The Beginning

A city, a camera, and a project.

I grew up in Bogotá, Colombia. My first real photographs came from a high-school assignment, my grandfather's 35mm camera in my hands, walking the city, taking pictures and writing about it. “It was the best time,” I say. “It worked out.”

I started down another path first, a career in health. But the ICU and the emergency room asked too much of a heart that felt everything. I would go home and still cry for the people I had met that day. It was taking too much.

When I came to the States, I signed up for a photography elective almost by accident. One class became the next, and the next. Then a professor said it plainly: “You're actually good at this. You should do this.”

Why I Never Stop Shooting

I know what it feels like to not have the picture.

People sometimes wonder why I capture thousands of frames in a single day. It isn't doubt. It's that I grew up without the photographs I ache for now.

“I wish I had more photos of my childhood. Back then there weren't many cameras around, living in Colombia. I really wish I could see more of my grandfather's farm. All these photos that don't exist, but I wish I had.”

Paola Ohlson

So when I'm at your wedding, I'm not going to let a single moment slip away. Every angle, every glance, every bit of the light I can find. Because I know, in my own life, exactly what it costs to lose one.

Then Came Lily

Becoming a mother changed how I see.

When I had my daughter Lily, something shifted in the way I photograph families. The little moments I used to find sweet, I now feel in my bones.

“After you've been a mom, hearing it feels visceral. You understand that love, the win of having your whole family in a beautiful picture, with you in it too. So I photograph the connection between parents and kids, those moments we moms rarely get to have.”

Because the person holding the camera is almost never in the frame. I make sure the mothers get to be.

Paola with Leighton and their daughter Lily

The Long View

Photographs that outlive all of us.

“Their whole heritage comes back to these two people getting together. Generations, one day, looking back at how it all started. The ultimate reward is having those photos in your hands, to look at them, feel them, touch them.”

Paola Ohlson

When I see my work printed large on a couple's wall, it feels like having a museum exhibition, hung in hundreds of homes at once. That is what I'm really making: not files on a drive, but the pictures your grandchildren will hold.

Paola photographing barefoot at the water's edge in a blue dress

Behind The Lens

Chasing the light, every time.

You will usually find me barefoot at the edge of the water, watching for the moment most people would walk right past. I do not wait for a scene to be perfect, I make the most of whatever the light and the day give me.

This is the work I was quietly built for, and after hundreds of weddings and sessions, it still gives me goosebumps.

If This Sounds Like You

Let's make sure you keep this day.

I'm for the couples who care about photography, who want their day remembered exactly as it felt. If that's you, I'd love to hear your story.

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