The exact date of the beginning of KenMar Photography is buried along with Ken and Margaret whose names make up the name of the business. Most archives point to 1954.
Early KenMar 50s thru 60s
I do know that in the late 1940’s, after the war, my dad’s eyes were lit up with the magic, the mystery, the honesty, and the potential of photography as a living. He poured himself into it and took huge risks to fulfill his dream. He convinced Margaret Vosters to be his wife and business partner. About the time I was born they bought a house on Oneida Street and combined their names, their fortunes, and their future, to create Ken-Mar Studio.
Early KenMar 70s thru 80s
As a kid there was a dark room in our basement and a studio in our living room. I remember visiting a classmate’s house I asked where their camera room and darkroom was. I thought everybody had those! Although I grew up with the business, I was not at all interested in photography when I lived there. That happened literally by accident in 1984. My dad and his assistant were in a car accident. I was in college. I needed a job. He asked me if I’d help out for the summer. KenMar 2.0 was born.
Since 2002
we’ve been on 1120 North Hickory Farm Lane in Appleton, just off of Wisconsin Avenue near Fleet Farm. Today we have one of the largest camera room and studios north of Milwaukee as well as acres of landscaped property for outdoor photography with forests, gardens, hills, paths, prairie, props and even a little stream running through it.
KenMar Photography’s 65th anniversary Newspaper Article!
Here’s a link to a local newspaper article about our 65th Anniversary
Have you seen a man with long blond hair riding a moped like a speed demon?
That’s Todd Kunstman, a photographer who just turned 65 years old and runs his own portrait studio, KenMar Photography, that also turns 65 this year.
Interesting fact: A cop stopped him on his 65th birthday because he was “driving his moped like he’d stolen it.”
Also a fact: Neither the business nor the man intend to slow down.
KenMar was started by his parents Ken and Margaret around the time he was born. Today it’s a large photo studio with 2 acres of park-like grounds and a stream used for portrait settings at 1120 N. Hickory Farm Lane, an industrial part of Grand Chute.
Here, a chat with one of the more colorful photographers in the Fox Cities.
Post-Crescent: So about that wild moped driving…?
Todd Kunstman: I like living on the edge.
P-C: So no retirement in the cards?
TK: I can’t turn it off. If it were up to me I would never retire. I’ll keep working as long as it’s fun. I don’t have an exit plan. I’ll let nature determine that.
P-C: Can you estimate the number of senior portraits KenMar has taken over 65 years?
TK: I’m thinking that my dad may have photographed his first senior somewhere in the very early ’60s. Back then there were only a handful of professional photographers in the Fox River Valley: Pechman, Rueckl, Kinney, Zernike, Gordon’s, Van Dyn Hoven, KenMar and a few others. Once you hung out a shingle and established your studio, you could photograph 300 to 500 senior portraits every year. If I had to guess how many senior portraits we’ve shot, I wouldn’t even have to guess. I could just count the negative envelopes. We literally have tons of them. Tons. Literally. And after that, all the digital files. Now we limit it to shooting about 100 seniors a year.
P-C: What’s the worst situation you’ve encountered as a photographer?
TK: Every photographer has their horror stories and their hero stories. We trade them like currency at conventions. Like, make sure your Hasselblad is loaded with film during the wedding ceremony because the camera doesn’t let you know that until after you open it.
P-C: Do you still shoot weddings?
TK: No. I took out things that weren’t fun. I don’t do weddings or babies. I only do what I want to do now — senior portraits, legal, corporate, families. We can shoot a family portrait with as many as 50 people in our studio because we have the room.
P-C: You seriously like shooting senior pictures?
TK: I absolutely love it. Reluctant senior boys are my specialty. I understand them. They come in and they don’t want to be here. They’re doing it because their mom told them to do it. They’re staring bullets at me.
P-C: How do you do get them to come around?
TK: I talk to them first. I tell them an embarrassing story about me. I’ve got lots of them. Sometimes, if their sense of humor seems up for it, I tell them I’m taking their obituary picture. Then I explain that I see obituaries in The Post-Crescent where the deceased is 97 years old and is using their high school yearbook picture for their obituary. I let them know that I want this picture of them to be so special, so iconic, so real, that 80 years later, they’ll do the same. By the end of the shoot, they shake my hand. They understand, ‘I’m important. I’m on the wall. I’m part of the tribe.’”
P-C: In this era of “everyone’s a photographer with an iPhone,” how do you convince people of the value of professional photography?
TK: It’s a creative service, not just a product. It’s the experience of being photographed by someone with experience. For some, it might be the only time in their life they’re photographed by a professional photographer.
P-C: What’d the secret of longevity that any business can learn from you?
TK: “Find what you love, and let it kill you,” said (writer) Charles Bukowski. The other secret of longevity is to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. My wife and daughter are smart on the things I’m not so much smart in, the business side of it. I’m the creative right brain. They’re left brain. I’m comfortable in my right brain. I’ve worked for other businesses in other jobs, professions and trades, in mills and factories. I just didn’t fit in. But I would rather work 15 hours a day with me as my boss, at minimum wage, than work for eight hours for The Man.
P-C: What’s the best situation you’ve encountered as a photographer?
TK: The best situations are sometimes also the saddest ones. We’ll photograph a wonderful spirit only to have that spirit leave this earth. And we still have their images. And the preciousness of those images is felt in the hearts of those left behind. When your mother shows you a photograph of your grandpa when he was in high school, she says, “this is your grandfather.” Not, “this is a picture of your grandfather.” That’s when you understand the power of a printed picture. People live on in those pictures.
Here is a nostalgic slideshow depicting the progression of KenMar for the last 65 years