Interview with Katie Jane Photography

So I’m starting this new thing, where I interview people in the wedding industry, not only to help those of you who are planning see a little more into who these marvelous vendors are, but to get some questions answered too, and make your wedding planning easier.

We’re going to start off with the ah-mah-zing Katie Jane Goulah of Katie Jane Photography, whom I adore, I worked with her on Zan & Stephen’s wedding, and she threw a party for me when I was in NY because she’s just freaking awesome.  Oh yeah and talented.  So without further adieu…

 

Ang:  Tell me about yourself.

Katie Jane: *Laughing*

Okay, Pretend we’ve never talked ever… I have better questions I promise, I wanted to get one really corny one in there.

Do you want to know about my business or do you want to know about me?

Pretend that we had never met, so like if you had to introduce yourself, and give a summation of who you are and what you do to someone in an elevator, what would it be?

I am an editorial elopement photographer, and next year I’m hoping to branch out more into commercial photography.  I am also working on a couple of art projects and I’m hoping to have a gallery show sometime next fall, is what I’m aiming for.

OoooOooooo.  Where do you live?

New York, on the Upper West Side

In the most beautiful apartments ever…

*Laughing*

So how did you get into photography in general, and wedding photography specifically?

I have always been interested in photography, my dad was really into photography when I was growing up and we always had cameras around.  When I was about 13 or 14, for Christmas he gave me sort of my first REAL, like SLR camera.  And from there I took classes in HS and college, I wanted to go to art school, that was not… I don’t… that just didn’t work out.  But I kept it up, and when I moved to NY, this is sort of the mecca for photography, I started getting into it a little more seriously.

My husband, who was then my boyfriend, was like “You know, you could do this as a job.”, it had never really occurred to me. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that this could be my actual career, I guess because it had always been this hobby.  I started marketing myself, I worked with a lot of models to get stuff in my portfolio.  I did not want to be a wedding photographer, I thought I just wanted to be a portrait photographer.  I started doing a lot of family portraits, I was working at a pre-school at the time so I had a built in client base, I kind of got lucky.

Then a friend of mine asked me to assist her on a wedding, her second shooter had fallen through, and I went and kind of fell in love with it.  I was really surprised, I didn’t think I would like it.  I just ended up loving it.

You recently made a jump to focus on elopement photography, what draws you to elopements?

Somebody contacted me to do an elopement, I’d never really thought about elopements, I was like “This is amazing, this is such a cool idea”.  So I went and shot my first City Hall elopement in August 2010, and kind of realized there’s this huge untapped market, people come from all over the world to NYC to elope.  It’s just a market that I don’t think a lot of people were realizing was out there.  It was very untapped.  So I started getting into that, I felt like I could be a little more creative, that I could develop a little more editorial style, since I had more time for portraits.  You know, elopement clients have really short ceremonies, and they want to have two full hours for portraits, and I just don’t get that from a traditional wedding day.  It’s fun for me because I still get to work with these awesome couples who are getting married and do these weddings, but I get two hours to play with that, to go all over the city and do these shots that don’t normally get to do on a typical wedding day.

What do you love about photography in general, as your art form?

That’s a good question, I’m a very visual person, I’ve always been a very visual person.  When I was in school, even before I really got into photography, art class was always my favorite, I like to draw, and even being very very young and coloring and stuff like that, I’ve always been very visual.  I don’t know, I like the idea of being able to imagine something in my head and then recreate it.  The art project I’m working on, which you were a part of, I just imagined this image I wanted to create, I wanted to bend light and create rainbows. I experimented until I was able to do it.  I guess I just like being able to recreate what I imagine in my head.

You were talking about bending light, I’m assuming that light is a big inspiration for you?

Yeah, I am NOT a good… I liked to draw as a kid, I’m not good at drawing, so I’m not a good painter, I’m not good at any of those things.  I wish I was.  I am so jealous of people who are good at that.  I always say I get to paint with light, and that’s sort of what I do, I get to play with light.  Photography is all about light.  I don’t really like to work in a studio – I think that can be really cool, and people can be really awesome at it – but I like to go out and see what I can create from natural light, what other things I can do.  You know like lens flare and rainbows and…

ARTISTIC lens flare, not crappy Photoshop lens flare. 

