Allow me to share a little bit about my love with you. I have three cats (Jean Jacques, Newton, and Piedmont) who share a place in my heart and home with my fabulous fiancé, Andrew. I met Andrew (aka my pinky promise partner and kitty co-parent) in high school through debate, and we quickly bonded over out mutual love for a really nerdy argument.

Before you share your love story with me...

So I took the scary leap, quit my day job, and worked tirelessly to build a business and life that gave me as much sustained joy as I felt when capturing others' most Meaningful memories.

Fast forward to today and I'm proud to say I've run my photography business full-time for 6 years. I've also had the joy of growing my photo team to include three fabulous associate photographers and nearly a dozen incredible second photographers. And on the Truer Crime front, I've release a 10-episode season with a few bonus episodes, and over 1k reviews on Apple Podcasts with a 4.9-star average rating. I also write a weekly newsletter over at sincerelycelisia.substack.com. It’s a little package to help stay excited about life and all its possibilities – things to experience, recipes to cook, events to attend, articles worth reading, podcasts to keep up with, cool people to keep on your radar, and more! Consider me your big sister, your middle school bestie, or your cool cousin who stays up all night giggling with you at sleepovers. 

I'm so grateful to have built a business and work life that I LOVE showing up to every day. AND it's even better if I can do that work from the comfort of my PJ’s next to my three favorite adorable but very sleepy kitty co-workers.

While our love story has plenty of fairytale-worthy moments, I think it's more honest to admit that it actually took me telling him I liked him three times, before we moved from best friendship to a partnership that's lasted for Seven years and counting!

After that third year of camp, I kept learning everything I could about photography, snapping photos of anyone who would pay me any sum of money through Facebook groups and word of mouth. After a year of building my photography business as a side hustle, I discovered that there wasn't any job that I loved as much as running my own business. 

When we started MDI it was just me, Andrew, and 12 students following a love of debate, and trusting that two 19 year olds could grow the camp we wished we had when we were high schoolers. It was actually three years into MDI that I first picked up a professional camera to document our experience, and instantly fell in love with the art of capturing the perfect memory. 

The things I love most about Andrew are his love of learning, his unending kindness, his generous spirit, and the fact he only gets a little irritated when I remind him that I won the last debate round we had against each other in high school. Andrew and I still coach high school debate, and in 2015 we co-founded the Minnesota Debate Institute (MDI), an accessible debate camp we ran together for 7 incredible summers. 

Then 2020 hit. And in the middle of the pandemic, I was the victim of a huge financial scheme, one that defrauded me of tens of thousands of dollars. In the midst of my healing, I found myself drawn to true crime stories as a sort of strange coping mechanism. But due to my new experience as a crime victim, I was learning first hand what the ‘justice’ in ‘criminal justice’ really meant. It’s easy to criticize true crime as sick entertainment, but we can’t deny that the way these stories are told has a profound impact on how we view our world. So I don’t think the answer is to stop telling them. In fact, I think we need to go deeper. So I created my Truer Crime to do just that. You can learn more and find the best way to listen at truercrimepodcast.com