Meet Katie Weeks of Katie Weeks Photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Weeks.

Katie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I think my story starts with a love of stories themselves. Growing up, I was fascinated with people. My family traveled as a ministering bluegrass gospel band and while we were traveling all over the south-east we met all kinds of people and heard their stories-both the heartbreaking and the joyful ones. Storytelling seems to be a dying art, but it’s a southern heritage that my Daddy has mastered. He can captivate an audience like none other, so there’s always been a curiosity inside me to discover more about everything unknown, but especially family related.

One day at a bluegrass festival we met a photographer named Jamey Guy. He is a fellow storyteller and I fell in love with his portraiture work and since he was a student of southern culture, he fell in with my family swapping stories and retelling history. While we were busy touring, I spent time learning the ins and outs of my sister’s point and shoot camera and when the opportunity to upgrade came along, Jamey helped me figure out where to start. Eventually, Jamey hired me to assist him on shoots and in the editing process when it worked around our band schedule. I learned so much from those experiences.

Photography was never on my radar for a living, but I’m 100% convinced this path was a God-ordained thing. I’ve held many in-between jobs during rough patches, but photography has been a constant. My love for photography has grown and refined itself over the years, most recently being just after my uncle died last year. In the days that followed I would walk up to my aunt’s house to spend time with her and look at her photos. My Aunt Fay was always documenting beautiful portraits of her family: my cousins, me, all of us swimming, their RV park on Dolphin Island that the Christopher Family built, etc.

Before my Uncle Chris’s death, I just wanted to create beautiful portraits, but looking at her portraits it was then that I realized I really and truly wanted to showcase family and the love felt between people. Family has always been everything to me, but now I’m less caught up on posed perfection and more caught up on documentation and taking the photo from the lens to my hands. Everything completely changes when you hold a portrait in your hand. You are literally holding a piece of time in your hands and I think that is magical.

Has it been a smooth road?
I think I was fortunate how my journey began, but my growth in my work and art has definitely been a struggle. As an entrepreneur and an artist, I battle self-worth issues and outside influences. I think the hardest part is finding the work/life balance. Being an entrepreneur and building my business, I am working all the time. The buck stops with me, so to speak. I’ve got to keep everything running smoothly, hunt down leads, make time to get the details right, all while also making time to just live and enjoy my personal life. It’s hard. My dad likes to counsel me like this: “Does this add value to your life? Yes? Plow the field. No? Lay it and down and walk away before you get tangled in a web of distraction. It doesn’t pay to be as busy as a bee if you ain’t making honey.” Talk about some southern pearls of wisdom!

This past year, in particular, has been challenging business-wise because I married my best friend in April. Together we’ve been building a house since the beginning of 2017, managed to plan a wedding, continue in non-stop ministry all while having a sudden serious illness hit our family. Running a full-time business in the midst of all these circumstances has been incredibly difficult. To make it work, I’ve got to prioritize and then try my absolute best. I cannot be lazy if I expect to own a successful business. If I want to reap the harvest, I’ve got to sow the seeds.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Katie Weeks Photo story. Tell us more about the business.
I think what sets me apart is the experience I give to my clients. I’m genuinely interested in hearing their story and I want them to be comfortable. I’m a portrait photographer, so I specialize in people and they absolutely fascinate me.

Especially when it comes to family and small businesses. My goal is to tell their story in my portraits. I’m known for asking a lot of questions, laughing a lot, playing around with the details in my frame, and being excited about my clients. Most of my work consists of headshots and helping people get the right look for the clientele they are pursuing, helping them tell a story through a look or smile, but also really cheering them on to go after the things they want. Letting your personality show in a portrait is such a valuable skill that I try my best to educate my clients about.

Nine times out of ten, people aren’t looking for perfection in their portraits. What they are truly searching for is authenticity. My work is two sides of the same coin. I capture professionals chasing their business goals, but I also focus on portraiture work that captures life outside of an office, inside the walls of people’s homes and their rich inner personal lives. I want to photograph what family means to you, no matter what that looks like. It’s become my latest obsession, as I mentioned earlier because of the passing of my uncle and the richness that I believe the family dynamic holds. I want to show people that it is worth the time spent putting together a portrait session because I feel as a culture, we so often forget that our time here is finite. Our time on earth is like a vapor and is best spent surrounded with people that we love.

I’ve lost track of the times people have told me they don’t like having their picture taken or it’s too much work to get the family together for a portrait, but by the end of the session they tell me they’ve had so much fun together or that they never knew their kids or husband could smile like that… Let me just say this: it is worth it. It is always worth taking the portrait and making the effort. One day those portraits will mean everything to you. Make the most of the opportunities you have.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
When I was first starting out, I used to obsess over the industry and who was doing what and how they were doing things differently from me. My mentor Jamey gave me the best advice. He said, “Katie, keep your nose down and work. Don’t get caught up on the competition. Glance but don’t look too hard. A professional photographer is one you see working 10-20 years down the road. The industry moves and shifts. Just work.” Every time I feel myself getting distracted, I have to remind myself of three things: Don’t panic. Stay Focused. Just work.

I really don’t want my photography to be focused on trends, so I try not to put my focus there. I want my work to be motivated by what will stand the test of time. Real life, not fads. Genuine people. An honest moment in time. I want to remain true to those ideas while I use my camera and years of experience to their full potential. I think that’s why the film is making a comeback. People are tired of a disposable experience. They are tired of being sold to. They want a real, concrete experience to look back on and hold onto.

Authentic connections will create genuine moments, which will create honest work. I think if more people get on board with that idea and are fierce in their pursuit of it, things will improve overall.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.katieweeksphoto.com
• Email: katie@katieweeksphoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katieweeksphoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatieWeeksPhoto/
• Other: https://society6.com/katieweeksphoto

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