No, I have never Photoshopped lens flare into a photo in my life ever.  I just want to go on record saying that.  Never have, never will!

So other than light, what inspires you, in your photography, in your just every day creativity?

That’s another good question…

I’m TRYING to get good questions!  Like, you’re going to do a shoot right?  Is it about the couple, the environment, what about that moment makes you go “Oooooo, this would be a really good idea!”

I guess when I’m shooting, I pre-visualize, like before a wedding I’m going to shoot, if I know where I’m going to be, obviously I look out the window and see what the light is like, I do pre-visualize what I want.  But until I’m actually out there shooting, it’s just sort of happenstance, it’s just serendipitous.  I’m just out there shooting and I’m looking for certain things.  I’m looking for directional light, I’m looking for how I can bend the light, what I can create.  You don’t know it until you stumble on it.  Until I’m out there shooting, I don’t know until that actual moment with the light and the people, and it all lines up all magical, and then I freak out.  There’s not one specific thing I look for, it’s just … I don’t think I’m answering this very well.  It all makes sense in my head.

Earlier you said you’re an editorial elopement photographer,  a lot of people hear things like “photo journalistic” or “editorial” and they don’t know what it means.  They think “Hey I want candids, so I need an editorial photographer!” or whatever.  Can you explain a little more about editorial photography and maybe a little more about what your style is and how it applies to editorial?

Of course.  I used to be a documentary photographer as in, that’s all I did.  That’s all I wanted to do, candids, sort of capture a day in a very candid way, and truly be a documentary photographer, in that I wasn’t posing anybody.  Then I was inspired by… well I’m very inspired by people like Annie Leibovitz, and the photography in Vanity Fair, I’m really inspired by fashion photography.

Which if anyone ever met you, they could tell in like 5 seconds.

Really?

Yeah

That’s funny.  I’ve never heard that, that’s really funny.  (Side note, this is like, the only time Katie wasn’t laughing in the interview, so I don’t think she really thought it was funny…)

So my style just sort of evolved.  What I would consider editorial is what you’d see in the pages of Vanity Fair.  I like really dramatic.  You don’t look super posed, but I’m not going to lie, I pose my clients, and it’s really funny to me, because I get these emails from people.  All my inquiries say “I love your natural style.  My partner and I don’t want to be posed, we love that you don’t pose.” And the funny thing is I do, I guess I’m just able to do it in a way that doesn’t look like posing.  I guess I just give direction, people respond to that better than me saying “I’m going to pose you” so I just say “Oh I’m going to give direction.”  So my style has evolved from being purely documentary, being just looking for those candid moments to, “I’m going to give you direction and we’re going to create a very dramatic portrait.”

It’s something that the subject creates themselves, as opposed to you physically standing over them and holding them and moving them in position like a mannequin. 

Right, I don’t move them into position like a mannequin, but I’m not going to sit here and act like I don’t pose my clients, and I don’t give them direction because I 100% do.  You have to.  Because people are nervous, they don’t know what to do, so I have an image in my head, and it’s different for every couple.  One couple might be able to get these incredibly high fashion looking portraits because that’s their personality, because they are dramatic, but that’s not going to work for a couple that’s maybe a little quieter, you really have to feel out who you’re working with.  A couple that does have a flair for the dramatic I can pose a little more, I’m never physically moving their body parts, that’s not what I mean at all.

It’s like you said with Vanity Fair, the photographer doesn’t say “I’m going to move you exactly how I want you”, they give direction on what they want the model to do and then the model does it, and because it’s not forced it’s more natural, and that’s why your photos come off as more natural.

Right, and that’s perfect. And I always tell my clients when we’re in the process of creating portraits, when I give you that direction, don’t feel like you have to… if that doesn’t feel natural to you, if it doesn’t feel right, move!  I’m going to give you direction, but it’s a suggestion, is what I like to say.  You don’t have to stay that way.

Good segue into the next question, what can people expect if you’re going to be shooting their wedding?

