general, but you know, it's all right, it's fine. I was there a year ago, but I had a wedding. It wasn't in Sacramento. It was out somewhere in like, there were a lot of fields. And it was cool 'cause it was like a wedding at some kind of like mansion out in fields. It was pretty cool though. Awesome. Yeah. All right, well, I would love to start by telling everyone who you are. Before we do that, I wanna brag a little bit

[03:03] for both of us because you've been a part of the Big Photo Hunt since I literally think day one almost or week one. Yeah, January 2024. Like I said, week one. Yep. That is very meaningful to me, so thank you. Absolutely. You know, I've been building this thing, working hard and just to have people that stick around is really, really cool. And so it means a lot to me. So I just want you to know that. So thank you. Well, thank you. Yeah, it's been great. I love it. Why don't we start by telling everyone like who you are, where you're from, and then your background and then we get into your whole photography journey from there. Okay, yeah. My name is Mariah Adams. I live in Sacramento, California. I'm about two hours outside of San Francisco. I have an eight year old son that is the light of my life. And I live with my brother and my boyfriend and my boyfriend has two kids that are basically my own kids. And yeah, we're a happy little family here. What's the story with your photography? How long have you been into photography

[04:04] and what got you on that journey? And I mentioned that. That's always super interesting, I think, 'cause we all have different reasons, right? Like something just touches us, something either young age, old age, mid age. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. For me, my photography started mostly because of my grandmother 'cause she was a photographer. And until I was about five, my mom and I lived with my grandparents. So I was constantly in front of her camera. And it was one of my favorite things to do was let's go take photos with Nana. I loved it so much. And I tried a bunch of other things when I was growing up, but none of it felt right. And then I got a camera and I was just immediately in love. Like this is it. There's nothing else for me. This is what I wanna do. Been about nine years now. What kind of photography was your grandma into? She mostly did portraits. She did also enjoy a lot of nature.

[05:07] She looked flowers, but mostly people. So nine years ago, and what was it? Was there something like a light bulb that went on? Or one day you're just like, I kinda like this. I was trying to go to school for makeup and I needed a better camera to take pictures of what I was doing. So I got a camera. And then I started playing around with it and it just kinda turned into, I love the camera and playing with this so much more than the makeup. So I dropped the makeup and I just kept going with the camera. Awesome. And what kind of photos do you like to take? What's your favorite genre? My favorite genre is street, but it's a close call between street and nature. But I do also love like art stuff in like a studio or sometimes not in a studio. Streets of where Sacramento or any streets? Any streets. I have a lot of Sacramento I've done. I've done basically everything in Sacramento. I go to San Francisco. I also love within like a two hour distance. There's a lot of small towns that have some really cool charming streets and stuff.

[06:10] And 'cause we've got the Sacramento River. So there's a lot of like little Delta towns and stuff. There's so much cute character in there. I love just like finding a cute little town to go walk around and take photos. Those towns were awesome. So when I was in Sacramento last year, that's where I was. And there were these cool towns all along the river. The thing was though that I was only there for like one day or I flew in for like a weekend and I was on East Coast time. So I was up at 4 a.m. every day and would go out when the sun came up to go shoot and drive through those towns. But by then it was 6 30 a.m. And there was not one person awake. And so it wasn't good photography, but they were so cool. And I could imagine it like, you know, 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, there's just people and the light is right. And it's just super cool. Yeah, it's great. They're almost like Western looking, right? Some of them? Yeah, there are. There's a lot of historical places along the Delta.

[07:13] There's one in particular is called Locke, L-O-C-K-E. And it was originally, it was a Chinese settlement for the people that were working the railroad and things like that in the area. There was a large Chinese population. So a lot of them settled in little towns. And those are the towns that kind of kept a lot of the buildings and the historical, all of that. And I want to talk about nature, but I've also seen these art pieces that you've done of like your sliding glass door and stuff that looks super cool. Talk to me first about the nature. Nature is where, is the first thing I started with photography was let's go out and find some pretty flowers. And eventually it turned into street and everything else, but that's where it started. And it's up there with street as a favorite. Like they're neck and neck for me. I just love to go out, we go find nature preserves. In, let's see, in Napa, we really love this wilderness area.

