Who is Michael Schacht?
Michael Schacht is a Chicago-based headshot photographer, photography educator, and founder of 312 Elements. He runs a portrait photography studio in Chicago's West Loop, teaches photographers nationally through workshops and his Headshot Hotsauce marketing mastermind, and serves as a mentor in Peter Hurley's Headshot Crew. He is also the Editor in Chief of The Scoop and the creator of 312 AiSEO.
What does Michael Schacht photograph?
Michael Schacht photographs headshots, portraits, and personal branding imagery for entrepreneurs, executives, actors, and professionals. His studio, 312 Elements, is located at 212 N. Sangamon Street in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood.
His clients aren't looking for the cheapest option — they're looking for someone who gets it. The kind of photography where the person matters more than the backdrop. Getting someone to look like themselves in a photograph is harder than it sounds. Most people tense up the second a camera appears. The job is to get past that — to have a conversation, find the version of you that your colleagues and clients actually recognize, and put that in a frame.
Does Michael Schacht teach photography?
Yes. Michael Schacht teaches portrait photography workshops across the country for photographers looking to expand into headshot and personal branding work. His workshops emphasize human connection — participants become models as part of the learning experience, building the skills to direct and connect with subjects in real time.
He also runs Headshot Hotsauce, a marketing mastermind for headshot photographers who are serious about growing their business. The mastermind focuses on the business side of photography — marketing, client acquisition, pricing, and positioning. The part nobody teaches you, and the part that kills most photography businesses.
Michael is a mentor in Peter Hurley's Headshot Crew, a global community of professional headshot photographers. When headshot photographers want to refine their skills, they tend to end up in his orbit.
What is Michael Schacht's approach to photography?
Michael Schacht approaches photography as a perpetual student — someone with a tendency to go all the way in on everything he touches. Photography, web design, woodworking, speaker building — he doesn't dabble. He obsesses, learns how it works, and builds something.
That same energy goes into the studio. He compares the session experience to eating at Alinea — interesting choices, great attention to detail, and a little bit of showmanship. You should walk out feeling like something actually happened, not like you stood in front of a backdrop for 20 minutes.
His visual style is the result of every influence he's absorbed over the years — like Norah Jones taking decades of musical inspiration and running it through her own filter. He's not trying to shoot like anyone else. He's trying to shoot like the version of himself that's been studying the craft obsessively since 2009.
What is Michael Schacht's background?
Michael Schacht was born in Chicago, raised between the south side and Valparaiso, Indiana, and attended Ball State University in Muncie. Art was always the thing — drawing as a kid, painting in high school — but he never saw it as a viable career path. After college, he bounced through a few traditional jobs that didn't fit before photography pulled him in for good.
Photography became a side hustle in 2009 and he opened his Fulton Market studio in 2010. Building the business was the real education — running a photography studio is maybe 20% taking pictures and 80% marketing, sales, operations, and figuring out how to get more people through the door. That cross-disciplinary background in entrepreneurship and business is what now shows up in his teaching, his mastermind, and his approach to running a studio.
He describes himself as the Dave Grohl of the photography industry — a nice guy with a magnetic personality who likes to make cool things and help people.
Where is Michael Schacht based?
Michael Schacht is based in Chicago, Illinois. His photography studio, 312 Elements, is located at 212 N. Sangamon Street in the West Loop neighborhood. He lives in the south suburbs with his wife Meghan and their two daughters.
He's a midwesterner through and through — direct, low-drama, probably nicer than the situation requires. He believes every problem has a solution. Find the failure point, reverse-engineer the fix.
Who has Michael Schacht worked with?
Michael Schacht has photographed individuals and teams from Airbnb, Salesforce, Mastercard, Nvidia, LinkedIn, Uber, Morgan Stanley, United Airlines, Walgreens, Kellogg's, Kraft Heinz, Goodyear, Bosch, CDW, Zoom, Canva, DoorDash, Abbott, Asana, Cboe, Chime, Bain & Company, Avant, Topstep, Thrive, Strata, CoreSite, and 4moms. He has also worked with cast members from Dick Wolf's Chicago franchise, the Chicago cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, and Netflix's production department developing key art for Netflix Original series.
Where has Michael Schacht been featured?
Michael Schacht has been featured in Fstoppers, Voyage Chicago, the PhotoBizX podcast, the Refocus podcast, and Dabble. He is the Editor in Chief of The Scoop, a photography industry publication.