Guest: Kellyn Wilson, Kellyn Wilson Photography & KWP Branding

Episode Introduction

Behind every beautiful photograph is a story. Not just of the people in front of the camera, but of the heart behind it.

In this episode of The Hook, I talk with Kellyn Wilson, founder of Kellyn Wilson Photography and KWP Branding, about resilience, reinvention, and the quiet courage it takes to build a creative business while living a life in motion.

From military spouse to full-time photographer, Kellyn shares her journey of finding identity through disruption, the healing power of connection, and how she helps families and entrepreneurs capture who they truly are.

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Sarah: Welcome to “The Hook with Sarah Larsen.” I am your host, Sarah Larsen, and today my guest is my dear friend Kellyn Wilson. She is a photographer, and if you have seen my photos on social media recently, she is responsible for those. I love them so much. We had such a great session, and she really helped me get through being on camera, which is a challenge. Kellyn, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your business?

Kellyn: Well, first I want to thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here. I do own two businesses: Kellyn Wilson Photography and KWP Branding. I focus on family and newborns, and my branding work is for solo entrepreneurs, small businesses, and headshots.

Sarah: Awesome. You are such a good photographer. I also publish two magazines, and Kellyn shoots my cover families for both of them. My covers are always beautiful, so thank you for that as well.

Kellyn: Thank you.

From Army Brat to Artist

Sarah: I would love to go back in time. We’ll get to how you became a photographer, how you got into that, and how you started your business, but let’s start with the good old days. Where did you grow up, and what was your family like? Did you have siblings?

Kellyn: I was an Army brat. My dad was in the Army for almost 23 years, so I did move around a lot as a child. Most of my childhood I spent in Maryland. After I graduated from high school, I attended the University of Charleston in West Virginia, where I got a bachelor’s in radiology with a focus area in mammography. I do have one older sister, and yes, it’s been good.

Sarah: Radiology and mammography both involve taking pictures.

Kellyn: Yeah, it does.

Sarah: So I was going to say you’re not doing anything with your degree, but in a tiny way, it’s related.

Kellyn: Yeah, it does. Actually, back in the old days, we were dipping the film and putting it in the different chemicals until the advances with digital radiology came up. I got to see the progression of that, too, just like film with digital photography.

Sarah: I didn’t realize that.

Kellyn: I don’t want to date you too much.

Sarah: No, but you can tell I’ve not really given that side of radiology much thought. I actually had a boyfriend in my early twenties who was a radiology tech, and that was the early nineties.

Kellyn: Yeah, it’s hard to imagine that. But my first job, I had to know all of the quality assurance for the chemicals, and know how to mix them so the film would adapt. Then we would hang them up and look at the X-rays that way. Then it advanced, and I got to see it all on the computer screen.

Love Letters

Sarah: Once you graduated from high school, did you meet your husband before college or after college?

Kellyn: My dad went to West Point, and my husband went to West Point. When Dereck, my husband, applied for the academy, they hooked him up with a sponsor, who was actually a good family friend when my dad was at West Point. So, basically, they try to hook you up with someone to get to know you and to be like your person. His name was Gary, and that’s kind of how we met—through him. We dated all the way up until we graduated, and we got married close after graduation.

Sarah: Were you traveling back and forth from West Virginia for college, so you were in a long-distance relationship during all of that?

Kellyn: We were. Yes, we were flying when he could. He didn’t have a lot of time off being at the academy, so whenever he could, it was just like a weekend or whatever, but we were flying back and forth.

Funny story, we didn’t have phones or anything back then where we could text, so I sent him a picture of me, and he sent me a picture of him. Dereck’s from Flagstaff, Arizona, and he does a lot of boating at Lake Powell. The photo that he sent me was when he was actually hiking in the Grand Canyon, so he was tiny, and I couldn’t really tell who he was. The other one was him on water skis, and you could just see his shoulder. He had a really good picture of me, but I could barely see him.

The first time that I ever met him, he played football. I went to go watch a game, but they switched jerseys during that game. He told me to look for 65, but I was actually watching his friend the whole time. I didn’t even realize until the end that that was not him. It was a funny story that we still look back and laugh on.

