Michelle Bryant-Stiglets is an award winning Wedding and Portrait photographer whose work has appeared in numerous publications.
How did I get started…
In 2001 I asked my husband for a professional camera for my birthday. He got that camera for me and I immediately set about taking LOTS of pictures of our son. Later that year while at my sister-in-laws wedding, I struck up a conversation with her photographer Donnalynn Dolan. I expressed my love of photography and interest in exploring it professionally to her. She told me that if I ever wanted to take the next step of apprenticing with her to give her a call. One day while sitting in my boss’s office at my “real job” I took notice of a sign she had in her office. It said: “Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.” I had read this a hundred times but that day it stuck with me and I decided to make that call to Donnalynn, I was finally ready to take the next step.
Donnalynn took me on as an apprentice and taught me the business and art of wedding photography. I have never looked back and now being a full time photographer is my “real job.”
Though my start in photography came at weddings, I have since added Family and Children’s photography as my main area of focus. I just love capturing the interactions between parents and children, and siblings with one another. I feel so honored to be able to be a part of these families’ lives and in the creation of portraits that become family heirlooms. I know one of the reasons that family photography is so enjoyable and meaningful to me is that every time I look at the family portraits in my home I am taken back to that place and moment in time. These moments would be just memories in my mind’s eye, but they are now captured forever by my camera and hang on my walls for all to enjoy.
I have so many people to thank for their help and support in helping me follow my dream of becoming a photographer. I never could have done this without the support of my husband and son who had to put up with me being gone every Saturday night to shoot weddings, my parents for their giving nature, my first brides who believed in me enough to hire me at the beginning of my career, and, of course, Donnalynn for giving me the chance I needed.
