We recently connected with Robert + Elisabeth McKay and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Robert + Elisabeth thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

Good personal photography, in and of itself, is meaningful to our clients. People call weddings ” the best day of their lives” and then often, the day is so eventful that it seems like a blur just a day or two later! Our photographs help these families not only to remember their wedding a few days later but for years to come; and years later, the photos become a family heirloom! I can’t tell you how many times our couples have come to our studio to see their photos and just cried with happiness. Few jobs are this rewarding and we feel very lucky.
Family portraiture is another rewarding experience for both us and for our clients. We take great joy in taking part in this ritual that actually helps families bond. Children take pride and comfort in seeing a constant reminder in their homes that they are not alone on this journey but are instead a part of a family unit that shares moments like this together.
At other times: We help artists create stunning representations of their work for their archives. We help historical associations create incredibly detailed, sharable records of local historical artifacts. We help businesses and entrepreneurs show their best side. I can go on and on…
Everything about our work is meaningful to somebody and that makes it very meaningful to us as well.

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, Robert, grew up in an artistic family and have been taking pictures since about the age of 12, when my grandparents recognized my interest and gave me 3 very nice cameras that they were no longer using. When I got to high school, despite being limited by policy to one year of photography classes, I was allowed to take this class, all four years, as a sort of recognition of my chosen path. It was not until my 30’s however that I went after photography as a career and attended Brookdale Community College, here in New Jersey, in order to hone my darkroom skills and expand my knowledge of photography. It was here, in illustration class, that I met my future wife and business partner, Elisabeth Koch (McKay). Liz and I started working together right away in the way that many people start in this business, doing little jobs for friends and family; the first one being an album cover design for a friend’s band, Split Decision. From there, we shot a friend’s wedding together for fun. He had already hired a photographer but after reluctantly agreeing to allow us to shoot, he instructed us to just “Please, stay our of the way of the professional”; which we did… Later, he made his wedding album from our photos and we (a couple of starving artists) decided that we might have something here… and “McKay Imaging Photography” was born.
Now, almost 30 years later, having had a photography studio in Red Bank, NJ for the last 20 years, we engage in all types of photography. Our slogan is: “2 Photographers, 2 Views, 1 Vision”. Our motto is: “We specialize in diversity”… and by diversity, we mean that we do every kind of photo related job; weddings, portraits, head shots, editorial work, fashion, product photography, photo restoration, large format printing + more! We love a new challenge and manage to always make our clients happy.
I believe that what separates us from many other photographers is that for us, it is not just a business… we actually love photography and we like to believe that that love shows in our work!

Have you ever had to pivot?

Liz and I began our photography careers in about 1995. At that time, digital photography was surely a gleam in the eye of some engineer, but at that time, every photographer in the world was shooting to film to produce their images and we were no exception. We did this for about 10 years and so it was completely the norm for us. We were shooting mostly with 35mm SLRs but also doing medium format photography when needed and even producing some 4″x5″ negatives and slides, either for architects, for large group shots and for some of Liz’s personal work, namely a series of self-portraits that were (and still are) an art project for her. Film was our life… it was the industry standard… but then along came digital photography. I can’t even begin to effectively tell you how this changed our lives and the way we worked, but suffice it to say that any photographer or camera shop that didn’t take digital photography seriously, soon ceased to exist. I recall the manager of one of our own local camera shops telling us that “digital photography was a fad” and that shop was closed a couple of years later.
The pivot to digital photography was quite an expense in the beginning, not only to our wallets but to our nerves as well. Soon afterwards however it freed us up in so many ways. Gone were film + processing expenses for instance. Gone was the mystery of looking at a roll of shot film and wondering if you “got it”; and not knowing the answer until a week later when the lab delivered the processed film.
Now, we always know that we got it when we leave a job… but, oh yeah… we still have to back it up!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

As I mentioned earlier, I met Elisabeth when I went back to college to hone my photography skills, fully expecting to graduate with a better chance of success but with no idea that I would meet my soulmate, with whom I could share not only my family life but my work life as well. What Liz and I have is extremely rare. We are together (in the same building anyway) for almost 24 hours a day and have always been a one car family. On most days, we wake up together, eat all three meals together and work, both at home (OK, we do have separate offices) and the studio together.
Most people tell us that they could never work with their spouse… that they would probably kill each other. Our very infrequent arguments are almost always about creative differences but we find that our settlements almost always result in something better than when a given idea started.
When I walked into that illustration class, so long ago, I decided to sit next to the prettiest girl there, a California girl in my mind. I soon found out that Liz was an Austrian immigrant who was here on an aupair program and was taking classes to be a fashion designer. We were very differnt people. Despite being the most creative and talented person in the room, Liz was organized and literal to a fault, a trait that I attribute to her Austrian heritage. She also had that amazing European work ethic and was an amazing cook, artist, seamstress, etc.!  I, on the other hand was somewhat spontanious and sort of loosy-goosey to a fault. What we shared was a love for photography and a determination to work in a creative field. The name McKay Imaging was chosen because it left our future open to any kind of a career that included imagry of any kind but luckily our trajectory pointed us toward photography, the field that we both shared a love for, for all of the reasons that I’ve already mentioned…
So… these days, whenever a friend is wondering how they can ever meet their soulmate, I tell them to go to school! It worked for us!

Contact Info:

• Website: https:// www.mckayimaging.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mckayimagingphotography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/McKayImagingPhotography
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/bobandlizmckay
• Yelp: https://yelp.to/qTKq/lME4gDFIyJ

Image Credits
“Urban Ballet”, credit: Robert Scott McKay “American Housewife” , credit: Elisabeth Koch-McKay all other photos credit: McKay Imaging Photography