Kelsey Green
When Kelsey Green picks up her Canon 5D Mark IV, the 24-year-old from St. Paul sees the world as God does: bursting with beauty. Being a photographer has enriched her Catholic faith — and being Catholic has informed her photography.
You can find Green in the morning grabbing a vanilla latte from J.S. Bean Factory, working by day as digital content creator for Mendota Heights-based St. Paul’s Outreach, shooting weddings on Saturday and attending Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul the next morning.
Q) You’re in the thick of wedding season!
A) The summer is really busy! It’s usually a 10-hour day and then you get home and you have a month’s worth of editing.
Q) How has being a wedding photographer shifted your thinking on your wedding, whenever that day comes?
A) Before doing this, I would think about the look of my wedding — the dresses, the colors. I wanted to present my wedding in a certain way.
I don’t think about that anymore. The main thing I’ve taken away from shooting weddings is that I want to just enjoy the day. So many brides have said to me, “I’ve been more stressed about the darn centerpieces than anything.” Why? That’s the least important part!
Yes, I want my wedding to be beautiful, but not so much the aesthetics. My focus is shifting to the beauty of the sacrament and entering into that.
Q) Do you prefer big weddings or intimate ones?
A) Intimate for sure.
Q) How do you seek out beauty in daily life?
A) It’s a matter of slowing down. Daily life is busy. It’s easy to go through the motions and be oblivious to everything around you. Just the other night, on a drive home from my parents’ place, my boyfriend was playing me music and we were driving past the Minneapolis skyline and the sun was setting and it was this great moment where I stopped and soaked it up.
Q) It sounds like you took a picture with your heart.
A) That’s a good way to describe it. Sometimes I feel like I have a bad memory. That’s why I like photography. It’s taking these moments you want to remember and having them in a still frame.
Q) I bet a lot of us think we have a bad memory.
A) There’s so much information coming at us, especially with the digital world. We’re constantly seeing images and videos. It’s nice to have your own: “This is me! This is what I’ve done.”
Q) Sometimes I pick up my phone and just look at my own photos on it.
A) I do that all the time — more than I go on social media now. Even if it was just pictures from yesterday. It makes me feel so grateful for the people in my life and the memories we make — rather than looking at other people’s pictures and thinking, “Oh, I wish I had that.”
Q) Do you encourage clients to print their photos?
A) Yes! I’m a huge proponent of printing photos. In my mind, it’s like a photo doesn’t really exist unless you have a hard copy of it. Everything is digital now, and we have all this online storage, but one little thing could happen and you could lose it all.
There’s something so special about holding a picture in your hand. I have this app, Timeshel, where I can upload pictures and then they send me a pack of the photos I took for the month. They’re little squares. They come in thin cardboard slips. I keep them in my bookshelf.
I’m such a sentimental person. One of my favorite things in the world to do is sit down and look at the photo books my mom made when we were kids. It’s like looking back at your childhood. They’re going to be there for my kids and their kids. They’re going to be there forever.
Q) Was it hard to establish your rate when you first launched your business, Kelsey Green Photography?
A) I felt bad asking for much money. I didn’t feel deserving of it yet. Then as I got more experienced and honed my craft, I was more confident to ask for a better rate. But it was still difficult to go from, “Oh, I charged $50 for a photo shoot and now it’s $300.”
I find myself second guessing a lot: “Am I really worth this?” I don’t want to rip people off. Then I realize how much work I put into it, and I know what I’m worth.
Q) Does being a photographer make you a better Catholic?
A) It’s cool because I can see a pretty stark contrast from before I was doing this and now. Photography has helped train my eye to see beauty more — more often, in unexpected places. It’s changed my perception of the world. Different light and shadows, shapes, colors — I notice all the intricacies. It’s filled me with a greater sense of awe and wonder. I feel like I’m closer to who God created me to be, and I’m able to see through his eyes a little better.
Q) On the flip side, does being a Catholic make you a better photographer?
A) It gives me a disposition toward seeing people as beautiful in their uniqueness. Being able to see them in light of being God’s creation, being a daughter or son of God and being so loved by him and wanting to live up to portraying them the way that God made them.
Q) How does photography influence your own self-image?
A) I think it’s helped me embrace myself more naturally. I’m not overly concerned about my appearance, as I was at one point. A lot of that has to do with my relationship with the Lord and coming into who God created me to be.
Everyone’s beautiful! I’m not the exception. When I’m taking someone’s picture, I love getting to focus on their beauty and getting to hype them up, saying, “Wow, your hair!” I like it when they come and they’re not completely done up. It’s more fun because it’s playing on their natural look. “Oh, wow — this is a cool part about how you look.”
Q) Your career path has unfolded from real estate to weddings and now the music scene. What have you learned from that unfolding?
A) I used to be stressed about figuring out my career and how to provide for myself. Then I tried to detach from that idea of having a crazy good career. It was a lot easier to place it in the Lord’s hands. I looked at broadening my options — I even considered doing mission work full time. I just wanted to give the Lord room to work.
And it worked! The Lord took all the desires I had for my career and my life and my faith and handed me this job at St. Paul’s Outreach. It’s a way I can do mission work and use photography and creativity to showcase the beauty of the Lord.
Now, I have a lot more peace about discerning things for my life. Obviously, you have to do the work and take the action, but so much of it is opening your heart and mind to what the Lord wants to give you and being willing to accept what that might be. Even if it’s terrifying at first, it always winds up being the best.
Do you love going to the Cathedral?
A) There’s something about it. Every time I walk in, it centers me. I find myself looking up. It’s so vast and beautiful. It doesn’t get old.
Q) What do you know for sure?
A) The surest thing I know is the fact that the Lord loves me and will provide for me. That’s been so apparent in my life lately. If that’s what I know, that’s what I know and that’s all I need to know.
Recent Comments