Meet Brianna
Brianna Welborn is a photographer, web and graphic designer in Nashville, TN. With 8 years of experience in photography and 6 years in design, she has supported multiple clients, including a few big names like Twitch, Braison Cyrus, Sphere International, and Jet Acquisitions. She specializes in small business and believes in helping companies develop their brand and strategy so they succeed in the digital world.
Her education includes an Associates of Applied Science in Photography from North Georgia Technical College and a Bachelor’s in Media Arts Production from Emerson College.
Introducing Me
Some might say you can’t be a photographer and a model or a digital designer and whatever hat I put on, but I’ve never been one to like titles. Some may call me a career slasher, but in my opinion, versatile people are becoming more and more necessary for success. In digital industries, wearing multiple hats is a necessity.
So who is Brianna? How’d she become a digital creator?
At the age of 8, I became obsessed with WordArt and ClipArt and using them to create “graphics.” I was so obsessed, my father asked me to make him a photo for his cookbook.
I wasn’t ever the kid obsessed with games. I’d build towers out of household items, so my family thought I was smart (or maybe strange) enough to become an architect or an engineer. After all, that did run in the family. Eventually, I became so good with PowerPoint that I would create stories using animations and make videos by capturing screen recordings of PowerPoints and putting sound or spoken word over it.
When I was 13, I became obsessed with creating Tumblr pages. I learned how to write HTML code for them so music would play, I could change the text formatting, and your cursor would look different once you entered them. It was my premature version of web design. As I dug deeper into this world, my need to create grew stronger.
At 14, photography went from a thing I did for myself to something I was getting asked to do from others. I was a 14 year old getting PAID to do something I enjoyed. How crazy is that? I was taking photographs for local events and even doing a few portrait sessions here or there.
When I was 15, I was hospitalized for lupus. During this hospitalization, I started to wonder what my purpose is. I didn’t have many friends, I wasn’t going to school because I was homeschooling, and I wasn’t able to play sports or do physical activities. My mother looked at me in the hospital and said, “Why don’t you just go ahead and go to college? I’m sure you could pass the test. It’s not that hard and then you can just move on.”
That may sound like an odd thing for a mother to say, but my mother knew I was feeling down about myself, and I wasn’t being pushed enough. I was letting all these things keep me down, but right there in that hospital room, I decided not to let them anymore. The next week, I took the entrance exam to dual-enroll at the local community college and I passed!
At the age of 15, I started the Photography program at North Georgia Technical College. I was in college full time and working on homeschooling in my spare time. Photography became my life. Day in and day out I was training on equipment, studying light and visual theory, creating business contracts, and learning to write articles. I studied under Jim Loring, a well-traveled photojournalist, who gave me insight into how to approach photography conceptually and helped me develop my own code of ethics. He helped me build the foundation for my own business today.
At 17, I received my Associates of Applied Science in Photography and graduated from high school. I applied for many programs but ultimately decided on Media Arts Production at Emerson College in Boston, MA. I went from graduating from one college in July to starting at another in August. It was a big jump at that age but I was too excited to look back.
At Emerson College, I was able to study a variety of fields within my degree. I spent my days in classes for photography, film production, art theory, and creative writing. This helped me dive into my career as an expert multitasker. I graduated at 19 with my Bachelors in Media Arts Production.
After graduation, I began my own business working as a web designer, graphic designer, and photographer, and I never looked back.