Welcome!

If you happen to have found my little corner of the internet, hi! My name is Kate, I have two little boys who are the absolute light of my life and source of my sleep deprivation, and I am a portrait photographer with a background in film photography. I have been documenting people for 20 years now and can’t imagine stopping anytime soon. My husband, Kerry, is a guitar enthusiast and my biggest supporter. I live a quiet but beautiful life in my hometown of Savannah, Georgia. I’ve had friends refer to Savannah as the Black Hole because you might leave, but it will suck you back in, and I have found that unflattering and endearing statement to be true.

I grew up in Isle of Hope, running through the woods next to my parents’ property, building tree forts until I could drive, and exploring the muddy banks with my closest, also feral friends. We would wake up, meet in between our houses, and not come home until dark. It was an idyllic childhood, dirty and filled with wonder. It also instilled in me a deep love of the coast on which we live. The marsh often serves as the backdrop for my portraits, and I secretly love whenever a session falls at low tide. You might be wishing for a river backdrop, but I am telling you there is something so beautiful about the muddy bank scattered with reeds and fiddler crab holes. Trust me!

If white jumpers and knee socks are your thing, I will gladly try to keep your kids as clean as possible, but I feel like the real magic on camera happens when your children are running and playing, even when it feels unruly. If I don’t come home with dirt on my jeans, then I haven’t done my job. Before I went to SCAD, all throughout college, and after I worked in childcare, which has given me the ability to relate to kids on their level. I am not above a mouth fart or a dinosaur roar to get a natural smile out of your kids. In fact, I love it. It’s only awkward when they don’t laugh. Have you ever totally ridiculed yourself and had a toddler tell you, “Don’t do that?” It’s a different level of embarrasment.

I get so much joy from being asked to document your most special moments. I don’t know if I have ever documented a wedding ceremony without tearing up behind the camera, and I typically smile like a dork during the speeches. There is something incredibly beautiful about witnessing love story after love story, each unique and yet equally filled with a palpable effervescent energy. I will never get tired of the emotional rush I get in the moment when the photographic stars align and the subject is in the perfect sunlit spot with the breeze catching her hair in a beautiful windswept tousle. (I don’t think I have ever had the delight of windswept, nor tousled hair. Even without a cinematic breeze mine looks like a squirrel got lost and tried to make a nest.)

I am notoriously bad at posting, like I should probably hire someone to keep my pages updated, and I am telling myself I am going to keep up with blogging, at least for a solid week. I have worked hard over the years honing my eye and getting ever so slightly more skilled at capturing light on camera the way I see it when I tell you to “Stop right there!” I haven’t shared nearly enough, and I am excited to show you what kind of memories I can make for you.

xoxo

Kate