You have 2 girls, what does a typical day look like for you?

Penelope will be eight in April and is in second grade, and her little sister Millie is 4 1/2 and will be entering Kindergarten this fall. I’ve been married for nearly 14 years and our family is pretty laid back... We love to hang out together, laugh about silly things, and one of our favorite things is to snuggle together in our bed. We have a hard time getting up in the morning because the girls crawl into bed with us and we don’t want to get out. It is my favorite place to be, all cozy with my little family. That is one of the reasons Jules’ took a bedtime shot of us for our Christmas card this year... It typifies my family perfectly.

Mornings are pretty crazy in my house, getting my girls up, fed, dressed, lunches made , and out the door by 8am. If I was smart I would make their lunches and have their outfits chosen the night before, but I’m usually up late working on something for the business, so I always put it off.... Thus we have a reputation for sliding into school just as the bell rings!

I try to focus on work while the girls are in school so that I can focus on them when they come home. It isn’t always easy to manage doing work things at just the exact hours they are in school, however. And my youngest is still in preschool, so she is only in school three days a week.

I work out of my house, so of course I’m surrounded by laundry and dishes and tripping on toys as I’m trying to handle emails and phone calls... It can make for a distracting environment, and sometimes I’ll just have to tell myself to focus on one thing or the other... Either let the mess go and focus on work or put off work and deal with household things. I think that a block schedule would be the answer to this issue... So that while I’m working I’m not thinking about all the domestic things that have to happen. I’m trying to be better about that—just focusing on work when it is work time and home when it is home time, but life is not always that neat and usually one thing bleeds into the other. What happens to me is that I’ll be in the middle of one project, get distracted by something else, and then start something completely different, only to realize hours later that I never finished the first project!

When it is time to pick up my 2nd grader from school I feel very strongly about focusing on my girls for the first hour or so they are home. I haven’t seen them all day, so I usually make a snack and sit down with them at the table and talk for a little while. Evenings start to get away from me as I’m balancing between the attentions of both girls, getting homework done, dinner, baths, that sort of thing... So I usually put off any sort of work related thing until they are both asleep at that point. It is just too difficult to try and put them off in the evening, and not fair to them either.

What do you think are the most important things you do as a mom and every day?
One of the most important things I can do as a Mom is to give my children uninterrupted time and be fully present with them. I make sure that I give them my full attention when they are talking to me. I have an issue with being distracted by my iphone, so I’ve tried to make a conscious effort to put it down and be present in the moment. I realize that they are going to be children for only a little while, and then it will be gone. I need to enjoy it now and really be here while they are young. Sometimes I get stressed out that I’m not being productive enough or not doing enough for the business, but then I realize that work will always be there... And I will regret missing out on my children’s youth more than I will regret missing out on another hour of emails.

How did you come to be part of Jules Bianchi Photography?
When my sister’s business was getting overwhelming for her, I was actually looking to go back to work part time, so it seemed like the perfect choice! My sister and I are best friends and have a blast together. We have a very synergistic relationship, and I have always admired what she has built with her business. Although her business is based in Los Angeles and I live in the Bay Area, she has a lot of work in the Bay Area, so I started second shooting weddings with her when she worked up here. It gradually grew into more and more involvement with her business. By the time I attended my first major photography convention I was hooked. This year I’ve been more involved than ever before, and it has been more stressful for me, trying to figure out a balance between the two worlds, but most of my mommy friends are pretty jealous that I can escape the mommy life for a while and go to fun conferences in the name of work!!

What do you do to help the studio run smoothly?
Jules and I have different areas that we are in charge of.... She is the main shooter and has an in-house editor who handles most of her post-production. I’m involved in album design and I’ve been taking the lead on her new portrait business, which has reached out to our past bridal clients now that they are starting their own families. I’m more involved in marketing, and the side of Jules’ business that handles workshops and speaking engagements. I helped to launch julescafe.com; Jules’ site for photographers, which has been really fun. I’m actually just a good sidekick. Jules’ bounces her ideas off of me, and we develop them together. Like I said, we are really synergistic together.


