Today we’d like to introduce you to Breanna Demont
Hi Breanna, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I fell in love with photography and my hometown of Minneapolis simultaneously. I’ve always tried to see the beauty in the mundane, the raw, and the real, and I’ve always loved documenting my life experiences, surroundings, and the unique souls I meet along the way.
Photography has been a cherished way for me to slow down and learn to appreciate the little things around me and both romanticize and preserve my adolescence, and when you’re an angsty teenager, anything that makes you fall in love with life just a little harder is something you should hold on to and explore to its fullest potential.
I came up with my company name, Shredded Elements, sitting in Mr. Robert Fuhr’s photography class my senior year at Hopkins high school. As I was day dreaming of the next time I was going to go snowboarding, I started simultaneously contemplating how every experience in this crazy, beautiful life is comprised of various elements that are “shredded” by our psyches into memories, and that photographs work to ensure those memories will never leave us. These glimpses into our past just might be our only shot at time travel, and I wanted my company name to reflect that while also paying a small homage to my favorite winter sport on the planet, as both activities have always had their own way of making me feel my most alive.
As far as getting the Shredded Elements Photography name out to the public, it all started with me capturing a handful of dubstep shows at Barfly in 2011 and transitioned into me capturing music and dance festivals such as Caffeine, Frostbite, and SnowBall in Denver, Colorado when I moved out there for college. I graduated from the University of Denver in 2015 with a bachelor’s in journalism studies and a minor in art with an emphasis in photography before moving out to Telluride to snowboard and embrace all of the adventures the San Juan mountain region had to offer.
While I still did concert and festival photography in Telluride, taking on gigs like the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telluride Art + Architecture Festival and Ouray Ice Festival, to name a few, it was in that tiny mountain town that I really started dabbling in family portraits, which finally led to me breaking into the wedding photography scene at the tail end of my stay there. Weddings and portraits have been my bread and butter the last 4 years living in Las Vegas, and I just recently made the move back to Minnesota in February after deciding that 13 years was long enough to be away from my best friends in the world who still live in Minneapolis. I’ve been busy trying to build up my client base in the Twin Cities the last few months and I am excited to not only serve those in the midwest but also branch into destination wedding photography as well.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Every client I’ve worked with and every job I’ve taken over the last decade has been one incredible learning experience after the next, and I’ve always tried to look at these learning experiences in an optimistic way, because I’ve always known it’s all been part of the journey of getting to where I want to be. I didn’t go to business school at my university, nor did I go to a photography-specific art school, so this whole journey has been a crash course real life business school as far as me learning as I go and embracing the challenges that come with that when it comes to being a small business owner and artist at the same time. Albert Einstein was right about the fact that when we stop learning, we start dying, and when it comes to all things in life, we also only know what we know until we learn how to do things differently/better/more efficiently. My biggest challenges over the last decade+ have all come with doing certain things the “hard way” or the “slow way” and not knowing I was doing it the hard way or slow way until I later learned an easier/new way to do it, and while it would have been nice to have known these things from the beginning as a single-member female-owned LLC, I think doing it the hard way first has humbled me and made it that much easier for me to appreciate the new methods I learn that make my job easier and easier. It’s all been exciting for me, because I’ve always operated from a passionate mindset. I love what I do, and I LOVE learning as much as I possibly can about the photography world and the business world.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I specialize in conceptual portraiture and documentary-style weddings and events. Though I shoot with a DSLR, I’ve always had an affinity for the look and feel of film photography, which I think comes out a bit in the way I choose to edit my photos in a romantic, yet somewhat moody way. And since my background is in journalism, I’ve always had that photojournalistic mindset when it comes to my creative eye and overall vision that shines through my work.. I love capturing the “in-between” moments where candid smiles and laughter take place, because I think that’s the best kind of poetic nostalgia to look back on after those moments have passed. I’ve been told by numerous clients that working with me is like working with a best friend who genuinely cares about making them feel comfortable and making sure they’re having fun every step of the way, and that that sets me apart from others in the industry paired with my almost obsessive-level of attention to detail. I believe in treating every client as my most important client, and I only feel satisfied knowing I’ve gone above and beyond what’s expected from me with every final gallery I deliver.
How do you define success?
Success to me is loving what you do so much that it never truly feels like work, and contributing to other people’s happiness along the way. I approach my work from a place of love, passion and inspiration every time, and I’ve felt my most successful when I not only provide an unforgettable and fun experience for my clients, but when I see the awe on their faces when I show them mid-shoot how epic the shot was that we just took. When I can watch my subjects go from being camera-shy and often-times self conscious, to being confident and feeling genuinely beautiful in their skin, living in the moment and laughing their way through our shoot after their minds are put at ease that they’re with a photographer who truly cares about capturing them in the most flattering light, that to me is the ultimate measure of success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shreddedelements.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shreddedelements/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shreddedelements
