Before the creation of the company, Kitty was 16 years old when she discovered photography. With no real training, she always went on instincts and they have never been steered wrong. She prides herself on capturing “real moments”, and it was those moments that brought her photos to life. From the bonding moments of mother and child, to the welcoming home of a soldier. From the good times with friends, to the “I do’s” at the altar. The emotion she felt when her camera clicked is shown through her work.

Worth a Thousand Words Photography started out originally as Photography by Vanessa Gutierrez on the island of Guam. She lived there as a navy wife and mother of five children. Being busy all the time did not make it easy for her to work outside of her home. So fate would have it that a fellow photographer in Guam was selling her equipment, which was the same time that Kitty was considering going back into photography. It was then and there that it was decided to start a photography business.

The company started out small by marketing to military families on the naval base where she was stationed. It did relatively well considering she had limited resources. But like all military families, it was time to change military orders and move off the island. It was a toss up as to the fate of the company.

Kitty and her family moved back to Visalia, CA. After settling into a new home, she decided to pick up the pieces and revamp the company. After great amount of research, trial and errors, the company finally formed into “Worth A Thousand Words Photography”.

There is a common saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Knowing this to be a well known phrase, it was decided to be used as the new name for the company.

After a year of business, fate decided to play another card on the company. Kitty decided to do a photo series called “Urban Fairies”. This caused a slight buzz on myspace and had a great amount of responses. One particular model showed a great amount of interest in her work as well as her equipment. It turns out that this model was also a photographer as well.

Douglas Selik started his photography education while attending Patrick Henry High School. After graduation, he continued in photography working at Sea World. After a great amount of consideration as to his direction in his career, it was decided to further his education in photography at Brooke’s Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA. After a year and a half, he decided to return to San Diego, CA. He has been working as a photographer at event's across southern California and has traveled as far as New Orleans! In July of 2007, it was decided for Douglas to join the company.

Kitty went through a great amount of health and personal issues due to a divorce. But Douglas and she were not going to let that get in the way. They work well together and with the combination of their talents brought the company to where it is today in the beautiful city of San Diego, CA!