How do you balance working with Jules and your family life?
As I’ve gotten more and more involved, this has been increasingly frustrating for me. My travel has picked up, and I’m usually traveling for Jules about 4-5 days a month, which can add up when you have small children. I think the key is focus, like I mentioned before... Work when you are working, play when you are playing. I can’t say that I’ve got it all figured out and that I have mastered it, but I keep trying.

You are married, what do you do to keep your love fresh and fun?
My husband Brett and I will have been married for 14 years this June. We still really like each other! Sometimes I feel like we are ships passing in the night... One month we were both traveling quite a bit and we literally did just hand off the kids... I arrived home and he left the next day! But we make sure that we are in communication and on the same page—sometimes we will text or chat online more than talk in person, but we are always in communication with each other. For our eleventh anniversary, we got re-married in Vegas by Elvis (I’ve included some pictures) and it was so fun! We had a blast together, and the little ceremony was very meaningful, even if it was Elvis! My sister was the only one there, and she got some great shots of us...we made a new wedding album and it’s been really fun to relive that weekend. We are both willing to let lots of things go (messy house, anyone?) and laugh at life too. That will save you every time.

What do you do to get inspired?
Seriously, I watch Jules. She is amazing. Working with her is inspiring... She just lives and breathes that camera. The way she documents life and how she is always looking at the world keeps me thinking in new ways. Also, of course, my children inspire me because they are changing so quickly. I feel like I need to capture time and stop them from growing up so fast. There is a cherry tree in our front yard that blossoms for one week out of the year, these gorgeous snowy flowers... Every year I’ll photograph my girls in front of the tree and document their growth (and the tree’s growth!). Projects like that inspire me, and thinking about capturing time for others makes me feel like what we are doing is worthwhile. I don’t like doing work that is pointless, and I really feel that photography is so important on so many levels.

You and Jules always seem like you are having a great time together, how do you keep work fun?
Work isn’t always fun, but working with people is! I love the photography community, and all of the people that I’ve had the honor of becoming friends with in this industry. The internet makes it all so small, I can read twitters all day and feel like I know what my friends in Denver, LA, Chattanooga, and Oregon are up to. We also love our clients. Jules has a knack for finding clients who really adore her and her photography so working with them is always a pleasure. We have fun with our clients during the shoot—Jules and I are usually so happy to be working together (since we usually are working 400 miles apart) and it shows! During a wedding, if we are really having a good time, we might bust out the twin dance.


The creative synergy has just taken off at Jules Bianchi photography in terms of all of the new things that you’ve launched in the last year. Will you explain that creative process?
I think Jules is always looking to improve herself and her business. We are always trying to push ourselves for the next thing... whether that is starting a new workshop or website, Jules is willing to try something new, which I really appreciate about her. Jules has always been an amazing photographer. It is just part of who she is. She gets a lot of requests from other photographers for information about how she does things, how she shoots, etc. We spend a lot of time talking about that and have recently re-launched Jules Café, which is her site for photographers. It is not only about what Jules is doing but it is a site that compiles lots of information on the web into one place. It is still a work in progress, but it’s been fun to see how that plays out. Her new book, Olive Goes to Hollywood, came out of a pet project that she did photographing her dog in different places around Hollywood.

One of our latest workshops will actually be for non-professional photographers. It’s aimed towards moms who want to understand their cameras so that they can do a better job photographing their own children. The workshop came out of my experience as a mom and in working with our portrait clients who love Jules and want to learn more about photography.


You are good at keeping things fun with your little girls, how do you do keep things fun instead of letting stress carry you away?
I try to always remember that life is temporary, and a gift. When I get stressed out about things, I try and stop and say, “What are you really stressed out about? Is the world going to end because you didn’t get that project done today?” I want to look back on my life and remember the people that I spent time with, and I am aware that my girls are growing up quickly. We have lots of dance parties in the kitchen! We play rockin music and dance while doing dishes or making dinner... It livens things right up! We’ll have picnics on the floor and I am really ok with them eating extra cookies (and then I get some too). I just don’t let things bother me that I think are ultimately not that important. People are more important than things. Getting that right helps prioritize a lot for me.


Here are some links for you!

www.julescafe.com

www.anoliveaday.com

www.julesbianchi.com

***All images in this post are copyright Jules Bianchi.***