Their reception is still going to be shot in a very documentary fashion, that’s how I’m going to shoot your reception.  I’m going to be partly fly on the wall, partly in the middle of everything, but I’m not the type of photographer who’s going to go around and do table shots.  A lot of people still do that and that’s totally fine, but I don’t do that.  I’m very straightforward with my clients about that, if you’re looking for a table shot photographer, I’m not your photographer.  Reception is straight up documentary style, for your portraits I try to have as much time as I can with my clients.  I try to make that clear from the beginning, if we’re shooting a big wedding, I want at least an hour to do portraits.  I can’t always get that, and I understand, but I’m going to try and get as much time as I can.  I feel like people hire me because they like my portraits, so we’re going to have hopefully at least an hour where we’re out creating something gorgeous together.

What is a quick way to strike up a conversation or break the ice with you?

I love history, I’m kind of a history nerd, so I love it when I meet other history nerds, so that’s always really cool.  I like to read, I’m a big reader, right now if anyone comes up and talks to me about the Hunger Games I will be all over them, because I’m super excited about that.  Books, History, those are my things.

Any particular kinds of books?

It varies, my favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird, my cat’s name is Boo Radley.  But I’ll read pretty much anything, I read a lot of non-fiction, I read a lot of fiction, I just like to read, I’m a reader.  And I like to know what other people are reading.

Secretly what would be your dream wedding to photograph?

I really want to shoot in Europe, I really want to have a European destination wedding.  So something in Italy or Greece, something with a lot of culture and color.  I have this image of something on one of the Greek isles, or something like that, where there’s all that blue sky and white walls, and so much to play around with.  And small.  A small sort of detailed destination wedding, very intimate…

In the Mediterranean? 

Yeah!  Exactly.

What is your least favorite part of being a photographer/running a photography business?

Everything aside from photography?  The bookkeeping is horrible.  I really hate it.  Like writing contracts, answering my emails…  I know that’s not really an appropriate thing to say, but yeah, just the day to day paperwork.

The non creative aspect?

Yeah.

Editing is huge in wedding photography, lets talk about your processing.

It is in the middle of changing.  I feel like I’m in a really transitional period right now.  I used to do very very little editing.  I still am really big about getting it right in camera, obviously I shoot manual for everything and I’m a stickler for just getting it right when you take the photo.  After I shoot a wedding and I’m loading it onto my computer, probably 85% of the photos, I’ve been able to get the exposure, get it right in camera.  That’s great, because it takes out a step, if you get it right in camera, there’s always a little  color correction but you don’t have huge exposure problems to fix.

You don’t have to save them.

Right.  I don’t want to have to try and save a photo.  That’s not how I work, that makes me anxious.  Before my style started to change a bit, I would do some minimal color corrections, sharpen them and call it a day, and I was really happy with that.  Now I really am playing with color a little more.  I’m not making any drastic changes, but I’m bringing out the colors a little bit more.  I like a little bit of grain in my photos now, so I’ll add a bit of grain here and there.  I’m sort of bringing out the natural colors in the photograph.  They aren’t drastic changes, there’s a phase people are going through where people are making all their photos yellow, do you know what I mean?

The pee filter!

That’s not what I do.  I’m not going to change a photograph that drastically, I kind of hate that.  I guess I’m just trying at add a little more drama, I have an extra step with my post production now.  It’s added two weeks on my turn around time, I used to turn around my weddings in 3-4 weeks, and now I’m running about 6 weeks, because I have this extra step of making them a little more dramatic.

I saw you took a photo seminar recently, why don’t you tell me about that?

Yes, it was awesome.  I went to PhotoPlus Expo here in New York, I’ve gone to a lot of wedding photography seminars and workshops and that sort of thing, but I went to PhotoPlus this year for the more commercial side of photography.  I’m super interested in doing some commercial work next year.  I don’t ever want to give up my wedding business, but I’m just really interested in exploring the commercial side of photography.  So that’s what I went to PhotoPlus to learn about.  I have no clue how to break into it, and I came away feeling pretty confident.  It’s definitely going to be an uphill road, to break into that business, but I feel like I have some building blocks now, to figure out where I want to go.

You have been trying to grow your art photography aspect, especially with your new blog, North of 59^th Street, where you’ve been showcasing some of that.  Tell me more about your art photography.