Sarah: I remember part of that story is that you had on a specific sweater so he could find you in the crowd. What was the temperature that day?

Kellyn: Oh my gosh, it was the hottest day. It was like 90 degrees in Trenton, New Jersey. I told him, “You can find me because I’ll wear a multi-colored sweater,” and I did not want to take that thing off. Oh my gosh, it was really hot.

Sarah: You have to send me that photo just so that I can use it to promote this podcast episode. That would be really funny. Yes, because I’ve seen it, and it’s really cute. The day you actually met in person. That’s so cool. So, that was definitely a fun time. So, then you got married after graduation, is that right?

Kellyn: He graduated June 1st, and we got married June 2nd. We knew all of our family and everything was going to be in for his graduation, so it just made sense. We got married at West Point in the Cadet Chapel, which was the same chapel my parents were married in, so it brought back a lot of memories for everybody. Then he commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, and we started our military journey from there.

Sarah: Where did you move immediately to some place new? What was the first location?

Kellyn: Our very first location was Aberdeen, Maryland, and that was just for a quick six-month schooling period. Our really first assignment was Fort Riley, Kansas. That was a hard assignment because the war in Iraq had just kicked off. I didn’t see him at all. He was gone a year, came back four months, and then was gone another year. That’s when my career started to kind of take off, and I got to really see the challenges of being a military spouse and a career.

Sarah: How long were you married before your first child?

Kellyn: Trent was born in 2006, so a couple of years.

Sarah: When you said your career took off, what did you end up doing after college? Did you go into radiology?

Kellyn: Yes. After college, I had to study for the board exam, and then after I passed the boards and we took our first assignment at Kansas, I worked for an orthopedic surgeon’s office with six surgeons. That’s when I say the dipping of the film and all of that stuff happened there. It kept me busy. Dereck was gone, and there were a lot of hard times there. We lost a lot of our friends. I was by myself, didn’t know what was going on, and newly married, so that job kept me mentally focused.

The Weight of Waiting

Sarah: One of my favorite subjects is disruption and how it affects our lives. I am curious about your mental state, how you got through that on your own as a newlywed. Your husband was gone immediately, and you guys really hadn’t spent a lot of time together beforehand.

Kellyn: No, no. I speak for a lot of my military wives, friends—I’m not just saying it was hard on me. It was a hard time in general, but I struggled a lot. I started having some medical complications where I knew it was stress. I was watching the news way too much. People were being… like I said, we lost a lot of our friends. I didn’t hear from Dereck; all I got was a letter once every couple of months. I still have that box of letters upstairs, that’s cool.

When the military police would pull up to the door, you didn’t know who it was. My girlfriend’s husband who lived right next door to me passed away. They parked up to the door. We lived in a big brick unit, and I was on the right, and she was on the left. They came up, and I was washing dishes. I didn’t know which way they were going to go, and I kind of think I blacked out a little bit. I think that’s when all the anxiety took over my body. I started getting dizzy spells and didn’t know what was going on, all while working a full-time job.

No one understood what stress or PTSD was. It was a hard time. The war was all new. No one knew that that’s what was causing it; they just said, “Oh, there must be something very seriously wrong with you.” So, they gave me a lot of prescriptions.

You asked how I got through it, and it was with my Army friends. My girlfriends checked on me. We held each other up through everything. I thought, “Okay, great. We’re all through this for one year.” I don’t know how Dereck got through it because he actually knew he was going back to Iraq before he came home. They told him, “You have four months,” with a couple of weeks of that spent in the field training. He told me after we embraced, and I hadn’t seen him in a year, that “I have two more months with you, and then I have to go back for another year.” I didn’t think I was going to get through that. With the job and the friendship, it continued. Supportive family helped, but that was probably one of the roughest four years of my life.

Sarah: I’m sure. I didn’t even realize that. Wow. So, after that, when was the next move? Was that over? Was that deployment not over? I know that is not true. He, you moved to someplace else then at that point, right?

