Meet Your Photographer
Crystal Kelly is an international award-winning photographer based in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, with more than a decade of experience photographing people, stories, and the beautifully imperfect moments in between.
Her work is rooted in storytelling, with a particular love for black-and-white documentary photography and imagery that feels honest, emotional, and alive. Whether photographing a family in the middle of their wonderfully ordinary chaos, creating polished imagery for a commercial client, or capturing a milestone worth remembering, Crystal approaches each session with the same intention: to create photographs that feel like something, not simply look like something.
Her style is clean, bold, and timeless, with an appreciation for rich color, dramatic light, genuine connection, and the occasional perfectly imperfect moment. She believes the best photographs aren't always the ones where everyone is looking at the camera. Sometimes they're the ones happening just outside the frame you thought you were supposed to create.
When she's not behind the lens, Crystal can usually be found spending time with her two kids, napping with her two dogs, figuring out what’s for dinner, playing the ukulele with wildly varying degrees of competence, pretending to know how to roller skate, or speaking in the third person.
I can’t wait to photograph you!
-Crystal
onesweetsecond@gmail.com
956.739.6914 (call or text)
BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
…oh, and then there was that time
that I went a little viral,
then I won an award,
then Daily Mail ran my photograph,
then the local news picked up my story.
On December 10, 2019, I took this photograph of my daughter taking her first breaths as she was still attached to me. Yup. I took my own c-section photo, and IT. WAS. SURREAL. to say the very least. The next year, I submitted that image along with two other images to the international Monochrome Awards. Two of them placed and were published in a big, beautiful book that sits on my living room shelf. Out of 7,096 submissions from 91 countries, I placed 3rd in Professional Photojournalism for my birth photo and I also had an Honorable Mention in Professional Portrait.
I am so very proud of this photograph.
My greatest creation.
My magnum opus.
