Who I am - Get to know Jessie

Hey guys, my name is Jessie!

I am the girl behind Jessie Christensen Photography. Im going to start by saying, writing hasn’t been easy for me. In fact, I don’t do it very often at all. I always struggled with reading and processing what I read, let alone forming thoughts into words. Its something that I’ve never been entirely comfortable with, especially since my mom is the queen of grammar and a human spell check machine herself. Sooo the standard is high, and I have a long ways to go.

The past 3 months have been spent re-branding and building a new website from scratch. I have read countless blogs, articles and bios from other artist and one recurring theme to them was to define “who you are, how you started, what you are about, what promises you make as a business owner,and what makes you special”. This seems to be what I have been missing for so long, not only on my website, but projecting it to my potential clients, you guys. So I thought to myself, I need to blog more - and make it clear what I do and why I do it. SO HERE I AM.

Who I am

Lets start off easy, who I am. Im a wife, mother, sister and daughter. A friend of many and even those I just met at the local Target. Seriously though, I love people. I enjoy meeting new people and spending time with the ones I love the most. But being a mom of two boys, William who is 2.5 years old and Rowan who is 1 year old, I dont have much free time. And If I had the free time would I have the energy? No. But I’ll always figure out who to have the energy and time for anyone that needs it.I live in Vancouver WA, in the most beautiful region of the country. The NW is so special to me, its a place of endless possibilities and I am proud to call it home.

I tend to be a passionate person. Seriously, it gets a little carried away but me asking you 27 times "if you are seeing this?!" in regards to a sunset, drive through central Oregon, or my sons doing something for the first time, is totally normal of me. I get easily excited and intense all at once, its something Im trying to tone down - promise.

I love Jesus more than anything and everything I have is because of his goodness to me. I owe it all to Him, my family, my passion for photography, this life I live is His.

How I started.

A fun little fact about me that most people dont know is that I use to race motocross professionally. I did amateur racing since I was9 years old and turned pro when I was 15. I sent all my free time at practices, race days, the gym and traveling across the country. And when I was injured I picked a camera to shoot my friends at the races or on practice days. I fell in love with action photography and soon discovered portrait photography. It was more challenging then shooting motocross, and I started to realize after racing I could make a career out of weddings and portraits . So here I am.

In 2014 I married my best friend, and the man God created for me, Chad. We had big plans for our first couple of years but a month after we got home from our honeymoon we found out I was pregnant with little Will. It was a humbling time for sure, and I did not embrace it like I should have. With God’s grace we welcomed Will into the world on June 30, 2015.

I spent the first year of motherhood putting my business on the back burner, only taking a couple of weddings that year. And to our surprise we found out we got pregnant again in 2016 (I know what you are thinking - and no - I don’t know what we were thinking) I blame Chad….So business went on pause again.

But now we are here, and there has been so much I’ve learned. I think its so important to understand the balance of life and your work. By no means have I figured it out but I seeing the value of it. There is no way to measure the value of my time with my kids, being a mom and wife is my main role in this world and I thank God for that.

Its allowed me to look at my work differently than I did before. I creates a deeper connection and understanding with the people I get to capture.

Im going to tie in the points “what I am about, what promises I make as a business owner,and what makes me special” , in my next blog post. I wanted to say thank you for staying with my this far, lets continue this tomorrow <3

J