Kellyn: Yeah, so we moved 10 times in total of our military journey. The next assignment was at Fort Lee, Virginia. We had to make a decision at that point because he had a five-year commitment with the military—if he was going to get out or if he was going to keep on going.

It was his goal—Dereck loves to teach. He’s a really good mentor, and his goal was to get back to West Point to teach the cadets. He had a lot that he had to offer. He has a chemistry degree, so he wanted to teach chemistry, and they offered him that. Of course, that put more time onto our service commitment, knowing there would be more deployments and TDYs, and we wanted to start a family. It was a really hard decision, but he did say that he was going to continue on.

From Fort Lee, it was just assignments after that, living life, having kids, and trying to adjust to all of our careers. He had lots of TDYs, which, if people don’t know, is when you go for two weeks or maybe a month at a time to a different location just to train. A deployment is usually six months or a year away from your spouse.

Sarah: At the next move, was Trent born at that point?

Kellyn: No, that was after he did that.

Sarah: You started having your family, your kids. You have two, right? When you moved to the new location, did you do another radiology job at that point? What was your trajectory?

Kellyn: I did, but that’s when the career got really hard for me. I did radiology up to 2016, but it was not a smooth process. I was denied many jobs because they knew I was a military spouse and not going to have stability. So, I took jobs that were really not ideal. I took jobs that were an hour commute. I did jobs that I should have been paid more for, but they knew I was probably not going to be there, so they weren’t going to give me the good starting pay. A lot of military spouses go through that, and it’s really hard. They have to leave. I mean, we are all very well-educated, and we could have good corporate jobs that make a lot of money, but we married into this military lifestyle. It’s like, “Great, I need to support my family, but how am I going to do that?” So I’m just going to take whatever I can or start my own business.

Sarah: A lot of military spouses do wind up starting a business of their own, or even maybe what they think is a business of their own. A lot of the direct selling companies out there are a good business that you can have, whether it’s makeup or nutrition, or different types of products where you’re selling directly to other people through the internet. In that era, in those earlier years, that was getting to know people, then selling. I know that you were in one of those businesses. We share that history.

It is shocking to hear how many military spouses have degrees. I was just having the conversation the other day with someone about how many people with PhDs aren’t using those, and you just don’t even know that they have a doctorate because they’re not using it. That is something that maybe you don’t realize when you marry into the military: that you are going to be sacrificing your career essentially in order to support your spouse.

Kellyn: Right. Absolutely. Then having a family and trying to find balance with the daycare and everything else.

Sarah: With only one parent at home.

Kellyn: With only one parent at home for a whole year. You’re just it. So you have to put your whole life and your career and everything on hold.

Finding Family in Friendship

Sarah: You need a career that is flexible as well because you are the only parent. Many single parents, I’m sure, understand that you are going to have to have some flexibility with your career because you’re going to have to be able to come home when the kids are sick, get them out of school, or take them to games and extracurricular things, unless they’re able to share those carpools.

I’m curious about the support of other spouses. Obviously, you guys rely on each other because there’s an understanding of what you’re going through, both from having a deployed spouse to the career challenges. What has that been like for you?

Kellyn: My military friends are my family. They’re like my second family. Even though Dereck is now retired, I just had a military friend come and visit me the other day. It’s like, and it’s like when I do see them, it’s like we never left each other because we’ve all been through those very hard times, and we understand the challenges that each of us has. So we might each have our own story, but really a part of that story is the same. Yes, it was a lot of soul searching and lonely times and doing what you had to do until you figured it out.

Sarah: Did you continue to struggle with the anxiety even once that threat seemed less? Did it ever seem less?

Kellyn: No, no, no. I can tell you it’s gotten better, but I think I was on such high stress for a long time that it’s almost like brainwashed me to a way that I have trouble with just little things that might not stress somebody out.

Sarah: It’s so interesting because I think back to when we first met, and Dereck was deployed at that time, and I knew that. To be honest, I still didn’t really understand. I’ve never really had close friends that were in a relationship where somebody was deployed, so I don’t think I really understood that at all what you were going through while he was gone. We were new friends at that point, so you know, it’s not like I had all the deep, dark details of what was going on in your head. It’s interesting to hear you talk about it now, and I think, “Thank God.”

