Her Story
About Kambua
Kambua Chema is a photographer, educator, and creative entrepreneur based in Chicago, Illinois. With over 25 years behind the lens and full-time photography work for the past three years, she brands herself as a photographer first, then an educator and creative entrepreneur. Her path includes a bachelor's degree in biochemistry with a pre-med focus and a master's in agribusiness and agricultural economics from Missouri. She worked for a biotech center after graduate school and then spent 13 years in retail management at Target while pursuing photography part-time. She took classes at Chicago Photography Classes about 15 years ago and has been teaching there for over 10 years. She joined the Headshot Crew in 2019 and became an associate for Peter Hurley in recent years, building her headshot and personal branding business. She is a member of the Professional Photographers of America and the American Society of Media Photographers. Her drive stems from a childhood photograph taken by her late father, and she attributes her success to his advice to find something loved and make a living from it. She values integrity and kindness, and her project photographing women over 50 without makeup or filters serves as advice to younger women to embrace authenticity.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kambua
01What do you attribute your success to?
My drive is based on a photograph that my late father took of me when I turned one on my birthday. He photographed me holding... sitting on top of the hood of a car, of his car. That image has become the foundation and almost the purpose of what I do as a photographer. It's almost like I was destined to be here doing this, creating and making people feel seen. I have it framed in my studio and the camera that created it 51 years ago is also sitting here.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
From my late father, he always said to me, find something you love and then find a way to make money doing it. So best advice ever.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell them to keep an open mind. I created this incredible project called I've Earned Every Line, photographing women 50 and over with no makeup and no beauty retouching or any filters. And I feel that that project is my gift to the younger generation, the younger women, telling them that they can be beautiful, and they can be confident, and they can be who they are without having to hide behind any makeup, any filters, and just be true to themselves.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Being a studio owner, what has been my huge challenge is those barriers to entry, like getting new business into your doors. And then you think of AI right now in the industry, and everyone feels that they are a photographer, and there's a lot of competition. Right now, I feel to succeed, it goes beyond the skill. It has to be about what is it that you do differently? How do you make people feel special? What do you do in driving your business in a way that no one else is? And I feel that being authentic, and being able to market yourself becomes the only way to survive right now. And networking. So, like, my almost 90% of my business is through networks.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I would say integrity, kindness. You know, I feel like when you're when you have integrity and you're kind to people, the universe always convenes to help you navigate and be successful.
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