While she professes to be unwaveringly informal and borderline unprofessional, Krystina Repchuk, the photographer behind Krystina Repchuk Photography, is all heart. Funny, bubbly, sentimental and forthright, Krystina is anything but formal, uptight or rigid and she is comfortable being herself in any situation. “I’m engaging,” she says. “I’m not very professional, I’m very informal. I am who I am, just like you are who you are.” And her heart-warmingly genuine personality inevitably encourages her clients to loosen up and go with the flow, making for natural photographs.
Krystina’s infamous informality extends to her session style where she avoids posing and makes fart jokes to get the kids laughing and relaxing. “I love taking pictures of kids,” she says. “I used to be a special ed teacher, so I think it lets me go back to my roots. They engage with me well and I engage with them well.” Because so many special education students are non-verbal, Krystina is an expert at reading body language and picking up on people’s subtleties in behaviour.
As much as she is true to her own nature in photographing families, she also urges parents to let their kids be themselves. “If you’re kid’s a thumb sucker and he’s two, then that’s who he is. You should capture that moment because if something happens and he’s gone, you’re going to want that picture of him sucking his thumb,” she says.
