This post has been a long time coming. I started pursuing photography as a hobby in late 2008 when I got my first DSLR camera. Up until that point, I’d always thought I would be a piano major because I had been studying piano for 10 years. I started taking photos of friends and concerts for fun and I loved it! I thought maybe I’d be a photojournalist, so I started looking into communications degrees.

My first DSLR, the Nikon D80

In 2009, I graduated high school and also second shot my first wedding in December. Even though I loved photography, God led me to a wonderful school where I settled on studying Church Music. I loved it!! My classes were fun, my teachers were incredible, my friends were wonderful, and I felt at home in the music building. I’ve always loved learning! In my spare time (which wasn’t much as a music major) I started getting more photoshoots including more weddings and fell in love with wedding photography! I didn’t think I could ever make it a full time job because I felt like I just wasn’t talented enough or smart enough, and because I wanted to see where my music degree would take me because I loved that so much too! I started singing in choirs and really felt at home with my music friends!

Choir rehearsal!

After graduating college in 2013 I decided I would take a semester off and figure out where God was leading me. At that point, it was back to school, so I ended up getting a masters degree in Piano Performance. I grew so much and wouldn’t trade those years for anything. I developed a passion for performing and sharing music with others. 2014 was also my first full wedding photography season and it kept growing steadily with each year, but I was still torn because I had such a passion for music! I started teaching piano and got a lot of students quickly because I knew a community of families through my summer job of coaching swimming.

Swim Team Photo!

Everything I was pursuing was so much fun and exciting, but I was just. so. busy. all the time. I was juggling a growing photography business, trying to be a good piano teacher, and coaching swimming (there were some years when I was a pool manager too!). I couldn’t imagine not sharing my summers with my swim team kids! When people found out I had 3 jobs, I would always tell them, “I don’t like to be bored!” I graduated with my masters degree and stayed on an extra semester to stay in choir (ha!) and to take a graduate biblical counseling class to see if God wanted me to pursue that. I even considered going back to school to get a PhD in Musicology so that I could be a music history professor. I was focusing on so many things that eventually I wasn’t focusing on anything!

My graduate piano recital, November 2015

Everything changed when in 2016 I met my now husband, Matt. He has always encouraged me to follow my dreams. After many conversations and prayers, I decided to stop coaching swimming. It was a hard decision, but I knew it was the right one for my relationship with Matt and for my photography business. We had a whirlwind romance and got married one month ago on 7.17.17. After our honeymoon I shot a wedding, and like I always do after shooting, I came home so energized, excited, and bubbly! I told him honestly, “I wish I could do this full time.” He looked at me and said “You always come back so happy after weddings. I think you should do it.” We talked and prayed about it for a couple more weeks and eventually came to a decision.

I am so so so excited to announce that beginning this fall, I will be pursuing Kingsbridge Photography FULL. TIME. For years I’ve had so many ideas swirling around in my head about blogging more frequently, enhancing my client experience, improving my technical skills, and educating new photographers. Up until this point I haven’t been able to see those ideas come to fruition because I simply haven’t had enough time! But no more! I’m already fast at work on some of those ideas and I can’t wait to share them with the world! By pursuing photography full time I’ll be able to truly give my clients the best experience possible. I’m a little bit scared, but that’s what makes this so exciting. Look out world, Christi Johnson is coming for ya, and there’s nothing holding her back!

Welcome to the new Kingsbridge Photography!