Long-time resident Christine McKeel is making a name for herself as one of Aiken’s premiere family photographers and entrepreneurs. As the proprietor of her own growing photography business, she offers customers an alternative to the traditional stiffly posed studio portrait. Her current passion is documentary photography, and she has a well-rounded portfolio that shows the breadth of her talent.
What exactly is documentary photography? If you haven’t heard of it before, you may have seen examples of it on social media, with one important exception. Documentary photography follows the rules of photojournalism. There is no alteration of the environment, lighting or subject. No posing, no photoshopping. Those highly filtered Instagram pictures may tell a story, but that story is often unfortunately fiction. According to McKeel, the role of the documentary photographer is “to create beautiful pieces of art that capture the real family”. The format highlights significant moments of daily living in pictures that tell the story of a group or an individual in natural surroundings.
About 5 years ago, McKeel was introduced to family photojournalism, a form of documentary photography North Carolina artist Kirsten Lewis perfected. McKeel says it immediately drew her to the art form because of its authenticity. Already a fan of street photography, she enjoyed using the same principals to create a new type of portraiture. “People have an emotional reaction when they see the pictures because it brings back memories,” she says. The situations McKeel records come about organically as she follows her subject through typical, everyday activities- eating a snack, playing games, reading a book. The result is the preservation of an original and unscripted moment.
A typical home photo shoot takes longer than your average studio session. McKeel often arrives as children are waking up or stays until they go to sleep to capture sleepy faces or bedtime routines. If the family has plans to go somewhere, she and her camera follow. She may take hundreds of frames of film in a day to catch just the right expression, as she watches the action unfolding around her. Sometimes the pictures feature heartfelt scenes between siblings, sometimes temper tantrums. “I try to capture the feeling of the moment,” she says.
Besides documentary photography, McKeel also offers lifestyle shoots. The guidelines for these are flexible, allowing her to change lighting and stage scenes to photograph meaningful family events. Staging is a no-no for documentaries, but a lifestyle session is all about the staging. Shoots are scheduled with the pre-arranged intention to photograph the subjects performing certain activities or enjoying typical family traditions. “In lifestyle photography,” she explains, “if family time means eating breakfast together, I want to photograph that. So I’ll take pictures of them actually making breakfast and eating together but it might be dinner time and they may not actually be eating.”
One of her favorite sessions involved a family from Georgia with three children ages 11, 5 and 3. McKeel spent 6 hours with them, from lunch to bedtime. The children were comfortably dressed, with the youngest choosing princess dresses, and each spent their time doing what they normally do at home. She could capture individual moments and interactions between the children, and family mealtime, all of which are easily overlooked opportunities for picture taking. McKeel’s philosophy is “you can’t live your life AND take great pictures of your life at the same time.”
McKeel’s love of photography began in middle school, when her stepfather created a dark room in their home. She served as a photo editor of her high school yearbook and took classes in college. To hone her skill, she took local workshops or traveled to take classes from specific artists. Eventually she joined the Aiken Artists Guild and now serves as their Vice President.
Christine McKeel took on a variety of roles before making a career with her camera. Educated at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, she received her undergraduate degree in Psychology. She later attended Ball State University in Indiana, where she received her master’s degree in Wellness Management. After graduating, she took a position with Western Carolina University in the mountains of North Carolina. She created the school’s wellness program before moving to Aiken as an employee at the Savannah River Site in 1993. What drew her to Aiken was the horse community, she says, “I rode horses at the time so I was excited to move when I was offered a position.”
McKeel admits that it was intimidating to start her own business 3 years ago. Marketing her talents online developed into an opportunity to use her photography to help other local entrepreneurs. Her experience at self-promotion gradually evolved into a social media and branding management service that she and co-owner Susanna King named Flourish Media. In this role, she helps small business owners promote their goods and services on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. McKeel’s latest project also offers a helping hand to local photographers. Along with Tony Gouge and LaDonna Armstrong, she is assisting with the setup of a studio that can be rented hourly so that newcomers to the field are relieved of the expense of maintaining full-time office space. The Studio on Laurens, located downtown, is scheduled to open this month.
Photos by Christine McKeel
If you are interested in booking a session with Christine McKeel, you can view her portfolio and contact information at www.ChristineMcKeel.com.
Erica Sanders grew up in Aiken and earned a BA in English with a minor in Graphic Communications from Clemson University. Later she received a Masters in Social Work from the University of South Carolina. Over the years, Erica has worked as a victim advocate, a counselor, a program director and advocate for foster children, and taught at Augusta State University. She served on the SC Foster Care Review Board, the Aiken County Commission for Drug & Alcohol Abuse and the board of the Cumbee Center for Abused Persons. Erica is a married mother of two boys, currently working as a freelance writer.
