S13 - Episode #10 - Kelsey Kurtis

Kelsey Kurtis: Antarctica, Adventure Photography, Branding Yourself as YOU & the Legend of the Crotch Pot 🎒📸🐧

We're closing out Season 13 with an episode you will not want to miss. Kelsey Kurtis — photographer, author, adventurer, and certified force of nature — joins us for a conversation that covers everything from the Sierra Nevadas to the South Pole, and somehow ends with crotch-baked brownies.

Kelsey grew up hiking in Mammoth Lakes, California, and now calls Bellingham, Washington home — two mountain meccas that shaped her deep love for wild places. Over the past 15 years, she's built a career as a professional branding photographer working primarily with women-owned businesses, authored The Connection Method, and grown a community that celebrates showing up unapologetically as yourself. She opens up about navigating ADHD and dyslexia, how her Grandpa Paul's jewelry-selling philosophy became the foundation for everything she teaches about human connection, and why branding yourself as you — not what you sell — is the key to building something that lasts.

We dig into her iPhone photography tips (yes, stop pinching to zoom), what makes a branding shoot actually feel like a person, and how her Too Much Club is creating a permission slip for people who've always been told they're too loud, too weird, or too much.

Then Kelsey takes us to Antarctica — her #1 bucket list destination since age 15 — where she served as expedition photographer, ugly-cried on a Zodiac surrounded by icebergs, survived the Drake Passage with the help of a mystery pill, and oh… sang I Want It That Way with Howie from the Backstreet Boys. 

We also talk Camp KK — her group travel series designed for women in midlife who want adventure, community, and professional photos of themselves looking epic in the mountains. 

And yes — we get into the Crotch Pot. If you don't know, you're about to find out.

Episode Links:
Kelsey on Instagram
Kelsey Photography Account on Instagram
Kelsey's Website
Use code HIKE20 for Kelsey's "Elevate your Phone Photography" Class ($20 off - makes it $49!)

This episode was Produced by Jordyn Smith, follow her on Instagram @jordyn.journeys

Follow us on Instagram, @Hikesandmics

This episode's music was created by Ketsa, follow him on Instagram

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