Skip to main content

Most 9-year-olds play with cameras, this one gets hired to shoot weddings

nine year old fujifilm photographer ksg45472 9
This professional wedding photo, taken by nine-year-old Regina Wylie, shows age doesn't matter when it comes to who's behind the camera. Kevin Wyllie / Regina Wyllie
Regina Wyllie is a talented and capable photographer. Like many professionals, she fell in love with the craft at a young age and got her start as an assistant. Unlike many photographers, however, she is still at that young age. Having not yet completed her first decade, Regina has done such a good job assisting her father, Kevin Wyllie (an actual working photographer), that a bride and groom requested her by name.

The young photographer’s notoriety is a result not just of her age, but of her vision and professionalism. By age seven, she was shooting cameras in full manual mode, adjusting all aspects of exposure herself. Partly thanks to her size, she also brings a unique perspective to a wedding shoot, noticing moments and capturing angles that might otherwise be overlooked (no pun intended).

Phenom photographer, Regina Wylie
Phenom photographer, Regina Wylie Kevin Wyllie

Regina shoots with Fujifilm mirrorless cameras, a choice that helps keep the size and weight down, but the gear in her bag is decidedly professional: X-T1 and X-E1 cameras with XF 35mm F1.4 and XF 18mm F2 lenses. She worked alongside Kevin for the entire duration of the wedding, from prep to reception, shooting the whole time. (And yes, her images are good enough to be delivered to the clients.)

As reported in Fuji Rumors, the young X-series photographer began getting widely noticed after camera bag manufacturer ThinkTank requested to use her photo in an ad. The image depicts her father, who is wearing a ThinkTank belt pack, photographing a bride during a “trash the dress” shoot. The ad went out on the company’s Facebook page and that’s when newspapers began calling, according to a blog post by Kevin.

“I never would have thought to take her along to a full wedding,” Kevin writes on his blog. “But it was at the bride and groom’s request…she set up some really nice shots that I wish I had thought of.”

With her success as a shooter, Kevin is now helping Regina learn the ins and outs of editing in Adobe Lightroom. Which makes us ask, “What were you doing at nine-years-old?”

Daven Mathies
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Daven is a contributing writer to the photography section. He has been with Digital Trends since 2016 and has been writing…
The best photo printers you can buy in 2024
Alan compares draft, standard, and high-quality photos from Epson's EcoTank ET-8500.

A comparison of draft, standard, and high-quality photos from Epson's EcoTank ET-8500. Tracey Truly / Digital Trends

If you love sharing photo prints or building physical photo albums, you might want to upgrade to a photo printer. When manufacturers optimize printers for pictures, the results can match or exceed that of the best printers available.

Read more
Crutchfield sale: Save on Canon, Sony and Nikon mirrorless cameras
Canon EOS R5

Photography can be a fun and even lucrative endeavor, although it also can be exceedingly expensive, with some of the best full-frame cameras on the market easily reaching and even exceeding one or two thousand dollars, and that's without taking into account the cost of the lenses. Luckily, there is a great sale at Crutchfield right now on various cameras and camera kits, and you can actually grab yourself some excellent cameras, whether you're just starting out or want to upgrade to the next level. To that end, we've picked some of our favorite deals below, although it's well worth checking out the full Crutchfield sale that's happenning now.

What you should buy in Crutchfield's camera sale
If you're just starting out with photography and don't want to spend the thousands of dollars you do for the slightly better cameras that you'll find in the mid-range, the Canon EOS R100 is an excellent option, and this kit includes a lens as well. It has a 24.1-megapixel sensor for high-quality photography, a 3-inch screen so you can get a better sense of what you're filming, and, of course, the RF-S 18-45mm f/4.5-6.3 lens that the kit comes with. It can also connect with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and all of that comes packaged at , which is $100 off the usual $599 price tag.

Read more