Photographer Kelly Blackall said she will never forget the red hue of her grandfather’s darkroom, the heavy scent of developer and the feel of the wooden tongs on paper as they dipped photos from bin to bin.

Blackall’s grandfather, who owned a production company in California, helped sow the seeds of her passion as a child by gifting her a blue Fisher-Price scroll wheel camera, which she owns to this day, she said. She accompanied him as they walked in nature taking pictures. But it was still many years before she took the plunge and started her own photography business, Blackall Photography in Lewisville.

The backstory

Blackall began taking photography more seriously once her family moved to Lewisville and she joined the high school yearbook and newspaper, she said. This led her to pursuing a journalism degree in college to focus on photography and storytelling. However, the pressure of bills led Blackall to taking a safer job, and photography took a back seat, she said.

It wasn’t until her husband bought her a mirrorless camera in 2007 that she discovered her passion for documenting other people’s stories and building their confidence, especially for folks in the Lewisville community, Blackall said.


While photography remained a hobby and a side gig, everything changed when her neighbor asked Blackall to take her family photos. While Blackall accepted the offer to help build her portfolio, she was surprised to find a check for $300 in the mail the following day, she said. Blackall tried to return the money, but her neighbor refused. It was at that moment that Blackall believed she could make photography a career.

“All it took was one person to have faith in me,” she said.

What's special about it?

After starting her business in 2008, Blackall broke into family and wedding photography, which eventually became her specialty and allowed her to capture people’s stories and form lasting relationships, she said.


“Some of these families I have had for 13 years, and I’ve been photographing them since they were itty bitty, and now I’m doing their weddings,” she said.

One project that Blackall said she is most proud of came about during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the shutdown canceled the Easter service at Northview Baptist Church, church members rented out The Vista mall parking lot and held it outside. The pastor gave his sermon from up on a hill while the congregation listened from their car radios, and Blackall captured the moment, which is now documented in Denton County historical records, she said.

What's next?


Blackall is undertaking a project of photographing old cowboys that impacted Lewisville and printing them on sheets of tin. The metal photos will then be sold alongside a book that is her way of documenting the figures important to Old Town Lewisville, a community she has grown to love, she said.

Blackall still plans to pursue wedding photography but also said she is scaling back to focus on family photography. For Blackall, one of the most powerful parts of her photography is helping bring people confidence, she said.

“If they could see what I see in the lens, everyone would have so much more confidence,” Blackall said.