[08:16] It's, they don't even call it like a preserver or anything like that. It's just like a wilderness area that they kind of patrol a little bit to make sure people stay safe. There's like bobcats and all kinds of mountain lions and stuff. And so you got to be careful, but I just, I love walking around in nature and connecting with nature, even just outside of camera. But then I get to take photos of everything and then I get to remember it all and have the gorgeous photos. And it's just, it's fantastic. What are they scared, what are they protecting you from when you're out there? The animals? Yeah, yeah. That's kind of cool. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of mountain lions and bobcats. There's all kinds of stuff. It's a lot of fun though. I don't know if you'd do this, but I'm the kind of person where if I was being approached by like a mountain lion or bobcat, I would try to get photos of it as it was like attacking me.

[09:17] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. My boyfriend always laughs at me 'cause we'll hear something like an animal in the distance. And I'll be like, "Hey, come out. I want to take your picture." How does it work for you? They don't really like to have their picture taken, but I try. I always do stupid stuff. My wife makes this reference back to when we were in Southeast Asia a long time ago. We were in Cambodia at Anchor Wat, which is like the big ruins that were on Earth. And one of the ruins, it looked like a pyramid almost, but it was like these like steps. The side was all steps basically. And at the bottom, there was this little sign that shows, it basically shows a person like a stick figure climbing it. And then it has a red line through it. And then the next picture next to it is like the stick figure falling backwards. And she's like, "Where's Ken?" And she sees the sign and she looks up and I'm already like 30 yards up the pyramid. She thinks I'm kind of an idiot.

[10:17] She's right, but that's okay. That's okay. Actually, and back then I wasn't really into photography. Otherwise I would have stopped and like taken selfies or pictures of me up there, but that's a wholeless story. All right, and then I want to hear about your art photography. I've seen it and it's gorgeous. What I really like about it is that a lot of it seems like you're able to make use of the location that you're in and stuff that's around you, which is a talent and something I wish I could do more of because I find that I usually need to travel long distances to get inspired. If I didn't have to do that, I'd probably be more successful of like just creating photos every day. Tell me about that. What are you doing in your house when you are photographing? What are you looking for? And what's your goal with that photography? For my art photography, a lot of it is I'll find some sort of other photographers work that I find really inspiring. I don't ever copy someone's stuff, but I will find like little elements here and there in people's stuff.

[11:18] And I'll be like, oh, that would look really cool if I did this other thing over here as well. And I just kind of build from there. I spent a few years at Academy of Art University. That was very, it pushed me outside of my usual comfort zone and a lot of it turned into just finding what I have already on hand that I can work with because there's a new photo assignment every week and you've got four of them for four different classes. So you can't always be going out and doing some crazy elaborate thing. And you can't always, you know, go out and spend a whole ton of money to get this one photo shoot done when you've got four every week. So you just kind of learn how to get super creative with what you have and figure things out how to make things work. Yeah, so being there was a big push for me

[12:19] in that direction, which was great. And I worked a lot with a director of the photography program there. His name is Timothy Archibalds. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of him but he's a phenomenal photographer. His work is like in museums and stuff. It's incredible. And he was a big influence on me and he just loves photography so much. And he's so fascinated by everyone's work. That was very inspiring to me to be around that and to have someone that I knew, they knew what they were talking about when they said this is a really great photo. And that kind of definitely fueled me to be like, okay, cool. There's people who know what they're doing and they're saying that I'm doing a good job. So let's keep going with this. Let's explore, let's find what else we can do. Let's push ourselves to new things. Did the art school help you?

[13:20] I always am curious about this because I, I'm a self-taught photographer. I went to the school of YouTube and like shitty pictures. And after 17,000 shitty pictures, I got a couple that are good. And I'm like, oh, I think I'm getting this. How did art school help you improve your photography? And did it help you improve your photography? Oh, it absolutely did for me. Art school is not for everyone. It was a huge help for me in particular because it pushed me to use manual mode instead of auto and to figure out how manual mode actually works and what each of the settings actually controls and how to balance those things. And is the school, that school in particular, I don't know about any other school, but that school really pushes for get it right in the camera as best as you can. So you have as little editing to do as possible.

