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

Alright, Shawn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a story that illustrates an important or relevant lesson you learned in school

Being into photography all through high school, and then going off to college, even though it was just community college, really opened up my eyes to the amount of people that thought they knew everything. I remember one of the first times going in the dark room, and all the students in there were trying to show off and one up everyone in the dark room. I have always been the type of person to sit back and observe everyone in the room before I speak up. So as I observed everybody, I so badly wanted to say something to everyone, but I didn’t. Instead, I listen to everyone and I watched what everyone was trying to show off about and I learned from watching and observing everyone in the room that everyone had a different way of doing things. And I remember thinking to myself there isn’t an exact science to anything that anyone does, it’s also what makes photography such an art. One person art isn’t going to true with someone else, but it may ring true for that one person who really got inspired by looking at that photograph. Overtime I stopped judging people for how they were and approached photography. Everyone has their own journey to go on. Everyone has something different to offer. Everyone is no better or worse than you my style of photography may not speak to you, but it speaks to your brother or your sister or your mom or your dad or your neighbor or your best friend or someone you work with. The way I go about doing photography is not how my friends go about doing photography, but the end result is something we can all appreciate.

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’ve been doing photography since high school about 1994. I took classes all through high school and during any off time I would be outside taking pictures. Back then it was all film and dark room and hoping and praying that a picture came out. From my early days to now I’ve never been a technical photographer. What my main focus is always been is looking through the viewfinder lining up picture through the lens and wondering if that is going to be cool enough to hang on my wall as a large print. I’ve never worried about F stop shutter speed enough light no light too much light. I’ve always played it by ear and I’ve always just went with what I was given. I do understand F stop shutter speed. I understand all of that, but it takes me a while to relearn it every single time I go out but even after all these years of doing photography, I still enjoy doing it for myself more than I do other people I don’t push my business on anyone, I happen to just have people ask me about doing photography for them be at family photos, senior photos, weddings, or some landscape pictures. That’s one thing I find Joanne is when someone asked me to do something for them. I also love that they trust me enough to do photography for them Over the years I have realized that I need to change up how I approach photography. For the longest time I only did black-and-white photography and now I ventured into color photography over there. I’d say the last 10 years or so but I still prefer black and white photography , one of my biggest inspirations is Anton Corbijn, who is one of the main photographers for Depeche Mode. Seeing his work has inspired me to one day hopefully take a picture of bands, and have it either in the Rolling Stone magazine or used as cover art for an album. Right now my focus is doing street photography and this is really for myself. which I really think about it. I’ve always done photography for myself.

How did you build your audience on social media?

My social media following isn’t very much. On Instagram I have about 488 followers. I post a picture every day and I’ve been doing that since August 2023. So I haven’t been doing that very much. I’m also not going out trying to get people to subscribe to me or follow me or any of that, it would be nice to have more followers and more people to see my work but I also don’t want to go out begging for followers and subscribers. I’m on Instagram as well as threads. Just look for Keim photography KC.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

What are the lessons I had to unlearn there’s a pretty simple one just because one photographer charges a certain amount of money doesn’t mean you have to charge that amount of money as well. What you charge is going to be completely up to you. It is what you think your work and time is worth. You also can decide what you will include in that pricing. One thing I decided long ago was that during weddings, you will have me the entire day from start to finish. And you will also receive all of the unedited photos as well as the edited photos I’ve always believed that , your wedding day you should be able to see all of the pictures that were taken. Long time ago when my oldest brother got married, I remember hearing that their wedding photographer was holding their wedding photos because they had not been paid yet. They ended up getting their wedding photos but I just remember thinking , how awful that photographer is holding all their photos because of money. Now I was a young child but as I got older, I always just decided I didn’t wanna overcharge and I didn’t wanna hold all the pictures so learning that or learning that I can make my own decisions of how much I want to charge and what I want to give or not give I don’t have to follow what other people do , I think that sets me apart from other photographers.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/keimphotographykc?igsh=NTVvYmg2eHF0ejB5&utm_source=qr
• Other: Threads: https://www.threads.net/@keimphotographykc

Image Credits
KeimPhotographyKC