The team

the people
behind the lens.

Led by our CEO, built by a small crew, and kept honest by family. One lens, many bands.

Kim Brannon
Chief Executive Officer
Before Aura, Kim founded Kirksey — a styling studio built on one belief: how you show up is self-expression, and the right look builds real confidence. She spent years helping people find the pieces that were unmistakably them. aura.refract is that same instinct, refracted — instead of curating a wardrobe, she helps people see the color they already carry. From a business plan on the back of an envelope in Montréal to CEO of Aura, Kim turns "who am I?" into something you can see.
Kim styling our founder Ashley for a shoot
Kim styling our founder, Ashley, on set. She's spent a career making people feel unmistakably themselves — leading Aura is the same work at a bigger scale.
Origin

It started with the pictures.

We kept seeing the pictures — those color-soaked aura portraits — and almost never the booth that made them. It lived in a few cities, behind a line and a price, on one specific night. We kept thinking the same thing: the magic shouldn't be that hard to reach. So we rebuilt it. aura.refract refracts the light coming off a real person, right in the browser, and hands their aura back in seconds — no booth, no film, no wait. Light, returned.

Our mission
Make the wonder of an aura portrait instant, everywhere, for everyone — refract a person's light and give it back in seconds, free at the core, beautiful enough to keep.
Our vision
A world where every room can read its own light — where seeing your color, and a stranger's, is as ordinary and as joyful as taking a photo.
The crew

The people behind the room.

The family and crew who keep the lens running, the prints shipping, and the brand honest.

Jacey Tomblin
Co-Founder · Socials & QA
Quiet until it counts. When the idea got pitched, Jacey lit up — and that was the green light. She runs social and QA, keeping the story straight and testing every release before it ships.
Band · VIOLET
Jordan Tomblin
Accounting & Socials
Keeps the numbers clean and the lens funded — and the feed alive between the spreadsheets.
Band · GREEN
Demi Barron
Creative & Events
The eye behind the stills — and the rooms. Capturing the light the way it really lands.
Band · CYAN
Jason Barron
Creative & Events
Turns the nights into motion — the films and events that carry the brand.
Band · BLUE
Paul Jones
Advisor · Photography
A photographer's photographer. Paul keeps our light honest — the craft of composition, color, and capture behind every frame.
Band · YELLOW
Troy Rybicki
Advisor · Marketing
Helps the light get seen — story, audience, and the channels that put aura.refract in front of the world.
Band · RED
The founder

And then there's Ashley.

Ashley built the first version herself — the refraction engine that runs entirely in your browser: white-balance the frame, divide out the room's cast, read the dominant band of what's left. Then she brought in a team better at running a company than she wanted to be, so she could stay where she's happiest — on the physics and the product. She started aura.refract; the team is what makes it carry. The math she built is public at /engine.

Read the founding note →

Want to join the lens?

We're a small team, hiring carefully. If you read this page and saw a band that's missing, get in touch.

Reach out →