Introducing your newest hype girl

Hi, I’m Andrea

What if I told you this whole photography thingy was never even on my radar? Like, for real.

In 2010, I was working my dream job as a kindergarten teacher at an incredible school with impactful educators. That same year, I eloped in Italy with my husband, Nick. It was there in Italy that I picked up my first DSLR camera and discovered that, after searching for years, I did in fact have an artistic bone in my body.

This new found passion surged through me with each click of the shutter button, as I captured the beauty of Florence, Piombino, and Rome. And that, my friends, is how I caught the “photobug.”

Over the next two years, after watching hundreds of YouTube videos, documenting every waking moment of my honeymoon baby’s life, and with a whole lotta trial and error, my new hobby quickly developed into a bustling side business. With the birth of my second daughter in 2012, it finally turned into a full-blown career change as a professional photographer under the name Vita Bella Photography.

My days were spent documenting the delicate features of newborns and the messy faces of cake eating one year olds, my evenings pressing pause on playful families basking in the golden light, and my weekends chasing behind giddy couples on their wedding day. Late nights were dedicated for playing nose darts at my computer while I edited away my deadlines leading to sleep deprived mornings requiring way too much coffee just to do it all over again. And, so it went for the next seven years!

In 2019, after burning the candle at both ends while raising two girls and running a “successful” business, I hit a level of burnout that affected me both mentally and physically. Naturally, I attempted to return to education for reprieve, but when I didn’t receive an anticipated position, I spiraled. My proverbial safety net had officially been pulled out from underneath me—more on this struggle in a book I co-authored called “Grit & Grace.”

This wake-up call made me realize I didn’t want to leave photography; I simply needed to restructure my way of doing business in order to stay passionate, creative, and sustainable. In 2019, I rebranded as Andrea Costrino & Co. Portrait Photography and micro-niched to contemporary and fashion-inspired portraiture with a focus on working with women.

I had no idea how impactful this work would be, how it would support the women I worked with, and how it would profoundly change me as a photographer and as a human being. I can see now that each closed door has lead me here; right where I belong- for now.

To be continued……

call me, Maybe