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interesting humans: episode ten
If you saw Kendra Stanley Mills’ photographs you’d be impressed but have no idea of the story of how this incredible artist found her place behind a camera lens.
Kendra is a combination of extreme humility and equally big talent. It might have something to with the way she was raised, having spent some time in rural Kentucky as a kid with her “hippie, Mother Earth News” parents living in a one room house with no running water and no toilet, that instilled in Kendra an ingenuity and a stubborn persistence to stay with things and make due with what’s there.
As Kendra says, “I’m certain that the way I grew up has a direct correlation to why I became a photographer. My childhood was part “Little House on the Prairie” and part Woodstock. I had an outhouse, no running water, a milk cow, a wood cook stove and no television until middle school…We told stories, listened to old vinyl records, had chores (a lot of chores!) and more adventures than I can count.”
She has such fondness for those times that she and her husband Jon Mills moved the log cabin she lived in in Kentucky as a little girl to the property they live on in Montague, MI.
From these humble beginnings Kendra eventually became a photojournalist for the Muskegon (Michigan) Chronicle and today is a portrait photographer with a unique eye. Kendra’s photographs are infused with artistic elements, lines, geometry and light while still putting her subjects in the spotlight. The geometric elements are done so well and so deliberately yet so subtly they become elegant backdrops that enhance images rather than overpower.
Our interview was conducted last February pre-coronavirus at her studio office in North Muskegon, the same town where she go her start as a intern photojournalist for the Muskegon Chronicle. You might hear some hissing—that’s the steam running through the pipes that heated the building.
Kendra won the internship just out of college even though as she recounts, “the editors thought others had more talent” but loved that she had a kind of courage and and unmatched work ethic. Over the course of her 15 years as a photojournalist Kendra refined a personal style as a newspaper photographer. Sometimes it was uncomfortable documenting the tragedies and hardships of her subject about which the reporters were writing. Kendra recounts the irony of her current business as a portrait photographer because when she started her editor told her her portraits were the weakest work she turned in.
“So he made me go out and do every portrait photo assignment I could get so I could get better,” she says.
In addition portrait photography where she shoots weddings, families and individual portraits, Kendra works as a full-time photographer for Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI.
Kendra also explores some aspects of the business of being a photographer and shares a couple important tips for anyone looking to create a business out of their creative endeavors. I hope you enjoy today’s conversation with Kendra.
Links:
Kendra Stanley Mills Photography: http://www.kendrastanleymills.com/about/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kendra.stanleymills
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kendrastanleymills/
Pinterest: https://www.instagram.com/kendrastanleymills/
Metcalf County, Kentucky: https://metcalfecounty.ky.gov/Pages/default.aspx
Grand Valley State university: https://www.gvsu.edu/