Meet kayla paige | Photographer/BTS

We had the good fortune of connecting with kayla paige and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi kayla, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The thought process behind my business was to just have fun with it but make a profit off it as well. I didn’t even take photography serious until about 4 years ago, but I’ve been doing it since about 9th grade I’m 23 now. When I first started to take pictures I would just take pictures of my cousins and post online for my friends to see. Everyone ended up liking them so I eventually started to take pictures around my high school and would charge like $5 for 3 pictures. Then that led to me signing up for yearbook eventually my senior year. When I realized how many people liked my pictures for the yearbook I decided to make my instagram my photography page to get a bigger following and eventually work with up and coming artist. At the time I was going by kgvp, those are my initials. I went by that for the longest and towards the end of last year I just realized it wasn’t that rememberable. So when we came into 2022 I came up with Kptheshooter_ & I would say it was one of the best decisions that I’ve made this year. The goal in the end was to work with musicians and become a personal photographer to go tour and work for an artist, I haven’t become anyone’s personal photographer yet but I will eventually. I have been working with a lot more artist this more than I have within the past 2 years and I am very blessed for that.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My name is Kayla Paige aka kptheshooter, I am a 23y/o photographer based in Atlanta. I’ve always loved camera’s from a child whether it was hooking the camera up to the tv to watch home videos or I use to rather take the picture than be in it. I’ve been doing photography seriously for about 4 1/2 years, but it just started to get more consistent I would say January 2021. I’ve always wanted to work with artist and shoot at their concerts and events and it finally started to happen as of last year. It wasn’t easy in the beginning you’re going to hear a lot of no’s, you may not hear back at all, and your definitely going to have to do a lot of shoots for free when you’re first starting out. That will all pay off in the end though because when you do shoots for free that brings more people to your page which gets you more customers. Doing shoots for free can be good and bad. When you and a artist create some nice content or even shooting at an festival or event, but say you don’t get paid. Once you post your work online for everybody to see that brings in more engagement for you which is good. I also say shooting for free could be bad because you’re not making any money at first. You don’t have any connections so you start to doubt yourself as if you cant do it, but I promise you can you just have to stay consistent. I believe that’s what got me to where I am right now. Being consistent, going out to network with others, and never losing faith. That’s really what kept me going because I knew my work was good and I had it in me to do it I just had to keep manifesting and believing in myself. I’ve overcome a lot the past year, my shyness for one. I’m a shy person as it is already so I have to overcome that doing photoshoots so it doesn’t feel awkward. I’m not really shy when it comes to shoots anymore because I’ve gained more confidence in my work and I learned/still learning how to talk to people. In order for me to overcome my shyness I had to get out my comfort zone and go up to people first instead of them coming to me. You see someone who has the same motion as you go up to them and introduce yourself start conversation and talk about your business. You never know who could open doors for until you connect with people. Connecting with people can bring in true friendships that will help you with brand and give you all types of advice and tips on how to go about things. For instance, I met someone a while back and we got really cool, but I was talking to them about how I wanted to rebrand myself as in change my name. Before @kptheshooter_ I went by @kgvp_ which are my initials. They told me I had to come up with something that was easy to remember but still represent my name so I came up with kptheshooter. Once I changed my name beginning of this year a lot of things started to change. People started to remember my page by heart, so I knew it stuck, If it wasn’t for that conversation about rebranding my name it would still probably be the same if it wasn’t for them. I want the world to know that I’m only going to get better and go up from here. I’m just going to keep working till I get to where I wanna be with photography.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I had someone to visit me for about a week we would literally be in and out of the house. It’s so many things to do in Atlanta, from the night clubs, to museums, to parks and even the restaurants. I’m more of a person who likes to go out to eat and get drinks and go do something fun like a trampoline park, top golf, dave & busters or an amusement park, I’m still a kid at heart. Food wise though we’re definitely going to 613 Main Restaurant Coffee & Bar its the best breakfast/brunch place which will soon be open for lunch and dinner as well. This place also happens to be my father Bernard Paige restaurant. Come dinner time I’m a seafood person so we’d definitely be going to one of the top seafood spots in Atlanta.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to shoutout my family a lot of them are very supportive, even the ones who didn’t see my vision at first but came around to it. I want to shoutout my friends who were supportive from the jump, they had my back when I decided to leave school to pursue my dreams. I want to thank my favorite Photographer @farisislegendary for always giving me words of encouragement from the moment I met him and giving tips to perfect my craft. Lastly I want to thank EmpowerATL for allowing me to come take pictures for there magazine they trusted me with there vision and I will forever be grateful for that.

Website: https://vsco.co/kptheshooter/gallery

Instagram: kptheshooter_

Twitter: itscookay_

Other: TikTok-@kptheshooter

Image Credits
1.Dreamdoll 2.Jayda Cheaves 3.Dess Dior 4. NLE Choppa 5.Migos 6.Loui 7.Luh Cheetoh 8.@yariii_x3_