(n.) Soulmates who have a universal bond. They understand you, they grow with you and they never stop believing in you.
Soul Sisters
Kari Camacho
I’m Kari Camacho aka the “KC” in JCKC.
A Miami girl by birth - and while I may have been an only child, I grew up playing mermaid with about 32 cousins from all over the world. While my official dream job is swimming in the sea, this one comes pretty close.
I got lucky in love with my husband Nico and our spark of joyful madness named Kaïa. Seeing the world through her eyes and teaching her to live out her dreams inspired me to be her example of that.
Going through school, I knew I wanted to make a difference and I’ve always had a passion for little humans so I got my Masters Degree in Education. I taught for years and felt such a strong drive to help children grow into the best versions of themselves, and leave a beautiful world for them to do that in. I take my time spent with kids as an important, humbling lesson in how life can be both incredibly beautiful, wildly unexpected and sometimes incredibly messy. It was during my time in graduate school I realized how much I loved to capture feelings and moments on film. Not exactly a practical time to pursue a love for photography, but love isn’t always practical, and art is almost never. So I threw caution to the wind and dove in just as I do- to string together moments.
During my lifetime I’ve come to know many intangible moments that deserve to be documented, and that’s how I began to live my day dream- living in moments, captured to keep.
Jen Castro
Hi, I’m Jen Castro, the “JC” in JCKC! I studied political science and international relations at Florida State University and never had a clue what I wanted to do, I just knew I had a love for people, society, and all its inner workings (I’ll geek out with you on all things culture — also plants, and show me pictures of your dog) When I graduated, I closed my eyes and went wherever the wind took me which landed me in a very promising public relations position I knew nothing about, working for global consumer brands like Pilot Pens, Nature’s Own, and other random brand names you might know of. I did this while opening my first small business, a children’s cooking school. Since then I have worked in publicity, marketing, sales, design, sat on boards of non-profits, even tried my swing at law school just to realize none of it brought me close enough to people. You see, photography brings you real close to real people, so close I’ve been able to wipe tears off clients faces, settled their babies to sleep, watched clients go from newly married to a family of four. Most importantly, I’ve seen clients go from acquaintance to close friends, and in some instances even family. I’m there for humanity’s most intimate moments, every client brings me a bit closer to culture, family, love — all the things that make up society, all the things I love passionately.
A few years ago I walked into a bar and the bartender told me I’d be his wife someday, I laughed in his face and asked for a drink but here we are years later and I am, in fact, his wife (still asking for drinks). Our original wedding was cancelled due to COVID but we still decided to celebrate from the comfort of home and made ourselves our biggest surprise yet — our son Art. We ended up marrying in my mom’s backyard with 20 of our closest and healthiest loved ones. All this to say, I’m pretty happy with where the wind has taken me both in work and in love.
Sometimes in the waves of change we find our true direction
Fun
Facts About Us
"We’ve been best friends for 15 years. If we’re not shooting we’re diving the Florida straits or roaming around our local plant shops & farmer’s markets."
"Our spirit duo is Grace & Frankie, also our favorite netflix series. Our biggest competition is who has the most house plants."
making memories with you
We met our Junior year of high school, our last names put us in close quarters (Camacho & Castro), meaning we were in the same homeroom, same lunch, sat together in classes, our senior photos are even right next to each other in our year book but, if we’re being honest, we became best friends like most people become best friends — we had the same archenemy. Although I know we’d have a better chance of you reading this till the end if I kept talking about high school drama but we’re really here to tell you about us. In our high school art class, we paired up without our instructor asking us to and we painted a diver swimming across an ocean scene. We gave the painting to our environmental science teacher to put in her sons nursery, and that was the true start of JCKC.
College came and we went our separate ways- Jen became a Florida State Seminole and Kari a Buccaneer at Barry University.
We were always great students, but we craved more than the traditional path of education. We had a craving for adventure, mischief, purpose, and conquered it all together one summer in South America. With our cameras, waterproof gear, and backpacks we put our documentary skills to the test, after countless hours editing video footage and processing images, our possibilities flashed before our eyes and we had that moment of “we could do this.”
We’re both dreamers, the annoying kind that quite literally live in the clouds. One time we took a road trip to South Carolina and on our way home inevitably added another 3 hours to our drive, our excuse was that we were overly exhausted from one of the most remarkable wedding weekends we’ve done together, but really it’s because we talked so much we took an exit going to opposite way.
Our friendship began over fourteen years ago, it is no wonder we consider ourselves family. Our husbands can’t tell the difference between our “twin voice” which we still laugh at every now and then. You know sisterhood of the traveling pants? We are polar opposites in size and yet we can share so many different pieces of our wardrobes. We don’t flinch when people ask us if we’re sisters because we are. The brutally honest, all forgiving, ever trusting in each other, type of sisters.
