Little League, Mad River Glen pond skimming, extreme skiing and racing, kids’ events, community events and more. It’s hard to miss the Photos By Kintz photo credits on pictures of lots of local events. So, who’s behind those photos?
The answer is Bobby and Kolleen Kintz, Waitsfield, a husband and wife team who moved to The Valley in 2020 with their daughter Olive, who is now four. Kolleen Kintz has lifelong ties to The Valley. Her grandparents started coming to The Valley the first year Mad River Glen opened. They built a ski house in the 1960s where Kolleen, her siblings and parents spent lots of time.
They were living in Baltimore and had a photography company there for almost eight years. They were also professional clowns! Their clown debut in The Valley was at Cabin Fever Follies this year.
Kolleen studied theater her whole life and Bobby is a photographer by trade. They self-taught each other the tricks of their trades and found that photography and clowning go hand in hand.
“It’s about connecting with people, being authentic and reading the room, getting people to loosen up. So, the two things feed each other,” Kolleen Kintz said.
Since they moved here during the first year of COVID, they’re regular gigs – all in-person and people-based – were not available.
“We love Vermont and always wanted to live here. When the pandemic hit we were trying to figure out how to move our business. My grandmother was 99 and living alone in Bethesda, Maryland. We moved her up here and we cared for her the first year that we lived here. One of the only things we could do during the pandemic, being quarantined with a 1 year old and 99 year old, was go to Mad River Glen and ski. That’s our happy place,” she said.
They began giving their photos to the mountain to help bring professional documentation to Mad River Glen and its programs.
It means a lot to us, that place and it’s sort of sacred ground for my family. And we love the sport. And then we're just trying to kind of pay it forward,” she said.
Their regular work is now back on track, but they’re continuing to seek out community events to take pictures and share them on social media and in the media as a way of building their business.
They love living here full time and can’t imagine ever leaving. Since they moved here Kolleen’s mother has moved here full time. Her sister made an offer on a house in Waitsfield and Bobby’s identical twin moved to Montpelier in 2020.
