Amy Emily Frames Your Love
Story
Empowering
women to see their individual beauty
By Kerryn McDonough
From a
pink Canon Snapshot to a thriving business, Amy Emily’s Cinderella story will
inspire you to trust your instincts and value your individuality. Once you see
the personality in her stunning photography, you will want to hire her to
capture your love story.
A few years ago Amy Emily Kelly was celebrating a close friend’s
engagement when she blurted out, “I’d really love to do your engagement photos,”
which she remembers was “a really foreign concept.” Her friend stared at her in
confusion before saying, “Amy, you don’t do photography.”
She was right. Kelly had no formal training, she did not
own the proper equipment, and she had never conducted a photo shoot.
Nevertheless, her friend believed she volunteered for a reason and decided to
give her a chance. Two weeks later, Kelly made the two-hour trip back to her
friend’s house in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with her pink Canon Snapshot in tow.
Despite initial trepidation, she started snapping photos and building
confidence. “It was a really great session. We were all kind of surprised by
how natural it was,” Kelly recalls. Within four days of posting the photos on
Facebook, she had booked her first wedding and eight months later, she was in
Germany photographing her first international wedding. Now, Amy EmilyPhotography is based in Boston, but Kelly continues to travel extensively. Her
clients adore her ability to capture raw emotion rather than simply
photographing beautiful, but static images.
Kelly is not just a photographer, but an instant friend.
Her fiery-red hair and hearty laugh complement her enthusiastic personality,
which makes her clients feel instantly comfortable. “It was encouraging to see
her excitement during the shoot,” says Rebecca Hart, an Amy Emily bride from a
year ago, “She made me feel like I was her first priority and put my interests
before her own.” Kelly cares about people. She aspires to give women more than
just beautiful photos of their weddings, but beautiful photos that capture
personality, emotion, and meaning. “She’s a very unique person. She really
cares about people and takes the time to build relationships with her clients,
which is special and rare,” says client Jessica Kim whose family Kelly has
photographed a number of times.
This
dedication to connecting with her clients matches her personable nature. Kelly practices
photography because it allows her to understand the value of life. As she
stares through the lens of the camera, she confesses, “We have such a short
amount of time to live that I want to photograph the beauty I see around me,
and everyone’s love story, like it is in this moment- how it looks, as real as
it looks.” Her need to show true beauty stems from her concerns about the
critical nature of society. She believes that too much time is wasted
commenting on others’ flaws and that people miss what makes someone beautiful
in his or her own way. Because of society’s beauty standards, many women have
complex views of themselves and their bodies. Kelly wants to give them images that will make them feel
confident in their own beauty. With a big grin and wide eyes, she reflects on
her career. Kelly believes that the ability to enable women to see the same
beauty and confidence in themselves that she sees in them is reward in itself.
She would rather provide women with confidence than be awarded fame or
recognition.
For Kelly, photography always has been and continues to
be about passion, culture, and people, not money. When she founded Amy Emily
Photography, she was working full time as the executive assistant to a CEO
while studying for her master’s degrees in both philosophy and theology at
Baptist Bible College in Pennsylvania. Through her study of philosophy, Kelly
explored art and culture, which led to her appreciation of photography. Even
though the timing was poor considering her full-time position as an executive assistant
and extensive studies for her masters’ degrees, the discovery of her talents
and establishment of her business unraveled nicely. “It’s kind of a Cinderella
story,” she says.
The only problem was that she did not want anyone to
know that she had a thriving business. Because she was uncertain of her talent
and shy about her success, she named the company Amy Emily, which she hoped no
one would recognize because at the time, everyone knew her by her first and
last name, Amy Kelly.
Despite her reservations, Kelly’s determination pushed
her to keep photographing. She owes this determination and hard work ethic to
her parents, whom she describes as the strongest, hardest working people she
knows. “They always had two or three jobs each and constantly helped those in
need,” Kelly explains. She was raised in Piscataway, New Jersey where she swam
competitively for much of her youth. Her admiration of her parents’ values and
the discipline she learned from swimming reflect in her own characteristics. Not
only is she driven and hardworking, but generous and caring. Her kind spirit
resonates in her business model. She believes that photographing a wedding is
about capturing the story of the day, not about providing a client with a
certain number of images within a set time frame. “She’s not seeing it as a
business,” explains Jessica Kim, “but as a service of her time and her
talents.” Because of Kelly’s strong belief in telling the whole story, she tries
to take photos of every guest, emphasizing that the candid ones truly capture
the spirit of the event. Rebecca
Hart recalls, “She gave me images of moments I didn’t even know I would want.”
The spirit in her photography parallels her adventurous
spirit. She has always had a desire to travel, which is the inspiration behind
destination weddings. “Destination doesn’t necessarily mean somewhere far or
exotic,” explains Kelly, “It’s just wherever one family travels to spend time
together, some place that is not normal for them.” She has photographed
weddings in New Hampshire, Germany, West Delaware, and various spots in Florida.
Kelly enjoys destination weddings because they are usually smaller, more
intimate, and include multiple events over the course of a few days. The time
spent with the bride, groom, and their families allows her to establish relationships.
She learns about their pasts, which enables her to better capture the personalities
and stories of those who attend the wedding.
From her beautiful photos and professional manner to her
adventurous spirit and destination weddings, Kelly strives to capture the
individual beauty of every client while simultaneously establishing a
relationship and making them feel comfortable in front of the camera.
When working with clients, Kelly follows the wise words
of Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you did, but people will never forget
how you made them feel.”
For more on
Amy Emily:
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