Well, hello everyone! My name is Bella Nuttall and I’m an eighteen year old entrepreneur from a small suburb north of Seattle called Snohomish. For the last year and a half I’ve been building a brand for myself and my company, Influenced by Bella, as a photographer that doesn’t just take “cookie cutter” pictures of people, but pictures that people of our generation would love to share on their social platforms. Of course I LOVE to throw in a few here and there, but I know the reality of senior photos, cap and gown pictures, etc. is that they will be finding their way to social media one or way or another. So I like to supply the most “gramable” pics possible! I’d love to share with you the journey I’ve walked in this passion of mine to get me where I am today. So read on!
Photography hasn’t been something that I have dabbled with for too long. My whole life I played competitive soccer up until a career ending injury that set me back both physically and mentally. I was out of a hobby, a passion, and my every day pick me up. A few months down the road when I had started to recover, my dad actually gifted me this cute little Canon EOS Rebel that I had zero idea how to work. But hey, it gave me something to do! Naturally, being a social media obsessed freshman, I had my best friend Katherine let me take the camera for a spin and have a photo-shoot. So we got her all dolled up and took hundreds of pictures. When I finally put them on my laptop, I was awe struck by how they had turned out. So was she. And her mom. And her sister. Looking back now I see how terrible they were but am still just as proud of myself for doing something out of my comfort zone. And little did I know that one day I’d be taking pictures that I liked 10x more than those.
For the following months up until the middle of my junior year, I had continued to dabble in this new found passion of mine. Portrait photography was clearly my favorite as I had learned through 3 semesters of photography class in high school. (Shout out to the best photo teacher to walk the earth, Jay Adams!) Attempting to take abstract or excessively artsy pictures of weird skulls the science classes had given us as props or the creepy baby dolls my teacher collected was not my cup of tea. But I did it anyway to appreciate other styles of photography. I won a few local contests doing that, my third year I took this picture of 2 eggshells and won the grand prize at one of the larger contests in my town. I thought this damn egg was gonna be my claim to fame, and let me tell ya it really boosted my ego. Friends of mine will tell you I didn’t shut up about that egg for months. But this was the big event that pushed me to set my portrait business up and start really marketing myself as a photographer that was willing to take senior photos, family portraits, etc. because I knew what I capable of and had finally found a new passion to pursue.
My portrait business took off right before my senior slyest had started. I had some what of a well known presence in the photography community of Snohomish but definitely not as well known as I am now. It started with taking senior photos for my best friends, Cassidy Uderitz being the gal who really took a chance on me and helped me gain so much attention with the large following she has. From there I had people from schools all over my state reaching out to me about booking a session and before I knew it I had a new job that doubled as my passion. It seriously is so dope that I get to do something as fun as taking pictures of super cool and kind people all week long. Every shoot is so chill and laid back, like I’m hanging out with one of my buddies each and every time despite knowing them or not!
I love what I do and I’m so blessed to have been given a talent that I can do so much good with. Finding a new passion in life is hard, but getting out of your comfort zone really can enable anyone to do that. Thank you so much for reading and thank you Kyra for asking me to write about this!
~Bella
*To chat with Bella or check out her amazing work head to her Instagram @influencedbybella
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