My story PTI
PT1
I'm Kayla, or Kay. Call me Kay. I grew up in a small-town in Central Pennsylvania where the corn grows tall and the deer run wild. When I was in 6th grade I started to fall in love with photography. Thinking back now, I don’t really remember what triggered it. I started saving for my first camera. I would weed all of our flower beds at home, clean the whole house, scrape gum off of school bus seats, literally anything I could do to make a little extra to save up for my camera. Once my birthday and Christmas came around, I had saved enough money to buy a camera. I ordered one on Amazon and checked the mailbox for a week straight until it got here (only if two-day shipping was a thing back then). I started taking pictures of my older sister. She would drive us to different locations and model for me. I reached out to one of our friends to see if she would model for me. She did and next thing I knew, I had people asking me to do senior portraits! Right about this time, my sister was in high school and I was a freshman. So, I was booking all of her friends! I was still shocked that people were paying me to take pictures of such a major stepping stone in their life.
The following year was my “sophomore” year. I was set to graduate school early so my second year of high school was my sophomore/junior year. I had someone reach out to me about doing their wedding. I was shocked, terrified, excited, and nervous. I had never even pondered doing wedding photography. I did that wedding, but kind of dropped off the photography world and graduated high school. I had always dreamt of being a teacher, so I was busy applying to colleges and figuring out what I was going to do.
I dove into college, majoring in Secondary Mathematics Education, and did a few random photoshoots for family and friends. I was a second shooter for a few fellow photographers at weddings. After my first year of college, my cousin got engaged! She asked me to be her photographer in the Summer of 2020 as she was set to get married that August. I had fallen in love with photography once again.