Kate Ryan

Photographer, Parent, designated family memory keeper and business person

As a professional photographer for 10 years and counting, I’ve had the joy of documenting every different kind of story you can imagine, from the big lifetime milestones of wedding day love stories, to the whirlwind of emotions that come with starting (and adding to) your family and watching them grow. I’ve had the pleasure and responsibility of seeing just how important photos are in the celebrations of our lives.

More than that, over the course of my life, photos have been my only way of connecting with some of the most important people that I’ll never meet – my ancestors. The ones who passed before I was even born, the ones who impacted my family and my life purely because they existed. Being able to connect with these people through the few images I have of them, and the stories and memories that they inspire is one of the defining ways I have come to understand who I am and what I am here to do in this world.

While telling my own stories through photographs (both real-life documentaries and those more creatively inspired) is something I have done long before making this my profession, nothing drove home the importance of my everyday photos more than my own milestone moments: becoming a parent.

Seeing my tiny humans grow and change before my very eyes minute to minute, grow out of clothes between naptimes, and develop into the people they are at an astonishing rate lit a spark within me. I found myself taking more photos than ever before, more often with my phone than with my DSLR. I was excited to create a deep record of our adventures to share with them one day, to celebrate their awesomeness and show them just how much they are loved.

These defining moments and the precious everyday stories that mean so much, are the reason I am a photographer, and the reason I do the work that I do.