Daily Inspiration: Meet Keelyn Cazzolla

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Keelyn Cazzolla.

Hi Keelyn, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve always been someone who had a camera with them, even from a very young age, so I’m not surprised that this is where life led me! I have always lived my life capturing it all through a lens, creating memories I can continue to relive over and over. The number of times I’ve been told to put the camera down and live in the moment, but honestly, that IS how I live in the moment, haha.

I have always taken photographs just for fun. In high school, I discovered the art of traditional film photography and fell even more in love. While doing film photography all through high school, my teachers provided opportunities to showcase my work, and my family helped me pick up small gigs here and there, including capturing a family friend’s vow renewal and designing a handmade photo album for them.

When I graduated, I didn’t have access to the high school’s darkroom to develop my film and make prints, so slowly, it kept getting pushed to the back burner. The craziness of college didn’t leave much time for it anyway. Fast forward to graduating college, I was working as a research lab manager until the pandemic hit. I was originally planning to go to grad school and obtain my PhD in Psychology, but academia just wasn’t meant for me.

I knew I needed to bring art back into my life, so I decided to try my hand at digital photography. I had never used a digital camera before or even used editing software, so I was really intimidated but wanted to give it a try. I ordered a basic Canon Rebel T7 kit to start I figured the worst-case scenario would be keeping it to take pictures of family and friends for fun. I got that kit in the mail and immediately started teaching myself anything I could about the camera and its settings. I took pictures of EVERYTHING. I even spent an entire week learning how to edit, use presets, and how to make my own.

I still wanted to use my psychology background to help people, but I wasn’t sure how I could do so without a degree until I remembered something about art therapy and also thinking back to how those paintings and drawings made me feel. I wanted to figure out how to create that style work on my own. I have always felt myself drawn to emotional depictions and wanted to learn how to capture that and make my art meaningful and create an impact as those artists had made on me.

I’ve always found a kind of beauty in darkness, in confronting “demons,” as they are just as much a part of life as all of the joy and happiness. I taught myself editing styles to help convey the emotion I was going for, worked hard to figure out how to best instruct people to show emotion, anything and everything I could to produce the work I saw in my head and felt in my heart, and to also be able to create what others saw in their minds too.

Now, I use my art to embrace and showcase beauty within both the bright and dark aspects of life. Over the years, I have helped turn trauma into art for so many amazing people. Alcoholism, sexual and domestic abuse, and anything people have gone through that they might want to reframe into a positive in their life and create something beautiful from it.

It’s truly an amazing experience seeing the reaction during this healing experience. I absolutely love helping others with my art.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not at all haha. Running a business is not easy. Between finding a work/life balance, establishing healthy boundaries, imposter syndrome, self doubt, marketing and promoting myself, and everything else, it truly has been quite a wild ride.

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in creative conceptual photography. I love the challenge of turning what seems like nothing into something extraordinary. I am someone who is constantly trying to push my own boundaries for what I create. I’ve worked extremely hard to make myself adaptable to any situation I’m thrown into, whether it be unexpected.

Lighting situations, equipment malfunctions, spur of the moment inspiration, etc. Even my editing styles are adaptable to the concept and style of each session. My secondary specialty is candid documentary photography where I capture the raw emotion being portrayed without specific posing. My art is definitely more emotionally driven and I enjoy being able to tell a story with it.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
An interesting fact about me is that I’m passionate about underwater photography and love incorporating water into my work, but I’m absolutely terrified of water. I’m constantly finding ways around having to actually go into the water myself, but still shoot concepts that involve being underwater.

I’ve used kiddie pools, bath tubs, and even fish tanks to create some of these underwater concepts that allow me to just stand overhead and shoot them from above. It’s been a pretty cool challenge to create this illusion that i’m capturing these underwater when I’m actually standing above them. But yeah, I’m absolutely terrified of water, especially deep/open water so you won’t find me doing scuba sessions!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.photosbykeelynmarie.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/photosbykeelynmarie
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/photosbykeelynmarie
• Other: www.cara.app/photosbykeelynmarie

Image Credits
Isabella Griefer, Aerial Owens, Emily Pieper, Courtney Trapp, Juliet Cummings, Mary Ryan, Ashley Occhiogrosso, Fiona Morgan, and Chantel Hardison