[14:22] And that really pushed me into like, here's how to get this in camera and how to make it work. And you keep going until you get it. Can you talk more about that? 'Cause I know we should be getting more of it right in camera as opposed to leaning on editing. But what was the idea there? What was the reasoning behind them pushing that so hard? I think for them, it's mostly pushing students to just be the best photographer they can be. And that means learning how to get it right in camera. And if you continue that on your own, that's up to you after school or outside of school. But they wanted to make sure that the students know how to get things right. So they're not just going out lined and relying on the editing. I agree. And I try to get as much right in camera as I can,

[15:24] especially with composition. But what I found myself doing a lot of times is if I'm composing a photo, I love street photography too. Like, love it. And what I find myself doing is composing it in camera correctly, but then leaving a little space on the sides and the top, so that if I need to crop or correct anything, I can. As opposed to going too tight and then realizing that I screwed something up and not having any wiggle room. I do sometimes, especially if it's a photo, that I'm not exactly 100% sure on, I will leave space so I can crop it if I need to. Or I'm a big fan of the geometry tool where it straightens things out for you. And that will also sometimes crop the photo. So I try to leave a little extra space on those ones. That one's in particular good for like buildings and stuff. So I'll try to leave a little extra space for that on those. But for the most part, I try to get the composition

[16:25] where I want it, if I can. If I'm not sure, or if it's something I'm gonna have to edit, then I will leave space. Great for buildings, bad for faces, the geometry tool. I have a long face as it is. I could have, like if I had to like adjust the geometry tool, I could look like one of those Easter Island, you know the rocks on Easter Island, that's what I think I would look like. So you're done with the art school program. What's next? For example, today, if you were to go out and bring your camera somewhere, or stay in and bring your camera somewhere, what would you shoot? If I was gonna go out today, I would probably go out and do street photos. But I do also have like studio photo that I've been wanting to do. I have a cousin that likes to model for me sometimes, and she's gonna help me with this one. It's Sprinkles, putting Sprinkles all over her. Like cupcake Sprinkles? Yep. So you're gonna dump Sprinkles where, all over your house?

[17:27] No, like attach them to her face. Oh! Yeah. Will you post that on the big photo hunt? Oh, absolutely. I would love to see that. Yeah, it's gonna be great. I'm so excited. So this is an episode about meeting a member, a big photo hunt member. What has your experience been on the big photo hunt? I just ask 'cause I'm curious, and it gives me an opportunity to understand what you like or don't like, 'cause then I know what I need to improve. Oh, sure. What is it that you like about it? What have you gotten out of it? I think that the big photo hunt is, it's a lot of fun. It's a great community of people that are supportive and engaging, and there's a lot of great photography on there. And there's a lot of people that I listen. I don't just tell people critiques blindly, but if they want feedback, I will give feedback. And I've had a lot of people where I did that,

[18:29] and then they listened and they were nice about it, and they weren't, you know, "Oh, well, how dare you tell me this?" Like, you're like, "Okay, cool, I will try that." It's a receptive community to feedback and growth together. And it's, yeah, it's a lot of fun. That's cool to hear, 'cause I try to foster that. And also I try to attract that. It just appeals to that kind of person. And so if you're a jerk, you may not really, you may just think I'm too goofy and like not wanna be a part of it. And that's kind of okay, because that's the whole idea, is that we come together to share our work and we're not jerks. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I'm glad. We're working hard to build it and, you know, grow, and we're growing, but I'm focused on finding and inviting people in that are the right type of photographers, meaning their amateur photographers are hobbyists and they're friendly and they're just there to improve. And if they're not there to improve, that's fine too, but at least they're able to kind of contribute to be part of the community. Yeah, absolutely.

[19:29] Awesome. And while I have you, and I mean, this may or may not make it in the podcast, but while I have you, what could I do better? Is there something we could do better? You know, I have been thinking about that and I haven't really come up with anything that I can think of that would be better. It's pretty great the way it is. We're launching three new features soon. One of them is AI reporting, so that you'll be able to get an AI report on all of your photos and it will also compare it and show you where it is in relation to other photos. So the photos that made the top 10 that week, other photos in your genre. So we're gonna launch that stuff. Hopefully people like that. And it's all either free or it's like included in the pro membership, just because as we add this stuff starts getting expensive. Sure, sure, yeah. We'll figure that part out as we go. Anyone that is in your shoes now or say nine years ago that's getting into photography As an amateur someone who wants to have fun and get better What would you say to them? How would you help them get going and get into it?