I was really oblivious to what you were going through at that point. It’s good that we can share that with others who may have no experience with it, much like me. I’m very thankful. My husband was not military, but he was contracted by the Department of State and had points that he was away, but that all took place before we started dating. Even though I knew him during the late years of that, it never really affected me. I didn’t know what that was like.

Kellyn: Yeah. It’s kind of ironic because, like I said, he started his career with the kickoff of Iraq, but then he ended his career with the drawdown of Afghanistan. So he got to see both ends of it, and I got to experience both sides of it too.

Sarah: And he just retired last year, in 2022. Are you relieved that that is over?

Kellyn: I am. It was sad. It was a really hard decision for us. It’s all I ever known with my dad being in the military and moving as a kid. So this is all very new and fresh, but we love it here in Williamsburg. We met some awesome people, and my kids are happy, and that’s all we want. We just want happiness and health, and no stress. I’m hoping that that will subside a little bit now.

Sarah: As you know, there’s never a time of no stress. There’s always something that’s going to come up. We always have some type of disruption, but how are you feeling about the future, like looking forward to the future and not seeing a move on the horizon anytime soon?

Kellyn: No, I’m happy. This is the spot.

Sarah: It feels good to have that knowledge.

Kellyn: It does. It kind of fills up a piece of me that was always kind of missing. I want that for my kids. They’ve never had a house that they could call home. It was just kind of… I made every house in the military home. We never tried to just live out of boxes. It was their home, but they knew it was just temporary. So to have a place they know that this is where they’re going to grow up and maybe have their kids and whatever is exciting.

A Creative Reawakening

Sarah: That’s really cool. So, going back, at what point did you venture into the photography career?

Kellyn: Photography has always been a hobby of mine. My dad gave me my first Polaroid when I was five years old. We lived in Germany as a kid, and that’s when I really started to like photography and cameras. It was when you would take a picture, and you could see it. I just thought that was so cool, that the picture wasn’t there, and then all of a sudden it was magic, and it was there. It was always a hobby, but with the moving every three years and not being able to have a radiology career that I could blossom and grow, I tried again in 2016 to get a radiology job and was denied again.

Dereck was the one. He said, “Look, you’ve been wanting to take this hobby into a business. We’ve been talking about it for a while. You’ve been taking pictures of families and my friend’s kids, and everything. Why don’t you just do it?”

The thought of owning my own business was scary. There was a lot—do I go back to school, what do I have to learn, and all of this stuff. But in the talk about pieces of me missing, that was always something in me that I loved to do, that I wanted to have come out eventually. I just didn’t know when. So I took the jump, and Kellyn Wilson Photography was born in 2016. It’s been a good ride ever since.

Sarah: That’s awesome. And when did you get into the branding side of things then?

Kellyn: The branding side was like our eighth move. My friend worked in a dentist’s office, and she actually approached me. She said, “Hey, our team needs photos for the work, and do you do that?” I was like, “No, I don’t, but that would be really cool.” Branding was just coming around as the buzzword. I was doing headshots at the time, which falls into branding. I was like, “I would like to try this.” So I did the session for her, and I liked it. I liked the connection between the businesses, and I met a lot of people.

I try and join the Chamber of Commerce or everything to get to know the town and the place that we live and the businesses. As I did a couple more branding sessions, I was like, “Well, I think I could take this into a business.” But like we had talked about, I didn’t know if I should merge this in with my family photography. It kind of rolled from there.

Sarah: It’s become a decent part of your business, is that right?

Kellyn: Yeah, it’s really young. It’s kind of like an umbrella under my main LLC with family and newborns, but it is my business. I love it. It’s a story about their business, just like lifestyle is. It’s saying what they do and how they work, and kind of how they got their business started. I’m capturing all of that so that they can show it to their clients and get to know them from that point of view.

Sarah: I’ve seen your family photography, obviously the families that we shoot for the covers of magazines, that sort of lifestyle and family photography. But then I’ve also worked with you as my own branding photographer, and I have to admit, I was really impressed—surprised and impressed—with the process that you provide for your families and for your branding clients.

