The Making of a Photographer - How I Ended Up Behind the Lens

It started with a mistake.  All good stories do, but this one in particular was a blessing.  When I was in high school my parents took a trip to Hong Kong where electronics were notoriously inexpensive, and so I asked my dad to buy me a video camera so I could shoot and edit films.  I suppose he wasn't aware of the "video" part of camera and so he bought me a *beautiful* SLR camera by Minolta.  I was a little disappointed, but it was no wonder he bought it for me because I enjoyed every camera I was ever bought.  From little plastic camera I bought for $10, to the Polaroid-like camera my cousin Kamal bought me (Kodak Trimprint Instant Camera) I loved taking photos.  The purchase of the Minolta also meant I could join the Yearbook Club and take real photos.

My High School Yearbook Photo - No Head Photographer Credit

My first assignment with the yearbook was to shoot the golf team, which was the head photographers first assignment.  I really impressed him, and in the end, I was head photographer in grade 12 at a time when head photographer was a position reserved for grade 13s.  I went to yearbook camp at Trent university and had an amazing time.  Despite taking about 60% of the photos for the yearbook, the editor and I suppose the rest of the grade 13s in the club made my name the first in the list, but I did not have the Head Photographer designation.  I also headed up the end of year slideshow but then gave the position to another member when I decided to focus on my studies, and overwhelmed with all the yearbook work, and despite contributing photos and attending all meetings, my name did not appear in the credits.  I didn't let it bother me, but looking back, I know it hurt.  Even writing this now, I still wish I understood what I had done to be so under appreciated to not get the credit I felt I earned and deserved.  The nail in the coffin was being told that the position of Head Photographer was being given away.  The reason was that I wasn't as organized as the person that was replacing me.  I tendered my resignation, much to the dismay of my replacement, but it was an inadequate reason to me.  My best friend was the Editor of the yearbook, so it was a shame.  I still contributed but didn't get credit but mostly because it was felt I didn't want to have any part of the yearbook, which is understandable.

In the weeks after I resigned, I took an adult course in Commercial Photography at the Ontario College of Arts.  I received the highest mark with an A+, and I was the youngest person in the class.  In fact they had to make a special consideration because I was technically too young by the registration deadline, but my dad argued that I would be 18 by the time the course started.  Looking back, I am still amazed by the incredible pictures I took back then.  It's hard to believe I never chose it as a career.

Vesuvio Bakery - 2007

When I went to York University, I was part of Calumet College.  So I took a Calumet course in photography and really honed my darkroom skills.  I was very experimental and throughout my years in high school and university, I bought weird films.  I was a sponge at courses I'd sign up for, remembering and trying everything I learned.  I spent lots of money on film, film paper, and development.  I also bought some film in bulk and made my own canisters of film with a special machine.  Despite visiting many times, my professor never gave my photos back.  Year after year I asked for them, but I think he wanted to keep them as exemplars?  I have the negatives somewhere, but I'm over it.  

When I got in to Radio and Television Arts, I left my photography practice and focused on video production.  It was many years before I even considered photography again, but I remember very well the moment is turned around.  My friend Alex came to my T-Shirt party and took pictures with a new canon digital SLR he bought.  The crummy digital camera my boss bought me at the CBC wasn't very good, had terrible battery life, so much so that I used disposable cameras because the batteries died when I did a piece on living donation. But the pictures he took wowed me in a big way. So much so that I researched and bought a Canon digital SLR the very next week.

Silhouette and Gwen Stefani added on second trip

After resigning from the CBC and going to teacher's college, the Labour Day weekend I went to New York City with a few girlfriends but went early and met them there.  In that time, I got my lay of the land.  The last time I had been to New York City as an adult was at a high school trip.  I took photos with my digital SLR and prized fisheye lens.  It wasn't till I got home and fooled around with the images that I realized I had a few really amazing shots.  One was the Vesuvio's café and the other was an overexposed digital image of Time Square which after I had corrected it, looked amazing.  I just needed some silhouettes for the really bright overexposed shots, the main billboard and Gwen Stefani.  