[20:31] I would say one put your camera on manual mode and leave it there as long as you can Now sometimes especially when you're first starting out. That's not always Feasible sometimes you need the auto but as long as you're able to keep it on manual and learn Really really learn how each of the different features and the different settings affect the photo your depth of field and things like that learn learn that that is will help you so much with Any type of photography you want to do but I would also say don't be afraid to Fail don't be afraid to take bad photos because that's how you grow You don't grow if you're constantly just like taking the same little photos over and over again Try stuff see what happens and learn from it Go out and find something and maybe it'll be a really cool photo Maybe it'll be something that goes in the trash, but you tried it and you learned from it

[21:36] I agree for someone that is starting out You mentioned manual mode How do you recommend or how would you suggest someone learns manual mode? Because it's easier to it's easier for you and I to say put it on manual mode But then actually figuring it out is the next step. Yeah. Yeah For me it was a lot of just trying it for me I keep my camera on Where it shows you on the screen exactly what the photo is going to look like So I will try the different settings and just look at The camera and see what it looks like and then I can Try that photo and then if I think maybe that's not the right settings for this I'll switch it up and try something different and then later when I'm going through all the photos I can kind of look and you can look at like the metadata and see what your settings were And kind of just go from there and figuring out. Okay. So this when I did this setting

[22:37] It did this to the photo and when I changed that setting it changed this in the photo There's definitely a lot of great resources online on youtube A lot of people that really explain How the camera works and what each of the settings does So getting that And keeping it in your mind as best you can and then just doing it For me in particular that was a big just Do it one of the biggest things is for just get out there and do it in practice I agree with you 100% And you could have all the skills you want, but then you got to get out there and like Actually do it to really learn. It's the kind of craft where if you're not actually doing it, you're not going to grow Yeah, for sure. So I think that that's important. So I'm just actually curious Maybe this happens with all creative people or people that are interested in creative endeavors There seems to be periods where like we get really into it And then there are periods where we're kind of not into it, right?

[23:37] We're just kind of down. Do you have those periods? And I ask that because I was on youtube and there was a photographer that I Follow and they were talking about how they're kind of in a lull and they're not really into photography And I'm thinking shit if this person is not in photography into photography right now I'm in trouble when I'm not into photography because I thought they were always into photography Does that happen to you and what's it like and how do you get out of it? Yeah I actually wait. Let me preface that by saying I'm pretty sure it happens to you because it happens to everybody. Absolutely. So when it when it does happen What do you do to get out of it? Yes, that definitely does happen. Um, I think for me a big thing is to allow myself to take breaks and Don't even think about photography Don't even like put your camera away. Don't even like approach that idea and just Do something else for a minute For me, I like to do you can see back here a lot of painting and stuff

[24:38] So I'll do I'll switch to something else creative or I also have like 200 plants so I'll go take care of some plants for a minute or You know all kinds of stuff just kind of give yourself a break because it's mainly said in the idea of mental health But I think it applies to a lot of things when they say like There's no flower that blooms the entire year uh, so allow yourself to take breaks and it's okay to put it down for a minute and then recharge like like recharge your creativity in that and your desire and then After a while, you'll pick it back up again. Then you will feel For me at least I feel refreshed after that and I'm like, okay cool Now I'm back in this mindset and I have a million ideas for photos now Yeah, it's good. I would definitely recommend taking breaks um And just not even thinking about it

[25:40] When you come back and you have a million ideas are they new ideas and do you feel more creative? Oh, absolutely Absolutely, I do I just feel all over refreshed and I feel more creative and I feel just better I haven't really actually it's not true. I have some photos from another day, but I haven't posted any photos in a long time partially because I'm too busy, but also because I just haven't been motivated partially It's not that I haven't been motivated. I haven't been inspired by my city and that happens here I live in Boston, which is a beautiful city, but I know it's so well and so sometimes I'm just like I just need a new city I'm traveling in the next few months. I'm taking my camera. I'm going to London and Barcelona and then I'm going to Seattle and Paris all in like a In like a three month period and so I'm extremely excited, you know to bring my camera But I'm really not shooting anything until then. Yeah, because I kind of feel like

