Friday, January 3, 2014

A little piece on my dear friend Amy

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:

                            
                                                                                             #wanderwithme