I decided to go back during the Thanksgiving weekend to take more images, see if Gwen was still up there, and get more shots.  My buddy Jay joined me, even though we had very different agendas.  I was on a mission to take photos, and he was going to tour and shop.  I do recall, however, and I don't even know how we managed this, but we met in Times Square around 3 or 4 in the morning, and as I worked, he just soaked it all in.  When I got home, I added another 6 or 7 images to my collection that I was proud of, but when I submitted my images to a group who was going to give each photographer they chose a room at the Gladstone, I decided to go over March Break to take even more photos.

Second trip, 4:30am in Times Square with the supportive Jay Garcia

That March Break was exhausting. From 7am till about midnight every night, I was out taking photos. I remember on the last day I went to the Statue of Liberty and had endured so many crazy and sometimes stressful situations (ask me about the Fire Taxi image I created) I was beat.  I remember sitting on the ferry and after it left, felt like just sitting there until I we arrived.  But as much as my feet hurt from the days of walking, I reminded myself that I was there to work.  So I got up and climbed the stairs as we left the port.  Sure enough, it wasn't very crowded on the top of the ferry and I got an amazing picture of the flag on the bow and Manhattan and Brooklyn in the distance.

My Chicago exhibition was interesting.  I took a night bus to Chicago to spend the day, and hope to get a single photo for the Contact submission.  The bus's heat broke down and I was stuck in Windsor until they could get us another bus, and only had about 6 hours to shoot once I got there, but it was blisteringly cold, so it ended up being enough.  The Uno's pizza (it's not really pizza) was delicious and kept me out of the cold.  

I returned in the new year during March Break and flew by Porter.  I arrived, unbeknown to me, on St Patrick's Day.  It was amazing!  And quite warm.  I had a similar experience, where I set my alarm for 5:30am to catch the sunrise at the Cloud Gate (the Bean) and when the alarm rang, I had to remind myself I was not there on vacation, but to work.  It paid off.  The Cloud Gate Bean is my most popular image, even though my favourite was American Gothic.

My third exhibition was supposed to be Los Angeles but I had a lot of pressure to do Toronto.  In the end I limited my Toronto images to Music related venues.  After 3 exhibitions in 3 years, I took a long hiatus and still haven't decided to go back into it.  Right now, I'm considering adding my images to websites that do phone covers and do the printing.  Printing ended up being the thorn in my side, and I rarely printed orders for my images.

So far, I haven't given my dad the credit he deserves for embracing my photography passion.  He did tons, as I mentioned, getting me into the Ontario College of Arts course and also let me use his old Minolta when I was a kid.  I still have lots of strange experimental photos with weird compositions from when I was 5-9 years old.  When the Minolta camera my parents bought me from Hong Kong was stolen by some kids while my friends and I played video games, my dad bought me a top of the line Nikon Camera.  The Minolta was one of the presents he got me that I used constantly, and I think he felt something might be lost if he punished me for my carelessness.  That gesture made me realize I had to take better care of my things, but also, that you shouldn't get too upset when bad things happen.  Hopefully they don't happen often.  

My mom's side of the family is mostly artists.  My cousins Ashraf and Shahd are both artists, no doubt inspired by our uncles Ihab and Nagy, critically acclaimed artists with long and prosperous careers.  The rest of the family is also artistically inclined even if they didn't pursue it.  But my art education came mostly from my dad, directly through visits to art galleries growing up, and indirectly by having tons of art books to flip through.  So that's how I became Adam Shax.  The letters S, H, and A were common in both my mom's maiden name and my dad's last name.  To credit both side of the family of influencing my artistic career, I came up with Shax, where the x represents the variable of either last name.  

And now I am teaching digital photography to a new generation.  It worked out quite well, in the end.