[26:42] I'm not in a lull. I'm just not I just need a break for me. I found that That definitely happens for me where I get Sacramento gets boring and I'm like, okay. I've shot everything here There's nothing else here to shoot But then I will take a friend with me give them a camera and what do they shoot? What do they see? What do they notice? What are these fresh eyes that have never looked at the city this way before? What do they see? and a lot of times that'll give me new perspectives on things and different ideas It's very interesting to see what other people notice I have a friend her name is justine and I actually met her because she was on this podcast and she talks about something like that I don't know if you heard that episode, but she talks yeah about photo walks just that how you see the city through someone else's eyes and How can inspire you? I love taking other people out. I have friends that Love to go out with me and we always have a great time and

[27:46] It's yeah, it's it's great to see what other people see when you're going out and what they notice Last I think april I was in paris and I uh, I took a bunch of photos and then I Showed them to my friend had some friends that lived there and one of them responded. I forget what it was It wasn't like oh Wow, it was fascinating to see paris through an american's eyes, but it was basically I think the comment was something along the lines of wow. It's fascinating to see from an outsider's perspective Yeah, yeah because she hasn't looked at the city the way I looked at it And I don't know if that's just because it's a different person or if it's because I am the foreigner So I I get it. Oh, I want to show you something. I want to show you something real quick before I forget Sacramento cows. I have a picture of cows. I want to show you the cows. Oh, yeah There's a lot of those. Oh my gosh. There were so many cows this was out in that delta area Oh, I wish you get it's kind of overexposed. You can't really see it from here, but it's not overexposed

[28:48] But the camera's not doing it justice There was actually a barbed wire fence there. So even though the cow looks like it's right in front of me It was like, you know, yeah, there were a lot of cows and so finally I was like I'm looking for things to shoot and like I mentioned it was 6 30 in the morning And there were no people and there were just cows and I was like, okay. I want to get a photo of something I'm getting picture of cows And I did and they were like Oh, and I was like, so it was good. It was really love it. Love it. That's great I have three questions that I ask everyone at the end of my episode And it sounds like you've heard my podcast before so you're prepared for these Are you ready? Yep question number one is What camera system do you use? I am all in on canon I actually thought about switching that at one point. It was an off comment from the director at the school that there's an obvious difference between

[29:48] the companies that primarily and almost exclusively work on photography equipment versus the companies that do everything so sony does, you know tv's and they do appliances and they do everything And they're not 100 focused on photography Whereas canon is 100 focused on photography and there's a noticeable difference in the quality sometimes I know a lot of photographers feel that way and I understand that I still shoot sony Oh, they make great cameras. They really do I like it because I am a hybrid, you know, I do both photos and videos and it's so Simple for that. It's just so easy to toggle back and forth and I also love that I think because they do come from like a technology background They do push the envelope in technology and I'm just kind of a geek when it comes to that stuff

[30:50] I love gadgets and so I kind of don't want to wait around like I was a canon shooter and I I was just basically waiting for canon to go mirrorless before I had a dslr and sony was out and I'm like I'm waiting for canon I'm waiting for canon. I'm waiting for canon and finally I was just like I'm out of here. I'm going to sony So I'm happy I did. I mean, they're all great, right? But like, oh, yeah, I understand the comment All right, next question is what's your favorite genre to shoot and why? Favorite genre is street with art being a very very close second and I just love to show the world Through my perspective is what it is. I love to show How I see things outstanding Question number three on a scale of one to ten. How often do you get that burning it? She just get out there and shoot and just to clarify not to be confused with the burning itch That's for a different podcast

[31:51] Yeah, uh, no for me. It's it's like a nine or ten out of ten because I am always ready to go like I love It is just absolutely my favorite thing to do. I will always go out Like if someone says hey, you want to go out and do some photos? Yes Immediately yes, like there's no hesitation for me. I always want to And where can everybody find you? I know that they could find you on the big photo hunt, but out in the world Where can they find you on social media? everything else My website is mariah m a r i a h an ann photo dot com and on all the social media. I am mariah and photoge po tog I really appreciate your time and i'm so glad we did this I have Truly been grateful to have you involved with the big photo hunt and I list you as like one of my og because you are You're officially like one of the og And we're working hard to build the big photo hunt and as we get bigger and bigger It's just really cool to know that someone was around from like

[32:53] Month one is still here and it's really nice to be able to spend this time with you So thank you Yeah, thank you too. It's been great Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode our next show will feature more valuable stories from our community members If you'd like to audition to be a guest, please visit big photo hunt dot com for more information Thanks again for listening today