Conversations with Kristi Neilson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristi Neilson. 

Hi Kristi, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
I went to school for Photography at Rochester Institute of Technology. After getting my BA in Fine Art Photo, I immediately moved to Los Angeles! I had done an internship with Tamar Levine the previous summer and knew I loved it and wanted to move there. I started freelance shooting and assisting. Work was slow and it took time making connections and getting my name out there. Six months after moving, I started an internship with photographer Art Streiber. Art quickly became a mentor, friend, and photo father. He introduced me to other creatives, photographers, and new friends. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
There have been new challenges at every stage of my career. I know many people struggled during the pandemic, but it really put some career plans on hold and made me look at my life differently. I got to a point where I wasn’t sure if I still wanted to endure the grind of owning my own business and being a photographer. Being your own boss is really difficult because there’s no one telling you when to clock in or out or to push you to finish tasks by a certain date. It’s a hustle. It’s completely on you to make things happen. 

After months of no work and no idea when there would be, I started working on a preexisting personal project. It was extremely inspiring, exciting and got me back on track. It made me remember why I love being a photographer so much and that I am 100% meant to be one. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I love photographing people. I shoot mostly lifestyle fashion, but I love portraiture. For the last 10 years, I have been working on a project about my family’s tobacco farm in CT where I photographed my family and the landscape over there. 

While in college I started taking photos of my family when I went home on breaks. 

After graduating I moved to LA but kept taking my film camera back home with me when I visited. 

I compiled quite a library of photographs from the trips and really loved the content I was shooting. 

During the pandemic, my partner and I went to the east coast for an extended period of time and took care of my grandfather. I photographed him in his final year of life, my home which I hadn’t lived in for almost 7 years, and my partner existing in this environment I never thought I would be able to share with him. 

It was a very emotional and special time. 

As soon as we got back to LA, I processed all of the film and knew I wanted to make a book about the farm and all the chapters of it”s life. 

I’m grateful to have had this project during the pandemic. It’s been a beautiful and exhausting process but something I am very proud of and excited to keep working on. 

I feel that while the content of the book is different from what 

I normally shoot, the aesthetic is very similar. It’s sort of quiet while inviting curiosity of the story of my subjects. 

What was your favorite childhood memory?
I can’t pick one. My childhood was dreamy in a lot of ways. I grew up running around and playing on a 30-acre tobacco farm. It was lush with 3 ponds and a stream, surrounded by a beautiful treeline and a giant sycamore standing on the heart of the property. My sisters and I rode our bikes around a lot and swam in one of the ponds almost every day during the summer. My parents did put us to work at a young age, so it wasn’t all frolicking and leisure. 

My favorite memories were during harvest, in the summertime. It was when my dad was still alive, and we got to hang out at the end of each workday. We would sit around and talk about the day. The adults would have a beer and we would drink sodas and then my cousins, sisters, and I would swim in our pond. We would beg our parents to order a pizza or take us out to ice cream which they often succumbed to. Then, we would wake up and do the same thing the next day. It was so much work but unbelievably rewarding. The smell of tobacco and grass, the feeling of up jumping into the cold water after being caked with sweat, all the giggles… It was a special way to grow up. When I think back to the happiest moments of my life, the most comforting, I think of those. 

Contact Info:

• Website: kristineilson.com
• Instagram: kristineilson
• Facebook: Kristi Neilson

Image Credits
Alyson Aliano