I have a couple of projects in the works, the big project I’m working on right now is the one you were a part of, I’m calling it the “Thea Series” right now.  I don’t know if that’s going to stick, but I’m using a Lens Baby it’s a poor man’s tilt shift lens basically.  I’m just using it to create shapes and rainbows and bending the light in types of ways that you can’t do with a traditional lens.  I took photographs of a bunch of different women, who are all different, who look different in every way, and I wanted to make them all sort of radiant, is the only way to put it.  I wanted to use the light to make each of these women beautiful in a different sort of way, and I think I really have been able to accomplish it.  This is the series I’m hoping to have shown next fall, I want to have a gallery show and that will be the focus.

Yay!  You have to tell me if that happens, so I can be all *snotty accent* “Oh this is my friend Katie Jane, and she’s the photographahhhh and this is her gahhhhllery showing.”

And you would be in it Ang!

Well I don’t know if you want to use any of mine at all, and if you remember, our shoot accidentally got kind of X rated towards the end there.  Unintentionally.

It was, but I won’t show that part.

What has been your favorite wedding moment so far?

Oh that’s hard.  I’m lucky, I have really good clients, and their weddings are all really different.  I definitely have a few favorite moments, one of them was  definitely walking through a field of cow pies with Zan and Stephen so we could take wedding photos with their cows.  It was just funny, like “This is my life.  This is my job.  Right now I’m walking through a field of cow poop.”

What I love about that is when you look at the pictures with the cows, it looks so idyllic and happy and peaceful, and if you haven’t walked through their farm, you have NO idea how much cow poop there is. 

Right, like no one knows the ordeal we went through to get those photos.  It’s just really funny, we needed like a machete because the grass was so high. It was something I never thought I would do as a photographer. Probably another favorite moment was one of my clients recently had a giant fire pit in the middle of their reception and it was just crazy.  The light was crazy and everyone started roasting smores and the pictures are just awesome, this girl in her wedding dress just roasting smores is just really cool.

Have you had any uncomfortable/awkward wedding moments?

I definitely had some wedding party people who weren’t super stoked to have their photos taken, and who made my life somewhat difficult.  Any time you have someone who just doesn’t want to cooperate… I try to have fun with my clients, I’m really laid back,  especially when I’m posing the groom and his dudes, I try to have fun and joke with them.  I know they don’t want to be standing there, so I try to make it fun and sometimes you have someone who doesn’t want to work with you, and it sucks, but what are you going to do?

The worst moment was actually when I got stung by a bee.  I was shooting and it was the middle of the ceremony, I feel this pain in my leg, and I look down and roll my pant leg up and a bee falls out.  I pull out the stinger, my leg starts swelling up like crazy, but what was I going to do?  It was the middle of the ceremony so I kept on shooting, kept on working.  It was fine, it sucked, the wedding planner brought me a Benadryl so that was nice.  But I kept on shooting and I’m really proud of it.

If you weren’t doing photography, what would you be doing?

Sometimes I think I would like to be an art teacher which is such an endangered job, with the arts being so endangered in general I don’t know how realistic that is, but I always thought I’d like to be an elementary school art teacher or something like that.  My art teachers always had a big influence on me, and I became a photographer because of one of my art teachers, so that’s always sort of been my fantasy, if I gave up photography I’d become an art teacher.

I saw you’re participating in NaNoWriMo, can you tell me what your working on, or is it a secret?

It’s not a secret, it’s kind of stupid… It’s totally corny, it’s an adventure story, a historical adventure story spanning decades, starting in the early 1900s of this girl who stows away on a ship and comes to America, and it’s going to go through the 20s and 30s, and the adventures she has on her own.  It’s super cheesy I think, but I’m really enjoying writing it.

That’s the end of my questions, I didn’t want to be all “Lets talk for two hours!”, but is there anything else you wanted to say?

*Katie Jane hangs up*

Guess not.

 

I wanted to thank Katie Jane for being marvelous and volunteering to be my interview guinea pig.  (She did call back by the way)  Much love!

 

All photos were taken by the fabulous Katie Jane, are protected under copyright license and used by permission. They are not available for reproduction or redistribution. As always, if you do any of these I will find you, hunt you down, and stand menacingly outside your door with a baseball bat. Just FYI.