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

Alright, Kseniya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with 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?

I have a quote right next to my computer, so I see it every morning while working, that says, “Fame has only the span of the day, they say. But to live in the hearts of people-that is worth something.”

I hope that with the photos I take, I am remembered for helping people feel better – whether it’s because my photography made them feel more beautiful or because the photos will remind them of happy times with loved ones, I just hope that my work makes people feel better for years to come. Outside of my work, I hope my legacy is the same as the work one I guess; I hope to leave the people I meet feeling better, happier, and more confident.

Kseniya, 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 a wedding and portrait photographer, splitting most of my time between Philadelphia and Los Angeles, but my bag is always packed and I am willing to travel anywhere, any time. My job is so much more than a job to me. It lights me up and gets me through my hardest days. My clients truly feel like friends and I am so grateful each and every day that I get to call photography my full time job.

I’ve done all variations of photography to prepare me for what I currently love most which is weddings and boudoir.

I love to photograph weddings because you just get to be in the middle of best energy and capture these moments for people that you know they’ll look back and cherish for years to come. There’s so many moments in life that we are with our loved ones but pull ourselves out of the moment to take a photo to capture these memories. I love being able to provide my clients the luxury of not having to break the moment and to put a stop to it – they can fully be immersed in every part of the day while I record it for them to hold on to forever.

With boudoir, I love to connect with other women, to relate to them, and to remind them that they’re allowed to love themselves, celebrate themselves and do something nice for themselves. I think women can be scared to say that they love themselves out loud because from an early age, we are taught to be quiet, back down and not be too confident. We’re constantly labelled as too something – too loud, too quiet, too conceited, too self conscious. I really want women to see these photos and see them as a permission slip to know that they can also do a shoot like this. I want women to see the shoots as a permission slip to be authentically themselves and become their own muse.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think there are a lot of things that non-creatives struggle to understand about the creative world. Often times creative jobs are looked at as ‘not as important.’ I used to get a lot of people telling me that if I wanted better health insurance or to make more money then I should’ve picked a ‘better job’ but if everyone picked those jobs they are referring to, we’d have no movies, no photos, no literature, no music.

I also notice that a lot of non creative people don’t understand how much work goes into doing a creative job well. Sure it’s easy to buy a bunch of ingredients and make cookies but it’s not easy to perfect a recipe and get it right every single time for your clients. It’s easy to take a photo with your phone but it’s not as easy to know which lens is the best one for that specific moment during a wedding day, what settings you’ll need to get the lighting to look how you intentionally want it to look, how to relax the subject in front of the lens so they don’t look stiff in the photo, how to pose them to appear natural but also flattering, how to edit the photos after so they can look timeless and not something they will look back and regret having a filter on the photo.

All people enjoy art to some degree but not all people value the time, effort, and money it takes for the artist to actually make that art for you to enjoy.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding thing about my job is knowing I made a difference in someone’s life. I tear up every time a client messages me that they have never felt prettier than when looking at the photos I took of them. When a boudoir client tells me that they felt comfortable opening up to me and that the photos feel truly authentic to who they are, I mean it doesn’t get better than that. I had one client tell me that she never saw herself as beautiful. She said, “I always saw myself as smart and kind, but never as a beautiful woman until working with you.” There is nothing more rewarding than knowing you helped someone see their true beauty because that’s the start of a new chapter. When we’re more confident in one aspect of our lives, we can slowly become more confident in all of them and start making bold decisions.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kseniyaberson.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/kseniyaberson

Image Credits
Kseniya Berson