We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kari Tello a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kari, thanks for joining us today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

Documenting the real shit matters! Obviously we take photos to remember important moments, & while a curated “posey” photo can be so creatively inspiring & a beautiful work of art, there’s rarely any emotion attached to it. More than anything I want the couples I work with to be reminded of why they’re so in love when they see their portraits, & why the hell they got married in the first place! I want them to feel the pure joy of their wedding day rush back every time they look at their wedding photos. I do everything I can to encourage couples to just be present & soak up every moment on their wedding day. If they’re present, not only will they enjoy it & actually remember it so much more, but hopefully that’ll give me the opportunity to capture REAL emotions! But more than making the couple themselves feel cared for on their wedding day, I want their children & grandchildren to be able to connect with their family long after they’re gone. I love looking back on my grandparents wedding photos, I don’t have them around anymore & pictures are truly the only thing I have left to remember them by. I don’t necessarily care to personally be remembered, but I hope that in documenting the authentic moments of peoples lives, their loved ones will forever feel connected to them & hopefully be inspired by the art of it all.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am Kari Tello! I’m a wedding & elopement photographer based in Southern California! I started 2nd shooting weddings for a good friend (Valarie Metz @mammafolk) about two years ago! I started shooting film when I was in middle school after finding my late grandfather’s Minolta SRT 101 35mm camera in a box after he passed. Originally I would say I’m “self taught” but the truth is I’ve learned so much more from my friends in the industry in the last couple years than anything I figured out myself! When I started shooting with my friend Val she was actually just about to hit her 10 year mark of shooting weddings full time & realized she wanted to transition into other creative ventures, which set me up for so much success taking the leap into doing weddings full time! She recommended all new inquiries to me for the upcoming year! Getting started completely alone is soooo hard but having friends who were a couple steps ahead of me – like Cambria Shelley @cambriashelley & Klaui Varadi @klauivaradi, who so generously sent future clients my way when they were booked, made it such a seamless transition! Obviously they really believed in my craft & potential as a business owner, without that encouragement I probably wouldn’t have had as much confidence in myself to dive into full time wedding photography as hard & fast as I did hahaha! I’ve found having an incredibly supportive community is so crucial to getting started & maintaining any success in this realm.

My passion is shooting weddings & elopements in a very relaxed documentary style! Stylistically I’m heavily influenced by the nature of shooting film, in the sense that I have to be very precise & calculated with capturing the perfect moment, as well as in my editing for digital by trying to encapsulate that nostalgic timeless feeling! My top priority is to make sure when I show up on a couple’s wedding day I am providing a very relaxed & warm presence & giving them super authentic direction through any “portrait-y” moments! More than anything I want them to be as ‘in the moment’ as humanely possible haha! I think prioritizing the client/photographer relationship prior to wedding day makes a huge impact in this process! I highly value doing engagement shoots with couples who also hire me for their wedding day! Working together beforehand is so fun for me! I am an all or nothing type of person, so selfishly If I’m going to be there on wedding day I want to be there for everything in between… & hopefully after! I’m really proud of the relationships I’ve built through this business & anytime I can educate newbie wedding/couples photographers! I recently started a podcast (Kick Your Boots Off) with the main goal of sharing tips, tricks and my plethora of creative opinions on all things wedding related, as well as debriefing lessons learned as a wedding photographer with other pals in the buis!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I got really lucky inheriting my grandpa’s film camera as my first real camera, I still use it regularly but have since upgraded to some more reliable gear for weddings specifically! Photography is not a cheap hobby to make the transition into full time. In my first year of business I was investing pretty much all the money I made, back into better gear & back end systems! But it truly is something you have to do as you go! I bought a Canon Rebel t3i in high school with graduation money, it was the perfect camera to get started on! I think when you first start out it is completely fine to just use whatever camera you can get your hands on! Financially speaking you have to just do the thing & invest every penny back into upgrading gear! The first thing I saved up for with money from 2nd shooting weddings was a full frame dslr! Luckily I already had one super solid lens (50mm 1.4f) – even if a new photographer is on a cropped sensor camera body, a good lens will drastically improve the quality of images they’re producing! After I had the essentials for shooting then I started investing in stuff like a gallery delivery system, contracts, my website, adobe Lightroom classic & all the other back end stuff that keeps my business running smoothly. But like I said, it’s all stuff that can be invested in as you keep shooting, learning, & growing! It never hurts to ask for help along the way either! A lot of photographers have old gear they want to get off their hands for cheap or even free, especially for friends trying to get started!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Being yourself. You attract the clients that connect with you on a personal level! From there, giving every client an experience as unique as them will make a huge lasting impression. At the end of the day people just want to feel heard & understood, & feel like they are individually valued! I think every client interaction has the potential to grow my business, because hopefully they are left feeling so stoked on the whole experience that they have to share it with friends and family! Practically speaking, I have a note in my contract that requires clients to give photo credit by tagging me in any photos shared on social media! So if they leave our experience stoked, they’ll post photos & in turn they’re sharing my work with new potential clients! The majority of my clientele comes from instagram! I try to stay consistent with posting & hash tagging, but word of mouth recommendations are really what couples are looking for. Finding a photographer through a hash tag search is one thing, but the most secure leads I get are when someone has been personally referred to me! Word of mouth recommendations come with a sense of trust already, so when that person does end up inquiring they’re usually coming to me ready to book – & hopefully that cycle of trust continues with the next!

Contact Info:

• Website: karitellophoto.com
• Instagram: @karishootsfilm
• Youtube: Kari Tello @kickyourbootsoff
• Other: Streaming platforms: Kari Tello – Kick Your Boots Off

Image Credits
personal photo: shot by Jade Woo all additional photos: shot by Kari Tello