Today we’d like to introduce you to Brenna Gelineau.
Hi Brenna, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My mom started me out with photography. She always had a camera on her and always had a passion for it. When I was 13, I bought my first DSLR (Canon Rebel XS) for my birthday and took pictures of anything I could. As I got older, I would take pictures of my friends and me with a tripod or of sports, mostly hockey. I moved away from home in 2018, sold my camera, and realized how much I missed it. I went through military training for about 7 months, and right when I got home, I knew I wanted to get another camera. By this time, it was about when Covid-19 started, and I wasn’t working a ton because I was going to school full time. I met my current boyfriend, Jordan, in March of 2020, and he knew how much I loved photography and wanted to get another camera. He surprised me a few months later with the camera I was looking at, a Canon EOS RP- the camera I use today! I started to get back into photography by taking pictures of friends, family, landscapes, and pets. I started offering my services in the spring/summer of 2021. I’ve had so much support from my friends and family, and I couldn’t appreciate it more. I’m grateful that I can do this alongside school and working part-time, and it has been a pleasure meeting many of the people I have met along the way.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t always been a smooth road for me. I am in nursing school, with graduation set for 2023. This has been difficult to plan around because I never know how a semester will go, speed-wise, until I’m in it. In my first semester of school, I ended up closing my availability to focus on school, mainly because it was so heavy with bookwork.
Another struggle has been learning how to use my camera better, lightroom, and learning to pose and prompts. When I got my first DSLR, I researched and watched many YouTube videos to help me understand the camera settings better. Much research about comfortable posing and how to explain those poses has helped. Once I got lightroom, I did the same thing but focused on getting pictures of friends and family and just playing around with the settings on lightroom. Posing and prompts have always been challenging, but I feel I’ve definitely improved with that over time.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a photographer out of Duluth, Minnesota. I specialize in graduation photos, families, couples, and weddings. I am from a small town, and many people I’ve captured pictures of are from my hometown or friends of a friend. I think having closer ties to someone you know is what I am known for. I had some friends get married in April of 2022, and they had asked me to take their wedding photos. One thing that stood out to me that they mentioned was that they knew me and felt more comfortable having someone they knew to take their photos. I thought that was the sweetest thing, and it made me feel happy that I could provide the photos in a comfortable setting to people. I am fairly new to this, and I don’t do it full time, so it has been a rollercoaster of a ride, but it has been so fun. I have zero business background, so trying to grow a small business has been challenging, but I feel I’m heading in the right direction when people want a session with me! I’m most proud of being trusted by people to take photos for them.
I think what sets me apart from others is my flexibility. I always stress that some of my packages might not be perfectly laid out for a specific person or specific ideas, but I’m willing to work around that without extra fees or charges. I feel like many photographers don’t do this, but I know life can be chaotic, so I’m all about flexibility.
Had we loved to hear about any fond memories you have from growing up?
I am from a small town, and one of my favorite childhood memories was a game many people from my high school would get together and play at night. The police in town knew about our game and fully supported it, which was amazing. It was like real-life cops and robbers; we would play this until midnight most nights. We would meet at the park in our town, which was point A (our starting point). We’d have a few people driving (around 4-5 cars), and the rest of us would run to the destination (point B). If you were spotted by someone driving, you’d have to get in their car with them, and you lost. We would run literally across town, trying to hide from any car we saw in case it was someone in our group driving. It was probably the most fun I ever had in high school.
Pricing:
- Senior Portraits $175-$300
- Couples $125-$225
- Family/Maternity $125
- Weddings $1000-$1650
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brennajeanphotographymn.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brennajeanphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brennajeanphotography.mn/
