Kirsten Feldman was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1960 where she began swimming competitively at the age of eight. Kirsten participated in the 1976 Canadian Olympic Swimming Trials, trained with Olympic Coach, Derek Snelling at the Etobicoke Swim Club and was a member of the University of Waterloo Varsity Swim Team. She won a bronze medal in the Maccabiah Games in israel in 1977 representing Canada.

In 1980, Kirsten began rowing at the Argonaut Rowing Club in Toronto and she was named Rower of the Year in 1982. She and her crew won the 1981 and 1982 Canadian National Rowing Championship in Lightweight Women's Pairs and Fours and in 1982 placed 2nd in the Lightweight Women's Pairs at the U.S. National Women's Championships and at the Canadian Royal Henley Regatta. While pursuing her MBA at the University of Western Ontario, Kirsten stroked the Women's Varsity Eight in 1983 at age 23 to an Ontario Championship and to a second place finish at the Head of the Charles Regatta.

With her rowing career not yet reached its peak, Kirsten moved to New York City at age 24 to become an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and had no time to pick up an oar or get to a pool for 15 years. Kirsten retired from banking in 2001 and still regretting the premature end to her athletic career, competed in an Olympic Distance Triathlon in 2001 and the Head of the Charles Rowing Regatta in a masters single scull in 2003. In 2006 she raced at the 2006 FINA World Masters Championships for Swimming with her original medley relay team from 1974 when they were all 14.

Despite 12 years of swimming and three of rowing, Kirsten has only three action photographs of that formative time of her life. As with most athletes from that era, the images are mainly stiff team pictures. Kirsten began photographing sports while hanging out at all-day rowing regattas and returned to it when her two children began their own athletic endeavors. She has studied photography and photo book making at the International Center of Photography and since 2013, has been working closely with world-class photographer, Ken Jarecke who has photographed ten Olympics Games and published a seminal photo book of the Nebraska Cornhuskers final season in the Big 12.

Kirsten is married with two teenaged student athlete children whose teams inspire her work. She lives in New York City.