We recently connected with Jennifer Carrillo and have shared our conversation below.
Jennifer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
A very meaningful project to me is my book, Grief to Grace, in which I personify emotions and write about them. I used this project as tool to cope with a trauma that occurred in my life at the time I began the book. My hope is this book will help others talk about their emotions. The book is one page from being completed and covers over 35 different emotions. I have more photo shoot left, but the book itself is completely written. This project is a labor of love I began it in 2017! I will be overjoyed when I can share it with others.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a professional photographer. How I got into photography: My parents gave me a Kodak disk camera for my 9th birthday. I enjoyed documenting life, so I was photojournalistic photographer and loved black and white film over color, even at 9. I took photos my entire upbringing. Fast forward to when I got married, we had a wedding photojournalist photographer take mostly candid, black and white photos the day after our wedding (we had a late, evening wedding with more traditional photographer). I loved what she captured and started working for her shortly after our wedding. I shot mostly black and white film and lots and lots of weddings and events. I was hired for my photojournalistic skills, but branched out into all areas of photography. In my film days, I shot with more than 5 cameras to cover all the different mediums I used for events and weddings. I specialized in infrared, and still shoot infrared today! My own business formed in 1999. From there I grew as a film photographer, then moved into digital, and now mirrorless. I have been blessed to have this business and do what I love for a living. It is a beautiful thing!
What sets me apart from others, especially today, is my longevity in photography, my film experience, my eye for small details, my ability to capture emotion, my photojournalistic background, the art shots I take combined with capturing as much as I can so that when the client reviews their photos, they feel like they are reliving the day (that is a beautiful compliment I get often), and my innate, natural understanding of light. I love what I do! I am active, and can keep up with my clients, young and old a like. I work hard for my clients to provide them with exactly what they are wanting. Their happiness is my goal!
What Am I Most Proud of? That is a loaded question…I am proud of the work I have done that has impacted others in a positive way. I was the photographer for the Kids are Gold campaign for St. Baldricks. I had my photos displayed in New York’s Times Square on the digital screen, and pretty much everywhere to raise awareness for children’s cancer. I was personally involved with the sweet model, a 5 year old girl with neuroblastoma. She has since passed away, but I think of her and her family often. It was one of those life altering experiences that profoundly changed me. I am proud of my book and how I have allowed myself the patience to experience the journey along with conceptualizing and brining to life the emotions I chose to personify. When I look at the art, the work that went into each character, I am proud of this. When I created this book, I did not have a lot of money to work with- each character was modeled by a regular person and was created in a budget friendly way. I think this book will impact others positively, I am proud of this. Through good times and bad, I have kept my business running and I am proud of this too. I love for others to see themselves as I do, beautiful, special, unique. If I have done this for my clients, then I have done my job well.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I think one of my most resilient moments was when I accidentally hit my left eye hard with my camera (tearing my retina, but did not know this at the time) and went on to complete and deliver a nice family photo session. I continued to work as usual, even though my eye was not the same. After a few weeks of flashing lights, crows not there flying overhead, and just an overall feeling of uneasiness, I went to my regular eye doctor check up. It was there, she discovered I was days away from going blind as I had punctured my retina and the fluid was dangerously close to my optical eye. Unfortunately, my right eye had developed a full blown cataract, likely from all my years of shooting into the sun, and this could not be rectified before my emergency surgery. This rendered me blind for about 8 weeks. As a single parent to three young children, my income being the only income we had, and being self employed, I was extremely concerned with how I was going to get through everything. I had to hire photographers to shoot my weddings, events and photo shoots, depend on my children to help me around the home, and depend on those around me to get me to my appointments. My sight did not start to remotely come back until around week 6 and I was fully recovered by week 8 and I returned to work around week 10. I look back on that time period with much gratitude for all the people who helped me and my children. It was one of the scariest, most difficult times in my life, but I kept my photography business running, got through it, and learned a lot from the experience. Learning to accept help from others was the biggest lesson learned because prior to this, I was not good at asking or receiving help. Now, I have learned that asking for help is a strength because no one can do it all alone. I believe we are here, in part, to love and support one another, and helping is one of the ways we can help each other heal and be our most successful selves.
Have you ever had to pivot?
In 2020, when the world shut down, when my business was forced to shutter, I was not sure what was going to happen to me and my children, financially. I knew I needed to do something to improve upon our lives while things were shut down. I am also a go getter and a doer, sitting still in my house was never going to satisfy me. Two months into lockdown, I decided to get my master’s degree in forensic psychology. I applied to Grand Canyon University and was accepted. In 2024 I graduated with straight A’s and Summa Cum Laude. In addition to going to school, I started doing “porch shoots” in which families would hire me and I would use my long lens to capture them from the sidewalk. This side business was extremely successful, rewarding, and so much fun to do! Today, in addition to still running my currently successful photography business ( I have also just launched a secondary photography business focusing on motorcycles, motorcycle life, and construction…JP_Steel and Shutter Photography, and gotten my motorcycle license), I also write forensic reports and speak at schools about forensic psychology. When the world stopped, I kept going. I found a new path and merged it with the one I was on which brought about so much more opportunity and success. I am so grateful I was willing to take a risk, open to change, and adapted as needed.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jennifercarrillophoto.com and www.jennifercarrillophoto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcbellarosaphotog and https://www.instagram.com/jp_steelandshutter
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferCarrilloPhotography/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifercarrillobellarosa/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JPMotorides
