I’m so proud to be part of such a talented community of Indianapolis Photographers after years of wander(lust)ing this country and living coast to coast. Having spent my childhood in Rhode Island exploring tide pools and the Newport
mansions, then my adolescent and early-adult years in Michigan (go Mitten State!). I’m grateful for the career opportunities that have taken me to Montana, Colorado, California, and now let me call Indy home.
My husband, our pups, and my family are the most important things in my life. I love all things fall, overuse exclamation marks because I just am that excited about life, and am enamored with Christmas and the feeling it instills in people. I know nothing about makeup, rarely brush my hair (curly hair lets me get away with this), think donuts are magical, and don’t drink coffee (I know, right!?). I believe sunshine heals, the ocean is therapeutic, and there isn’t a bad day that can’t be cured with sushi… a cupcake… or both!
I know everyone has a different story about how they came into photography. For me, my mom set a strong example for me as a kid of what documenting memories and photographing family looked like. We never had photos professionally done (unless you count Sears studio photos in the early 90’s) so I grew up thinking every family had a built in photographer-mom.
My grandma gave me my first point-and-shoot film camera when I was still in the single digits, and I spent my teenage years lusting after my Mom’s 35mm. I went to college to study art education and it was only natural that my concentration be in photography. I graduated, got a teaching job, and spent the next 10 years mentoring teenagers in various educational settings.
During a goal setting activity in 2011, while demonstrating an activity for the program I was facilitating, I wrote down on a post-it note that I was going to be a photographer. I didn’t take it all that seriously, at first, but later made a verbal commitment to give photography a full-time try within the next 5 years. Of course, at the time, I had no business experience outside of the few sessions and weddings I had shot for friends, but I figured 5 years would be a comfortable cushion to figure it all out.
In 2013, my own mentor, and a dear friend of mine, ripped the bandaid off for me and booked me for her destination wedding – a gig that required me to be established as a business, and I was on my way! A year or so later I learned that my grandpa had a passion for cameras and had worked in a camera store for years. I didn’t know him well (he passed away when I was young), but knowing that it was his wife that gave me my first camera was the moment that all the pieces fell together for me.
It just felt like photography was in my blood.
I still have that very first camera. Earlier this year we were talking about it while reminiscing over old home movies during a family get together. My younger brother jumped up and raced out of the room, only to return a few moments later with my camera. It had been sitting in his closet for years and years, something I had mindlessly handed down to him sometime and he had stored on a shelf. I was in tears.
And while I do believe that there’s a history behind my story and how I came to be in this business, I believe that we make these choices for ourselves. So when I started sorting through business names years ago I went through every possible solution I could come up with until I finally settled on ‘casey and her camera’. After all, that’s what this is. Just me… and my camera.
So let’s get together! Just you, me, and my camera… and we’ll make a day of it! And you can bring your dogs, too!!
casey and her camera was voted one of the best Indianapolis Photographers specializing in lifestyle, couple, senior, wedding, and family photography for Indianapolis, Indiana and the surrounding areas.