You are not just booking a session and then going to take photos. You are consulting to talk about where you’re going to do it, what types of photos they’re looking for, and what you’re looking to get out of the session when it comes to the lifestyle side of things. Then you talk about clothing, and you offer styling tips and that sort of thing.

As far as the branding side of it, my experience was that you had this big questionnaire that I found very daunting at first. Then I realized that it’s a lot of the same types of questions that I ask of my clients when they’re applying for coaching. These are the things that I want to know: Who is your ideal client, what’s the vibe of your business, and what is the message that you’re trying to get out? I was so impressed with all of that experience.

When I got to the session, you had your list of shots. I had provided you my access to my Pinterest folder with all of the shots that I had felt would represent me and my company, and you had the list of, “Okay, these are the ones that we’re going to do.” You had the visuals, and the whole process was so amazing. I want you to know that I really thought that was very cool, and I have not done a branding photo session before. To be honest, I don’t even know if I’ve ever had my own family photography done outside of a studio, like back in the old days when we would go to Olan Mills.

I didn’t know what to expect. But having worked with another photographer for my publication, I knew that that was not the experience that they provided. So I was really pleased when we started talking about what your process was, and that you were treating these families as if they are your client. I really appreciate that, first of all. Secondly, I love that that’s the process that you’re putting your clients through. Sorry to take away, like you’re describing it, but I wanted you to know what that feels like from the outside.

Kellyn: I’m glad that you acknowledge that because it is a process. I want it to be intimate. I want them to feel like this isn’t just a one-and-done; we might be friends, we might keep doing family pictures or branding pictures every year. Yes, there is a process to it.

You have to fill out a questionnaire. I want to get to know you, I want to get to know your family, I want to get to know your business. I want to know what makes you tick, what makes you not tick, all of that stuff, because it’s part of your story, and everyone has one. You want to capture that. I try not to be stagnant. I want the movement, I want the feeling, I want the connection, and unless I have something in front of me, the questionnaire and whatever, I’m not going to get that.

Sarah: I talked about this in another podcast episode, but one of the things I also appreciated about you is that you’re not looking to take a stagnant photo, and you’re looking for that energy and movement in your photography.

I had a bit of a meltdown that morning. Once my makeup was done and I was dressed, I was feeling a little unlike myself. I didn’t like what I was seeing in the mirror. The makeup was much more than I usually wear. I’m sure I’m not the first person that you’ve run into that. I hope I’m not the only person you’ve had that happen with.

You looked at me and said, “What happened? All of your energy is gone,” and I burst into tears. So, we had to touch up the makeup, but it was such a blessing that it was you, and I hope that everybody who you work with gets a chance to feel that caring. It was a really stressful moment, but you made it okay, and you made it better. We got through it, and I got these beautiful photos out of it, so thank you so much.

Kellyn: Well, thank you. It’s hard when you are… I do say put on a little bit more. If you’re not a big makeup person, do it now. Of course, I want you to feel natural and comfortable, but it looks totally different in camera than it does in person. I do have clients that are like, “Oh my gosh,” but then the photos don’t make it look like that at all. I totally felt your energy drift, and so we needed to get that back because you’re beautiful, and I am going to capture that.

Teaching the Art of Seeing

Sarah: So what is on the horizon for Kellyn Wilson Photography?

Kellyn: That’s a good question. Every business changes every year; we have goals. I would like to launch… I did teach an in-person camera class, and COVID kind of shut that down, so I want to bring that back to teach moms their cameras and the basic features of the camera. It’s called “Let’s Make It Click,” and I want to take that in person and online. Then maybe do an iPhone photography class. I was trying to do a poll of my clients to see what they would like, and that was a big contender.

Sarah: That’s definitely what I’m interested in. It’s technology; everything’s changing. I don’t think I ever learned how to use mine properly to begin with. I just snap pictures, and whatever they look like is what you get. If you’re seeing my social media photos that are not my professional photos, you can tell that I’m not caring what the frame looks like.

