Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Kastner Gentry
Hi Brittany, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a fine art wedding and portrait photographer in St. Louis and surrounding areas. I started my storytelling journey as a sophomore in high school, mainly started out photographing high school seniors and families. I was assisting photographers on wedding days as much as I could, eventually gained enough experience and booked my first wedding a few years later and hit the ground running in the wedding industry. I have been in business for 15 years now and it’s been such a joy to be a part of capturing so many lifelong memories for so many people throughout the years.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I don’t think anything in life is a perfectly smooth, everything has it’s bumps and highs & lows. But I truly believe that the lows make you stronger as a business owner and even as a person, so I am grateful for it all! Starting a business in high school and carrying it through college has its own difficulties, I was working 1-2 jobs as well as going to school and working on growing my photography business full time, I was BUSY. But my little business grew and I was able to go full time and in turn dedicate all my time to growing it further!
Another challenge came a few years later. During the pandemic, full-sized weddings were basically shut down. We had to sit down and figure out how to address this with our clients, handle it on our end and still make sure our business weathered the storm. It was a scary time for a multitude of reasons. I remember having to reschedule 15-20 weddings and photographing over 55 weddings in the following year – that was a doozy. But we made it through and the joy that the entire wedding industry felt when things started to normalize and weddings restarted was undeniable!
With any business, challenges are bound to happen but having a support system like I have with industry friends, my husband and God, it makes the challenges seem not so big in the grand scheme of things!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I photograph joy. Whether that’s in the form of a wedding, a brand new baby, family moments – capturing all the raw emotion and undeniable joy is my true goal every time I pick up my camera. It’s the ultimate privilege to photograph my clients’ weddings and then follow their story as they grow their families and take on new adventures year after year. I am based in (and born and raised in!) St. Louis but I travel all over photographing weddings; creating fine art, true to life images with a romantic flair. I constantly think about the grandchildren that will one day flip through wedding albums that I photographed, creating lifelong memories for generations to look back on is such an honor that I don’t take lightly and I carry that with me to every wedding and every session I photograph.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Being a mom to a two year old and running a business, I don’t get a lot of free time for books or podcasts but I have been loving the podcast “A Purposeful Brand”. It’s a podcast about faith-based business for Christian women. Using my business and really every aspect of my life to honor and glorify God is the ultimate goal!
Some apps I use daily are Honeybook, Unfold and Canva. These help me create a booking and posting system that is more stream line and efficient for my business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.blk-photography.com
- Instagram: @blkphotographyphotos
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blkphotographybrittany
