Today we’d like to introduce you to Kimberly Churchman.
Hi Kimberly, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My love for photography has been an ever-evolving relationship. I always envied those who got to scout amazing unique locations and then got to capture families and create memories that they would cherish for a lifetime and enjoy displaying in their homes. After having my second child, I had the opportunity to make it my main business and boy was it scary but it has been SO incredibly worth all the hard work.
I love capturing families, newborns, children, seniors and fine art portrait sessions. In the last three years, I found a huge passion for posed newborn photography and I think the reasoning behind that is I love that it’s always challenging me and it’s SO rewarding.
Newborn photography is something that I was very determined to master, but at the same time, I wanted to make sure that I learned all the little details that go along with new babies. Newborns are so incredibly delicate and precious, which is why I wouldn’t handle any newborn until I was properly trained in both newborn posting and safety. When my clients hear that I have been properly trained, it’s almost as if there is a sigh of relief (this is especially true for first-time parents). I am very satisfied with my growth with not only capturing families, seniors and children but especially newborns and cant wait to see how much further my career will take me.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
With being in such a photographer-saturated area such as Kansas City, I found it very challenging to differentiate my work among the others. You have your mom togs, who love to just capture their kiddos and occasionally others’ kiddos, then you have your side gig photographers that do it just for some extra income. Then you have your professional photographers that are a legal tax-paying business that have a ton of fees and overhead to account for on top of all the countless hours spent shooting, marketing, ordering and editing portraits. This is just the very short version of what all really goes into having a successful business.
Everyone needs portraits and everyone is looking for a different experience. It’s up to me to provide them with that one of a kind experience, that makes them want to come back time and time again for me and my talent and not for the “cheapest bargain.”
The other struggle I faced when trying to put myself out there, was getting others to realize that not everyone wants the same experience. While many amazing photographers may deliver a great experience, I wanted to offer something above and beyond. So many of my clients have expressed to me that they don’t have any physical portraits of their children anymore and that they never got around to printing those digital images that they had taken over the years. This was mind-blowing to me that in today’s society, most of the younger generation won’t have actual tangible portraits of their childhood because everyone is conditioned to doing digitals. This is where I switched my mindset as well as my clients and I’ll never look back. The joy of seeing my clients opening up their gorgeous portrait products on delivery day is indescribable and knowing that they will actually get displayed in their homes to be enjoyed versus sitting on a USB or on a website link just means the world to me. As photographers, we spend countless hours editing and working on client galleries and the thought of them not getting any further than social media just breaks my heart.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
One thing that I have always enjoyed and what I feel sets me apart from other photographers is my love of capturing unique portraits of children. You may be picturing milestone sessions or cake smashes because thats what most envision when thinking of why you’d do just portraits for little ones but I have a huge passion for taking it a step further. I love creating unique pieces of art featuring your children. This all started with my “Gone Wild” portraits of my oldest son that was in a wooded setting, an old pair of jeans that I ripped up and burned to created an old vibe to and an old mason jar.
I artistically added in fireflies and other special effects in post-editing to create a storybook vibe to the portraits. They were such a cute moment that I’ll always treasure. From there, I created my “gone fishing” sessions as well as my “Fox” sessions. Each image is artistically hand edited by me (above and beyond ) to create a one-of-a-time keepsake of your little one. The best part about these sessions are that they don’t even have to look at the camera and smile! You got it! These are more naturally captured because I want to capture who THEY are in the great outdoors and let their little imaginations run wild. These have been a huge hit for my business and I just love creating new and unique ideas to offer my clients, versus just the typical, “look at the camera and say cheese,” because lets face it, children usually only love taking photos EXCEPT for on photo session days haha.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
For anyone that is looking to start a career in photography, just don’t give up. Photography can be such an intimidating career choice, especially since many think that it’s all about pressing a button and slapping a preset on it. It may be a career that is often looked at as being “easy,” but if most do their research, they will see that it’s a very difficult and time-intensive career path.
Take your time and really learn what makes you, YOU and what makes YOU unique to the industry. Don’t follow other’s ideas unless you put your own spin on it. This will really set you apart and make clients want to be in front of your lens. Just because others are doing the same thing, doesn’t mean you have to follow. I promise you will succeed if you don’t let the mindset that “Wow, I’m not booking, I must not be that good” swarm you because remember that good ol’ saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
You got this! Also, side note, Kansas City has an amazing photography community and we all help build each other up. You’re never alone.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://Kimberlydianephotography.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/kimberlydianephotographyKC
- Facebook: Facebook.com/KimberlydianephotographyLLC
