Katelyn James sat in her plush black office chair, tucked safely inside her cozy bedroom as the rain fell hard on the ground outside. Her red hair was a little damp from a recent jaunt across the wet campus, but she still had a smile on her face. Hiding from the elements and her annotated bibliography, Katelyn contentedly sifted through pictures from a recent photography shoot. She mumbled to herself as she adjusted the shadows and highlights on a picture of a husband and wife.

Buddy Powers, a tall, brunette senior, knocked on Katelyn’s door, interrupting her editing.

“Hey Katelyn, you want to go to Plaza?” Buddy asked. He and several friends were going out to celebrate him passing his senior seminar class with honors.

“I would if I could, but I can’t,” Katelyn said.

“Okay, well, good luck,” Buddy said, and quietly shut the door. Katelyn sighed as she looked back at her computer. She would much rather go be with friends, but for now social life must be put on hold. It was time to work.

On the outside, Katelyn James seems like any other college senior. She has soft red hair and dazzling green eyes that compliment a fair, slightly freckled complexion. There is almost always a smile on her face, and she is usually wearing some shade of blue or green, or some combination of the two. She is rarely, if ever, seen without her Blackberry and is almost always singing, or will start singing throughout the course of a conversation with her.

Born on Dec. 30, 1987, Katelyn has spent all but the first 16 months of her life in the same house in Caroline County, Va. The oldest of three children, Katelyn is a natural born leader. She is the peacemaker in the family, negotiating between her eccentric 19-year-old sister, Emily, and her increasingly loud 15-year-old brother, Corey.

The daughter of a pastor, Katelyn grew up in the church and, as a result, faith has always been an important part of her life. However, it wasn’t until she came to college when she had to learn to defend her faith.

“College has been good because I had to make my faith my own, but I also had to fight to defend what I know is true,” Katelyn said.

Like many girls, Katelyn James always had a love and affinity for all things crafty. For years she dabbled in nearly everything—graphic design, painting, art, videography, photography—you name it, and Katelyn did it.

In high school she started her first business known as Katelyn’s Krafts where she would buy 88-cent porcelain bowls from Wal-Mart, paint patterns on them and then sell them.

This continued into college, where she also began working in graphic design at the Ferguson Center for the Arts, but neither of these things were what Katelyn truly loved.

“I realized that I loved designing and I loved the freedom to design as a student, but I hated being in an office,” recalls Katelyn. “Just hated it. So, that’s when I started thinking about it and I wanted to do it, but I didn’t want to be stuck in an office. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

“I was just a camera person at the beginning of college. I was the ‘go-to’ girl for group pictures. I always had my camera. The funniest story was I bought my Canon Rebel and I took him everywhere. I took him ice skating, on the ice. I’m wobbling around trying to take pictures of people. It was the most absurd thing I ever did with a camera. But that’s when I got started, when I bought that. I really didn’t know why I was buying that. I just wanted a nicer camera. I got tired of my point-and-shoot and I wanted something different. I saw the package on eBay and I was like, ‘Oh, this is a great deal.’ I really had no idea what I was doing. I just convinced my parents to let me get this camera. I started using it all the time, everywhere I went, but it never turned into anything until 2008.”

In August 2008, Katelyn’s life in the art and design business turned a corner when her youth pastor asked Katelyn to photograph her upcoming wedding. Though Katelyn had some experience working as a second shooter for photographer friend, Jessie Smith, she had never done it on her own, and was very apprehensive with many fears about striking out on her own. She thought it would be too difficult and too much responsibility, but eventually decided to take on the task.

Taking a huge step, Katelyn purchased her first $2,000 camera with the intention of selling it after the wedding. Following the first wedding, though, Katelyn thought that maybe, just maybe, she could do this on her own, on the side. In hopes of starting something, Katelyn bought a Web site and received three more wedding clients.

“I got three more weddings for the fall, so I got a business name, I got a business license, and I made it official, and that’s when it started. It’s crazy.”

Though Katelyn may think it’s crazy that her business seems to have almost started by chance, her customers certainly don’t think that she is crazy.

It is obvious that Katelyn loves what she does and doesn’t really consider it a job. Between word of mouth and her faithful blog-stalkers, Katelyn’s cliental has increased remarkably in just the last year, as has the quality and style of her photography.

Over the last year and a half, Katelyn has grown to love her job more and more and takes it very seriously. It is no longer something she does ‘just on the side.’ It is her business and what she wants to do for years to come.

Unlike many photographers, Katelyn did not name her business after herself using a company name like ‘Katelyn James Photography.’ Instead, she chose the name ‘The Inspired Design,’ for a variety of different reasons.

She initially planned the business to be a collaboration of not just photography, but also graphic design. When the photography side of the business began to take off, she considered dropping the design aspect completely but realized there were little ways she could use design to aid her photography and now uses her knack for design to create albums, invitations, thank you cards, and other special details with the portraits that clients can use.

Aside from the fact that she knew her last name would change eventually, Katelyn’s faith is another reason she decided to name the company The Inspired Design instead of Katelyn James Photography.

“I remember praying before I invested several thousand dollars in my first Canon 5D,” Katelyn says.

When you combine multiple things someone is passionate about, the result is always good and this is exactly what has happened with Katelyn.

Her love for photography has only increased during her year and a half in business, and her love for the Lord shines through that. But Katelyn also loves weddings. It is easy to tell through her facial expressions and her general excitement that she loves it, but it’s not just the photography, though that is how it started. While she does love photography in a general sense, her favorite time to capture images is on someone’s wedding day.

“I don’t think it started with me liking weddings. It started with me liking photography,” Katelyn said. “When I think about why I like doing my job, I love coming back from a wedding and knowing that I have what I call ‘money shots,’ pictures I know that are going to be in my portfolio that I will show other people. I think my love for weddings comes more so from the art and design aspects of it, and weddings are perfect because I love taking the little things and putting them together so they work.

“It’s not just doing senior pictures all the time. Senior pictures don’t mean anything, but weddings are a big deal.”

In every aspect of her life, Katelyn essentially has one mantra that she follows: do what you love. Her passion for all that she does exudes through every activity, every word, and every movement.

“If you do what you love, you never work. If you do what you absolutely love, you love it and you’re not miserable,” Katelyn said to me one evening. “Do what you love, Sarah, and you’ll always be happy.”