Behind the Lens

MEET AMY

Amy Claeys began her love affair with photography in a high school black and white film class. She loved the creativity of the class, but let it fall to the wayside after graduation.

In 2001, after the birth of her first child, her husband felt that she was spending too much money on developing film of the new baby, so for her birthday he bought her her first digital camera, an Olympus C4040 Zoom. 4.1 megapixels of digital goodness.

In 2008, Amy founded The Royal Oak Photography Group. ROP started out as a photo walk group. After about a year of taking photos with her group, Amy realized that she wanted to become a better photographer, so she enrolled in the photo program at Oakland Community College. That is where she fell in love with film photography. developing and printing film, both color and black and white, has become Amy’s absolute place of Zen. She has since been awarded a Certificate of Photographic Technology, (PHT.CT).

Now a widowed mother of two teenagers, Amy currently owns Daisy Blue, and works as a full time freelance photographer. She primarily photographs weddings, but dabbles in architecture as well. She published her first book in November of 2022, and is currently working on her second book of architecture. 
 It’s really all about the journey of photographing people. While her photo sessions are shot primarily in digital format, she always brings along some film, and will shoot some film at each photo session upon request. It’s Amy’s goal as a photographer to put a little bit of art into every photograph.

©️First Street Photography