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

Kelsey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

In 2015 my stepmom, Lisa bought her first DSLR camera and was so excited to start learning the process of photography. I had take a few years of classes for film photography about 7 years prior to this and always had a love for photography but didn’t have the equipment accessible for me to develop my own film anymore so I took a pause on photography. After she had purchased her camera and I saw how excited she was I knew that was my push to just go into the digital world. I purchased my first camera and from there on out she and I would meet up with photography mentors and take workshops until we finally started feeling like we fully understood the world of digital photography. We would ask people in our lives to model for us whenever we had the chance so we could get as much practice as we could. We had a great response from people in the community so when we realized we both had the same love for the same types of photography we decided to test the waters and start taking clients together and from there we just spiraled into this amazing adventure of meeting so many amazing clients, coming up with creative shoots and getting together with many small business women in our area to make art together.

Kelsey, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am currently a full time travel photographer traveling the United States with my husband and sons. I take on clients in places we’re stopping at and also take photos of sceneries and our children along our travels. Even with all of that, I would still say that my main passion in photography is horror/Halloween photography. In 2018 I decided to combine my love for Halloween with my love for photography and started doing an annual horror series that I’d share over the month of October. Over the years I have been able to execute many sessions that were either taking a specific spooky type of character or recreating classic horror movie scenes down to the small wardrobe details. My first two years of doing this type of photography had such a great response that I knew I had to do bigger and better each year so from there on out it became a group effort of my step mom and husband helping with photography and my friends helping with props and modeling. Each year we have been able to take what I am seeing in my head and put it into a photograph and it’s been the best part of my photography career.

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

The most rewarding aspect of being a photographer for me is the relationships I have made with my clients. There have been many clients that have put trust into every big milestone in their life. Starting with engagement photos and it turning into photographing their weddings, births of their children and their yearly family sessions from there. I’m now a full time travel photographer and these relationships with clients have gone so far that ones that have moved away from where I was originally based are meeting me in different states that I am traveling to so we can have a moment again to photograph together. I will always cherish those relationships I have built with clients.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That photography has to be a certain way for you to succeed. A lot of photographers I would follow when I first started would suggest keeping sessions simple, structured posing and not taking risks because “what if someone won’t like it?” Letting go of that helped me get to where I am now with sessions. Normal client sessions turned into documentary style sessions and it just shows the love and connection between everyone which makes the photos tell a story. And opening up to creative sessions doing things that were considered too much of a risk because of different posing, props and dramatic outfits have turned into some of my best work.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @kelseyallenphotos

Image Credits
First photo of just me credit to John Allen