We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Scruggs Galloway. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.

Katie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

I offer family, couples, and individual portraits on 35mm film. It’s common in the industry of photography to shoot digital images and edit them before delivery. Often the portraits are posed and tidy. I like to take a different approach. I call my photo sessions “Nostalgia Shoots” because I want to highlight the magic in the mundane. “May I see now the glory I know will sparkle with nostalgia later on.” That’s an excerpt from an old journal, but it sums up my photography style well enough. I love to capture everyday life in its best light. And I choose to do this on film, not just because it’s beautiful but because it’s risky. For all study that goes in to mastering and controlling your film camera, there will always be an element of surrender and surprise.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a poet and film photographer based in Colorado Springs, CO. My debut book, Still and Still Moving was a 2024 finalist in the Colorado Book awards. The book includes original prose poetry and 35mm film photography. The poems that make up Still and Still Moving concern the groundlessness of change. Written in prose, this stream of consciousness collection is as endearing as it is existential. It is at times a probing self portrait and at others a crystalline commentary on the loneliness of disillusion. It is the backdrop of an invitation:

In Arizona, that once-was ocean, the sky dies bright blue. Sky turned sea. Ultramarine— another crowded-mouth key.

A key that cuts:

If you had to go alone, would you still come?

I began writing the book in 2020, when of course so much of our world was changing. The book documents my experience navigating deep uncertainty. The framework I had used all my life suddenly had fractures in it; I had to find out for myself what I could hang onto in these changing tides.

I am also co-founder of Becoming // Poetry, a Colorado-based duo that has been writing spontaneous poems for strangers and hosting community writing workshops since 2019. We offer custom poetry, written on vintage typewriters, at events like weddings, fundraisers, markets, and parties. You can follow us on instagram @becoming_poetry and commission a personalized poem year round.

As a photographer, I specialize in 35mm portraits including family sessions, couples, engagements, and weddings. I like to capture everyday life in its best light. This includes messy in-home sessions, unposed family portraits, and documentary style photographs. I believe there’s magic in the mundane, and I use 35mm film to document the days you will be nostalgic for later on.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had to pivot my business and career when I became a mother. In early motherhood, I felt pretty divided. It was difficult to nurture the creative in me while also nurturing a child. Motherhood is all-encompassing, sometimes in the most delightful ways, but I found that when I learned to give space for the artist in me to grow, my growing family was better off for it.

I have a set of film photographs that were taken just 6 weeks after my son was born. My partner brought him to an event I was writing custom poetry for. In the first photos, you see just me and my typewriter. But in the third, I have my newborn cradled in my arms between me and the typewriter. I titled the set of photos “A Sense of Self // Expanding.”

I’ve been exploring this tension in poetry.
——————

“A Mother”

she gives herself
like rainwater to the garden
dry dirt drinking
earth’s spilling
without remorse
but the discourse tangles her vines
stealing the stillness still essential for joy
“I am a mother.”
“I am only a mother”
“I am only one person”
“I am the only one he wants”
“I am more needed than I ever wanted to be and—

I am unwilling to weed
out my own thorny desire:
to nurture

the child
and
the child within me.

——————
The poem speaks to my resolute belief not only is it possible to nurture the artist in me as I mother my son, but it is also essential.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Whether I’m working as an editor, a photographer, or a writer, there is one question I ask myself again and again: Is it honest?

Honesty is the process and the product for me as an artist, and delivering a poem or a photograph that reflects something truly honest about someone’s life experiences is the most rewarding aspect. Honesty builds bridges—and those bridges bring us closer to ourselves, to others, and to the divine.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @k.galloway_ | @katie35mm | @becoming_poetry
• Other: Still and Still Moving https://a.co/d/g0VNBvN