Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Dyar.
Hi Chad, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for sharing your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I’ve been doing art for as long as I can remember – composing, learning color theory, testing ideas, etc. The first time I picked up a professional camera wasn’t until 2012. When I started, I was very inexperienced in photography, training, and shooting in a studio where I barely had any creative control and didn’t own any equipment. But I was learning from an experienced group of photographers. That team and I became close friends, and one of them and I bonded over our love for travel, adventure, and our ability to waste time while still getting important things done. She helped teach me some of the more technical aspects of the camera during random adventures we took within a few-hour radius of our town. As much as I loved photography, corporate America drew me back with its higher salaries and promises of climbing the corporate ladder.
One day, I saw a deal on a Canon DSLR that I had to jump on. The camera mostly sat in my closet, the box collecting dust, for a few years. Then, in 2016, I decided to take a road trip across the US and Thailand, where I started cutting my teeth in my style of photography. Almost every day for me was – to wake up, hike and shoot photos, go back to camp, eat, hike and shoot photos, go back to camp, eat, sleep, and then rinse and repeat. It was a great way to fully immerse myself in photography and learn what photos I thought were awesome and what I needed to work on.
Fast-forward to the last time I moved back to Charleston. I was bartending in a brewery downtown when I met an architectural photographer who, a few months later, would be the person who connected me with the hiring manager of an agency out of Paris. I was signed with them after my first test shoot with the agency. Enter my first client in the realm of property photography – the leading short-term rental platform in the world, the one and only Airbnb. Working with Airbnb turned out to be a fast track to learning about property photography and its psychology.
After signing with a second agency and working on both contracts, I created my photography brand and found clients independently. Thus Chad Dyar Photography was born just 1 year before the pandemic.
Would it have been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’m not one to dwell on obstacles. They’re around to teach, sharpen, and create perseverance in us. However, the journey of Chad Dyar Photography has not been all sunshine and rainbows. Around a year after I went out alone, the 2020 pandemic began, and my business, like many others, came to a screeching halt. Many of my clients ‘ businesses saw a significant slowdown because a large percentage of my business was photographing short-term rentals, and no one was traveling.
The effect trickled into my business, and I had to find a way to continue making an income. So I decided to dust off some photos I had taken over the past few years and started selling prints of them. The images were mainly of landscapes and starry nights I had collected during my travels across the US and Southeast Asia. It was enough to keep me afloat until my business started booming again. It was a very uncertain and scary time for a lot of reasons. Overall, though, I was able to pass my time during the pandemic in a healthy way and was very fortunate that I was able to keep my business running without having to take on another job or start over.
We’ve been impressed with Chad Dyar Photography, but for folks who might need to be more familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart?
I’ve been doing photography for over 10 years, starting with portraits and moving my way into landscape photography and then property and architectural photography. Lately, I’ve been dipping my toes into fashion photography and videography. That being said, I’m mostly known for property and architectural photos these days. However, I still do travel and lifestyle photography – I love capturing those moments.
I’m very proud to produce magazine-quality photos for my clients. That ability, combined with my knowledge of psychology and how the human brain reacts to specific details in an image, gives me a unique advantage when composing and capturing photos that speak to people. Ultimately, no matter what I photograph, it’s all about telling a story. These reasons have allowed my work to be featured on HGTV, Travel and Leisure, and Condé Nast Traveler multiple times.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I started doing photography when I was in my thirties. I grew up doing art, dabbling in many different media, but I was mainly a painter for years. And even when painting, I only did it for the pure joy of it. To pay my bills, I worked in corporate America for almost a decade and then moved into working for local breweries before finding my way in photography.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://chadmdyar.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itschaddyar/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaddyar/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@itschaddyar
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/chaddyarphoto/
