Check Out Jessica Wilson’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Wilson.

Hi Jessica, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
While I have always been interested in the arts, I didn’t see myself pursuing a career in a creative field until I was already two years into college. It wasn’t until I took a film photography class just as an elective that I realized I wanted to change my major. When I was first admitted to the Photography program at Sacramento State University, I had very little knowledge of the technical side of photography and I remember feeling so behind my classmates who all had nicer cameras and experience doing photoshoots.

After playing catch-up, I began to explore my style with fashion shoots. I went to the fashion merchandising program and theater program on campus, asked other students to collaborate with me, and began producing larger and larger productions. I would scout locations, and thrift clothing for models to wear and find hair stylists and makeup artists to help out. I got really lucky with some of the people I worked with, and they are still my go-to collaborators today.

Now having freelanced for five years, I’ve been able to work with contemporary brands such as Article & Goods, Thesis of Alexandria, Elysian Theory, MyAnorak, and Friday Pattern Co.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Growing my photography business has not always been the smoothest road. From 2017-2019 I worked multiple jobs and did freelance work on the side building up my portfolio. At the beginning of 2020, I finally began to take my business full time only to be halted by Covid. The one upside from that time was that many brick-and-mortar businesses needed to transition to e-commerce.

So I began working with a lot of clients to photograph their products for online stores. I even took up food photography, shooting for small mom-and-pop restaurants for services like Doordash and Uber Eats. While that time felt uncertain, I was fortunate enough to be able to continue pursuing my passion and was able to help small businesses along the way.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a fashion and product photographer specializing in photographing contemporary brands for both commercial and editorial purposes. Storytelling is at the heart of my work. Relaxed, natural, and with a clean aesthetic, my ideas stem from a desire to showcase my client’s brands authentically.

I do my best to always work with diverse teams and I’m proud of how I have been able to help represent men and women of all sizes and ethnicities in the fashion industry. I love shooting on location and involving elements of real-world environments. Placing the subject, whether it be a model or product in a unique setting helps bring a scene to life for me.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
While I shoot digital for all of my commercial work, I began learning photography on film cameras. I’ve worked with 35mm, medium, and large format film and can develop and process all of my images. My goal is to have a dark room in my future home so that I can create personal work on the film.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jessicakwilson.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jkendallcreative/