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carli rene

author | photographer | mama bird

  • Home
  • Portfolio
    • Photography
    • Freelance/Editorial
    • Brands
  • Info
    • About
    • For Trade
  • JOURNAL
    • As of Yesterday
    • Tumblr
  • Contact
 
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My name is Carli Rene.

I'm so grateful I haven't paid a penny to advertise since 2008.

All of the business then and now has come from past happy clients and/or social media, a testimony to the incredible people I work with every single day. 

I went to the University of Texas for photojournalism but never completed my degree. I blame Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as my inspiration. I tell you this right off the bat because I want to give you inspiration that if there is a will and a desire inside of you to do or be, then a degree is only one path to getting there, and maybe it isn't your path. And that is OK. 

I am a photographer full time and most recently wrapped up the shooting of Eric Silverstein's cookbook memoir, owner of The Peached Tortilla and the Peached Social House. I photographed the majority of the images on both of those websites, too, but from the images you've seen thus far on my own site, I'm not exclusively a food photographer. I'm not exclusively any kind of photographer, and that throws some for a loop. My shooting weddings for 7+ years gifted me the confidence and belief that at the end of the day, I am photographing essentially two things: light and people.
It has taken me almost ten years to realize it all boils down to this. 
It is: 1) How do I put this [whatever I am shooting] in the best light, no matter the circumstances? 
 2) It is getting to know and better understand the people, whether in front of or behind my lens, asking the right questions and learning more about what they decide to pour their hearts into [their business, families, etc].

I've completed Instagram campaigns with Tiffany & Co, Samsung, Gap Kids, to name a few, since 2011, and that same year was on Mashable's Top 15 Instagram Photographers, in the same light as MTV and Burberry. I frequently get asked how I have 100K+ followers on Instagram. Being the shy-away-from-the-spotlight kind of gal, the short story is by a serendipitous twist of fate I was put on Instagram's suggested users list in 2011, barely a year after the company began and far before such structured algorithms. It was even before they actually informed you that you made the suggested users list. It feels weird for me to say I was an early adapter of the Instagram campaign. Before my joining the app in 2010, a few weeks after the app premiered, I had just started my photography company, shooting primarily weddings and portraits. Now I focus on creating content for businesses' social media/web presence, shoot covers and features of a local up and coming publication Mueller Living and always enjoy photographing families, newborns and couples. 

 Having lived in Austin since 2005, I whole-heartedly support local. My heart and soul live with small businesses as I am one myself! Peached Tortilla, Peached Social House, House of Margot Blair, Summer Moon Coffee, Define Body are a few brands here in Austin I've had the privilege of helping to build/photograph. 

It's a pleasure to help them find their voice and then give them this gift of photographs that we create together.

I believe every job is a collaboration.
Your heart, my art, and lots of open communication.

I've traveled from NYC to the Middle East on campaigns, oftentimes with my daughter and sometimes just solo. I feel it is the biggest gift in this lifetime that I get to do the two things I love with my whole heart: raise a daughter and get paid to create.

Thank you for trusting me to create moments that define these things you pour your heart into.

The joy is mine.


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Mashable’s Top 15 Influencers
AdWeek's Top Food Photographer
The Royal Few's Top 10 Instagrammers

 

 

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I N S T A G R A M

Chopped flowers made me happy! @margotblair behind the knife. This has always been one of my favorite images. Last year I had the privilege of photographing her website - shot in the brilliant light of the @peachedsocialhouse, her brilliant ideas. #carlirene #branding #commercialphotography #atx #austin
Take one more look. What do you see? Layers of photographs floating to meet... Buenos Dias Colorado. I'll be in Denver in a few weeks if you'd like lifestyle family portraits or a brand refresh! Packages begin at $499.  PM me ❤️ #summer #colorado #carlirene #imageblender #nature #doubleexposure
Maybe this is on my heart because my littlest sister could have her baby any day. Perhaps because I have several friends taking the difficult path of quitting their jobs and beginning a company to call their own, but I could not shake the literal and metaphorical image from my meditation this morning: birthing a baby.

I remember the midwife told me that Emilia would recede and then descend, recede and then descend, and it would feel like we were going backwards but slowly slowly she was making her way into my arms. It was a slow epically painful process, sans drugs. It very much felt this way as I was writing my book and since I have yet to fully birth that particular baby I have sensed so many times that while the birthing process looks so different for every one of us, it is all the same... Children are our creations. Businesses and life-long stories we pain-stakingly pour every ounce of ourselves into, turn into books, are our creations. This is what fulfills our souls. We give birth to, then we help nuture and grow it, give birth to and grow over and over and over... Sometimes, we give birth to and are not privileged to experience, at least in the lifetime, to watch it grow. I have felt this on both the business front and with children, having two miscarriages... I interviewed a husband and wife business team owner that started over 8 businesses and despite their not having any children (well, four-legged pups who were so darling), it was so clear: their businesses were their children. I couldn't believe how many they had started and despite the lack of profitability on the earlier few, they never gave up. 
This is for you. And by you, I mean the you that is in the wake of birthing pains... I have been shell-shocked by the loss of what my hands had spent years building that never saw the light of day. It is debilitating to think that we could start over, that we could bring something into fruition, watch it blossom and become all it is meant to be. It is in our God-given hearts to hold our two hands in front of us and remind ourselves, these are healing hands. These are hands that were made to love, to create, to heal, to hope... Yours and mine both. //
"Even a blind squirrel finds a nut." I had just finished up the Ozgo family session and was enamored with the Botanical Garden's poppies for about 30 mins by the time I took this. Patience, so much patience. The little bee just flew in at the right moment. Have a wonderful Monday, Lovely. #carlirene #blackandwhite #ilovepoppies #fujifilm #fujifim_xseries
#sameinkdifferentday #carlirene #inspiration
-light-
My dad was an engineer turned Air Force pilot. He always talked about flying through the clouds. I wonder what it might feel like to command a plane through light like this or through billowing thunderheads that stretch on for miles... (going backthrough my IG feed for the last almost 7 years... wow)
Baby portraits. Or not so baby anymore! Butler Park reflections circa 2015. Andrea and Chris' baby #1! #carlirene #summer #blackandwhite #atx #austin
The sun is high and broiling. Her baby skin tans. Her hair gets even more white. Water. water. water every day, in the pool, on the lake, at the splashpad. This is summer. #whileemilianaplays #texas #atx #summer
Thanks for saying it in words I never could, @lancearmstrong. #sameinkdifferentday #carlirene #inspirationalquotes
A dad and his son... on Mother's Day. Truth: I've never been much of a holiday celebrator. I don't know why. You know there are those of you that reaaaaally get into it and I have been jealous but here, now, I am reminded that days like today are days of things that should be done every day of the year. It's sad because it can be really depressing even in a healthy relationship if expectations aren't met, but "alone" does not mean "lonely" and alone definitely doesn't have to mean no fun. I went running this morning... one of those runs that shakes up the energy in me bones. And then I worked. And now maybe I'll go play tennis or slackline. If you're a mom with an idiotic husband that didn't do anything for you or maybe you're a single woman with no kids or married to an amazing man with no kids.... yet... don't take this day so seriously, I beg you. Go sit in nature. Go kayak the lake. Go get out your paints or write your sister a letter or call your long lost bff. Today is what we make of it and life is too short to think that just because some President said it was mandantory to honor mother's today, you're getting the short end of the stick. Choose Yourself, wonder woman. xo PS: I bought myself a slacklining kit and it's supposed to arrive today! Ahhhh!!
 

THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING IN INKEDFINGERS.  *website design & photography by the sweat of carli rene's brow