I think that lots of people would be interested in that. People like me, at least. I’m very impatient, so I don’t have the patience to teach myself or really learn those things. I’m all about the autofocus and auto everything.

Kellyn: Auto everything. We need to get out of that. There’s so much more than auto. So yeah, I want to teach that. I’m not one that has everything jotted down right now; it’s kind of like, go by the seat of my pants and see what happens. We’ll see. Lots of good things can come out of that though.

I want to get a little bit further radius out and do some more newborn photos and meet those families. I love that Williamsburg is such a touristy community because I meet a lot of people that are just coming in for vacations.

Sarah: That’s a great audience for you then, the tourist people. The tourists coming in are sometimes looking to have photos done when they’re here on vacation.

Kellyn: I know. It kind of surprised me. Our military career kept us in the Midwest for a long time, so no one’s going to come and see cornfields. Colonial Williamsburg is beautiful, and it has a lot of history. I’ve had families travel from California and all over the place, and you want to capture that. So I embrace that. I should have done that more when we did family trips. It just didn’t occur to me to do it. Plus, I’m the one that’s always taken the photos.

Sarah: That’s tough. What do you do as a photographer when it’s time to get your own family photos? You’re not taking them yourself, are you?

Kellyn: Sometimes I am. It’s called a tripod and a trigger to get the family photo, at least. But now I hire people. I just had a photographer do my branding photos, and when we went to Turks and Caicos for a vacation, I had someone take our photos. Different military stations, friends just take photos.

I know it’s hard to put yourself out there and everything, but that’s capturing the memories. That’s kind of my motto for my business. As a mom, I know you’re busy and don’t really want to put yourself in front of the camera. You might not like what you see, but we all struggle with parts of that. The bottom line is, you have one life to live.

I should have thought about that a long time ago because I was snapping pictures of my kids all the time, but I was not in a lot of them myself, and I regret that now. Trent’s going to be 17, and Ashlyn’s 13, and we’re looking at colleges and all of that stuff. So do it now. Don’t wait, because your kids aren’t looking at you. They just want to hug you and love on you and be that person that you are, and that’s what I capture—the connection.

Sarah: That’s a beautiful message. Thank you for being my guest today.

Kellyn: Thank you, I appreciate it. I had a lot of fun.

Sarah: Where can people find you on the internet?

Kellyn: They can go to www.kellynwilsonphotography.com. If you want to look up my branding, www.kwpbranding.com.

Sarah: And you’re on Instagram and Facebook, all that good stuff, all the places I know. I will capture all of that for the show notes as well so that people can connect with you. If you are ever visiting Colonial Williamsburg, feel free to book Kellyn for your family photography to capture the memories of your vacation.

Key Takeaways

• Creativity is born from disruption. Kellyn turned uncertainty and constant movement into a source of inspiration and resilience.
  
• Connection is the real photograph. Her work captures emotion and relationship, not just composition.
  
• Your story is worth remembering. Even when life feels chaotic, the moments in between are the ones that matter most.
  
• Presence is the new perfection. You don’t need to look perfect to be worthy of being seen in photos or in life.

About Kellyn

Kellyn Wilson is the founder of Kellyn Wilson Photography and KWP Branding, where she specializes in family, newborn, and branding photography that captures genuine connection.

A former radiology professional turned full-time photographer, Kellyn brings heart, patience, and artistry to every session, helping families and entrepreneurs tell their stories through natural, emotion-filled imagery.

As a military spouse and mother, she knows firsthand the importance of preserving fleeting moments and creating a sense of home wherever life takes you.

Connect with Kellyn:

kellynwilsonphotography.com | Instagram

kwpbranding.com | Instagram

Energetic Reflection

Kellyn’s story carries the energy of presence. That grounded, heart-centered frequency reminds us to slow down and notice the beauty right in front of us.

Her journey is proof that creativity can bloom anywhere. Through her lens, she captures not just faces but frequencies: love, laughter, and belonging.

As you move through your own creative seasons, may you remember that your story, too, is worth being seen just as you are.

If this conversation resonated, I invite you to join my Reiki-infused newsletter, where I share stories of creativity, healing, and human design for life and business.