Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Bartelt.
Hi Emily, I’m so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, how can you bring our readers up to speed on your story? How did you get to where you are today?
I fell in love with photography in high school. I grew up around horses; I had horses, my family had horses, and I was always photographing them. I started with disposable cameras and went to the point-and-shoot digital cameras when they were famous. I learned how to shoot with a film SLR camera in high school, where I developed my film and prints. Then, when I graduated high school, I went to college to study photography and got my first digital SLR camera. I played around with photography for friends and family, especially when my first niece was born in 2008; I took so many photos of her and really fell in love with portrait photography. Fast forward a few years, I had my first set of twins and decided I wanted to stay home with them. I turned my “hobby” into a career to make some money as a supplemental income for my family, and it gave me the flexibility to stay home and raise them. I officially made it a business in 2013, right before the boys (Sawyer and Knox) turned 1. Then, my family moved to Osage, where I grew my business, had my second set of twins, and raised my 4 children while building my photography business. When my second set of twins turned 1, my family moved back to Austin, MN, where I was born and raised; I found a cute little studio space in Blooming Prairie, MN. I live in Austin, but all of my kids attend school in Blooming, so it worked out great to have my own space there. I aimed to grow my business that year, but COVID-19 slowed that. However, that was a blessing in disguise because I became foster care licensed and adopted a baby through foster care. He has been a great joy for me and his 4 siblings. Finally, now that everything is back to normal, I am continuing to grow my business and make it exactly what I hoped it could be.
It wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Honestly, no, there have been a lot of ups and downs within the last 10 years. I just haven’t let it get me down. As I was about to graduate from college with my degree in photography, I became very sick. I was in and out of the hospital for a good 8 months. I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that almost took my life and did take my hearing. In August 2010, I was diagnosed with Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis. I was very sick, but since I was diagnosed, my disease has been managed with yearly low-grade chemotherapy infusions to keep my immune system suppressed so my disease doesn’t become active again. I will never get my hearing back, but hearing aids help tremendously. Also, raising 2 sets of twins and building a business has a lot to do with little support, which slowed me down but never made me quit. I have made many great friends from photography, not only photographers but also clients who have become amazing people in my life who are so kind and supportive that it makes all the downs in this business and life worth it. I am currently going through a divorce, which is okay. I am happy, and my kids are so glad. I have a partner who is so supportive and wants to partner with me, too, so we are currently rebranding and adding some new photography services that I am super excited about!
Thanks for sharing that. So, tell us more about your work next.
I specialize in Newborn and Family photography. I love spending time with families and getting kids to laugh and giggle. I love capturing true, authentic love. The kind of happiness you can’t get in posed sit/stand here and smile photographs the true playful love between parents and their children, siblings, and mom and dad. It’s important to showcase love and emotion, the chaotic silliness of kids at all ages, and to remind parents that this time in our lives is fleeting, and we truly blink, and our babies are now teenagers. I quickly realized that time flies by after becoming a mom, and I want to make these moments last forever. I can only do that by capturing them on camera, whether photograph or video. However, with that being said, I do truly believe that we must live in the moment as parents, especially moms, so I try not to spend too much time watching my kids through my phone screen. That is why I am here as a photographer. So you can take some quick videos or snap a quick photo on your phone, but putting your phone down and living in the moment, looking at your children watching them and not your phone screen, is priceless, and no amount of money will ever be able to replace that. Hiring a photographer at least once a year helps make that an easier thing to do. What sets me apart from many photographers is the playful sessions and love I capture and that I take a photograph and create a beautiful piece of art through editing. My work, where I feel the real “creative and artistic” piece, is so vibrant and colorful, only created in post-processing through editing. I love sunsets and capturing that golden glow at the end of the day. I will forever be a sunset chaser. After being a photographer for so long, truly seeing light and color has changed everything for me. I never understood when I first started, but now I get it. Seeing light and color now is so different than when I first started; it has been one of my favorite things since becoming a photographer.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I love photographing all families, all types of families. Love is beautiful, and time is fleeting. I want to give all my clients something that they will cherish forever. Especially moms, I feel like moms are constantly snapping pictures of their kids with their partners, and it’s not reciprocated as much. Not only do we, as moms, want those photographs, but when we are gone, our kids will want them. They will want something to hold in their hands and sit there and say, “I remember mom like this, wasn’t she so beautiful.” I want kids to remember themselves as cute, squishy, baby-faced toddlers through the awkward teenage stage where they “pretend” they don’t want to hug mom but do it because she wants them to. All those stages in life are something you will want to remember; they are something that, even though we think will live on forever in our memory, they won’t. The only way to keep those memories alive is through photographs, not just digital images but actual prints. We live in a time when we have taken more photographs than any other generation before us. Still, we are also the generation with fewer prints to pass down to our children and grandchildren. I hope to change that within my business model and create more family heirlooms than digital files that get lost or forgotten on a hard drive.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.emilykay-photography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilykayphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilykayphotography/
