Kayla Kohn is a girl mom and photographer located in Kansas. Her work feels both free spirited and bold. She embraces movement and contrast and and joy. Specializing in family, newborn and maternity photography, Kayla is one to watch. We are absolutely stoked to have her here at Unraveled as a Unraveled Expert Artist and instructor. You can now learn from Kayla inside the Academy.

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Here is Kayla, Unraveled…

What inspires your art?

Color, color! And my clients! I do everything for them. Really, it's about creating meaning full moments captured and beautiful portraits of who they and their family were. I really go along in my sessions and just try to focus on creating that for them.

What do you shoot with? Camera body and favorite lens?

Canon 6D Mark II, Sigma Art 35mm 1.4.

What other ways do you express your creativity?

I let creativity flow through me everyday. I get excited about any project my 1st grader brings home. I get excited about decorating cookies. I just like to have the opportunities arise and then I get creative. I don't go out of my way to do creative things usually. But I also dabble in painting and I love charcoal drawing.

How do you de-stress at the end of the day?

My de-stressors are when I get to relax with my husband. We have been together for 14 years and are our best friends. Now with young children we don't spend focused time on each other as much as I would like, but it's still the thing that makes me feel at ease and happiest. I also try and do dinner with my girlfriends every month or so. I love getting away even just to dinner to discuss anything.

What kind of music do you listen to while editing?

I definitely edit in silence. Peace and quiet usually from 9 pm-1 am.

Name one movie that inspires you.

Absolutely hands down Pride and Prejudice, but it is also a comfort thing. This is the movie I play all the time when I'm emotional or feeling blah. It makes me happy to have a wonderful story, beautiful cinematography and just love. I'm a sucker for love stories.

How do you handle self-doubt or creative slumps?

This is an ongoing battle everyday. But the thing that helps me in all things is adjusting my perspective. Seriously, say I have low energy and I'm feeling down because I'm not being productive, but on the other hand I change my perspective and say, “you might be being a little lazy today but you are at home loving your kids. That's still an important thing that you're doing.”

With my self-doubt and creative slumps I feel the same way. I think, right now you're feeling down because you just looked at so-and-so's work and it made you want to crawl into a ball, how about you go and look at the beginning of their feed when they first started out - and appreciate their journey and beginning. Another huge thing that removes me from self-doubt is just focusing on something completely different all together. I find a new project, like organizing my bedroom or writing some interviews. Then all of a sudden I can't even worry about my creativity and when I need to do another session I just show up (that's the most important thing) and then I find creativity pours out of me because creativity is like, 'Oh, hey friend. Let's do this!! I'm glad you didn't get down on yourself about your abilities today because we are gonna rock this thing right here.’

What has been the most difficult part of your creative journey?

The most difficult part of my journey has been wanting it all too soon. Right away. Expecting myself to know and be able to run a profitable business within the first year of starting it. I put so much pressure on myself to provide for my family, but I haven't worked all the kinks out on how to be really profitable in the way that I would like to provide for my family.
I also want to just know everything, and gosh does it just come with time. Within the past couple months I just figured out the sweet spot on my lens is 2.0. Now I stick right there most of the time. That's just one example of the ongoing process of just mastering the skill of photography and my gear and I just feel like I want people to know I'm an expert when I don't fully feel that way all the time because I still learn something new everyday.