work/life balance: let’s talk detailz.

January 27, 2017 •

Balance is something i get asked about a lot. “work life balance” is not a thing. should not be a thing. isn’t work just part of “life”?

the truth is, i fit my work into my life. the other truth is: the “my life” part is not some glamorous swirl of trips around the world with my family while we gram pics of our lunch and our perfectly decorated home when we’re not at the national parks. it’s coaching the same “pleases” and “thank yous” a hundred zillion times over. it’s trying to be consistent in parenting. it’s tending to so.many.needs–just imagine the bodily fluids of three kids under 3, then spread them allll over the house and watch me try to clean them up while they just dispel more, or smear purple lipstick and green paint across eight stairs (real life examples here folks! didn’t even have to dig further back than 5 days for those two gems. 😉

it takes a lot to run a business. there is constantly work to be done, and so lots of photographers have trouble shutting it down and feeling like they have time to do anything else. then they just wrestle with that big mean monsterbear mom guilt, which is a losing fight cause that beast is big yo.

so while there are a lot of nice-sounding tips to create “work life balance” (i have to keep puttin it in quotes cause it’s just such a weird name) i want to dig in to the practicality of what my life looks like as a …working mom? mostly-stay-at-home-mom-who-also-runs-a-business? see. labels. they’re a problem.

My usual daily schedule goes like this: we all wake up, eat breakfast, exercise, bathe and get dressed. and GUESS WHAT THAT TAKES ALL FREAKING MORNING. yup. we’re usually fully ready by 11 am, and then it’s either time for therapy, a little outing, or playing at home. lunch and then the heavensent glory that is nap time around 1pm. My three year old is transitioning out of naps, so she mostly does quiet time. this is my work time. 2 hours per day and that is it. I don’t make a habit of working at night. i dread it and it drains my energy big time–and here’s the takeaway advice that i would give to all people: find the energy leaks and plug ’em up.

lots of photographers like to work at night after the kids go to bed but i hate it, i get hardly anything done and feel like a robot and a life-failure and my eyes start to feel dry my mouth starts to frown because at night after my kids go to bed i want to be spending time with my husband. or doing anything BUT working, ha. But maybe you like working at night and if so you should do it. Find the times you function best and maximize that time, boo. If you want to get really technical, I do spend time every day on instagram and in my facebook group, but that fits into small moments of down time and isn’t a big stressor/need to be at the computer thing.

What about shooting, you ask? I shoot mostly on Saturdays, and right now I am taking on one shoot per week with my little kids. I’ve transitioned to taking on very few weddings with more photography education and the load for me is completely manageable. Other photographers take on a lot more. Some take on a lot less. Some hate shooting on Saturdays. This seems like basic basics but please dooo not worry about what works for other photographers. Hone in on your own energy, what nourishes you, and find ways to minimize or outsource the things that make you want to scream. Especially if this isn’t your main gig/you don’t NEED to have your own biz–work shouldn’t feel like work. It hardly ever does for me–and that’s because I’ve spent a lotta time molding my business into what I love + what recharges me.

Which brings me to outsourcing.

I shoot film, and I get premium scans from The FIND Lab. Could I save loads of $ if I shot digital, or if I just got basic scans? Yep. But here’s the thing: time and energy have a cost, too. You can’t buy more of either of them. Buut I kinda feel like that’s exactly what I’m doing when I outsource. When I get scans back from the lab, they are 80% ready to deliver to the client. I still take care of things like culling, cropping, cleaning up silly things that weren’t meant to be in my shot, etc. It takes me one hour to cull, edit, upload and deliver a family session to a client.

Here’s the other thing: I am constantly reevaluating where my business is as far as time I spend on it and time I spend with my family. I make room to make changes, whether it’s particular offerings or session types that go away or get scaled back. The perfect example of this: weddings. I’m taking on a very limited number of weddings in 2017 because I want to keep them in their gorgeous I-love-this-so-much bubble.

So, what do you have to do to keep the branches of your business in the I-love-this-so-much bubble? Is it eliminating a certain type of session altogether, creating a new passion project, or scrapping absolutely nothing and telling me you got dis all figured out? (wink)

I’d love to hear what your personal flavor of “work-life-balance” is and how you arrived there, either in the comments or in my facebook group.

Brooke Schultz is a family + wedding photographer who can be found hugging her one hundred babies (aight there’s only 3), photographing families at home, and wearing obnoxious shiny pants. Her 2017 family photography + writing workshop details are gonna go live soon, so if you want to know bout them sign up right here.

the biggest mistake you’re making with your kids in photos

January 19, 2017 •

Lemme paint a picture for you.

You’re all ready for family photos, your photographer arrives, and asks your kids to do something. And they don’t do it. Your parent brain cycles through the options: yell, obviously a bad choice right here cause don’t wanna make the kids cry for pics riiight! option two: bribe. yeah. you’re like, I got dis. “Hey kids,” you smile sugar-sweet, “if you listen to this nice photographer, we’ll get a treat at the end!” They’re like yayyay woohoo and you’re like yeahnailedit only…

they stop listening.

I’ll tell you why this doesn’t work–taking away the treat or toy you just promised quickly becomes an empty threat. You’re desperate to get your kid to listen so you bribe with ice cream at the end and then warn him that he’s going to lose the ice cream if he doesn’t listen…but actually following through if he doesn’t listen and taking away the ice cream? You’ve lost your only bargaining chip, and he knows it. Plus, ice cream at the end of a session feels sooo farrrr awayyy to kids. Desperation is never a good recipe for parenting or you know, happy big joy-filled photos. #smileorelse

Wait wait, so does all this mean no bribes? You’re above bribing, are you Brooke?huh? HUH?

No no my dear, not at all. Bribes have their place. I bring (unmessy) candy to my sessions and bribe with little pieces that kids get immediately after a certain picture, if necessary.

But here’s the other fantastic thing. Photographers of kids have oodles of tricks up their sleeves. We are a rare breed who thrive on chaos and you can totally hand the reigns over one hundred percent to your photog. If she needs you, she’ll let you know–otherwise, you getta sit back relax and enjoy the magic of lovin on your peeople. Okay, you caught me, ‘relaxed’ might not be the very first word that comes to mind when thinking upon the photographic experience with kids.

But.

I do promise to manage your kids and make sure that they do what we need for great photos–and it actually works out SO much better when mom and dad aren’t piling the stress of what the kids are doing on themselves. Enter more authentic kid behavior (laughs, curiosity, mischievous mini antics, oh it’s so good) plus more present parents who are able to sweat less and smile more. (I will absolutely take care of the sweating. my GOSH I sweat when I shoot. I’m sorry. The photos will be worth it promise kbye.)

And with that, I know that you want to book a session immediately. : ) Here’s how it works. Family sessions are done in your home + fave places. Some folks like to do just their house and yard, some folks like to do just one room of their house and their favorite park up the road. It’s places that matter to you, for photos that mean more than ‘that cool spot your photographer chose.’ Check out the details and book your family session here.

Also? This post is part of the But Brooke series, in which we call out all the elephants in the room about why you’re not hiring a photographer immediately and hash ’em out. Other posts include But Brooke…can you make me look good in my photos? and But Brooke…what if my kids are going crazy the whole session?

the starlight game

January 12, 2017 •

it’s so strange, because of course each workshop felt different–completely different set of people and energies and light and home and family–but it felt the same on the inside of me. still heartsoul pouring. still being amazed at how the people who came reached back with such openness. (and yeah, still mildly terrified.)

so even though ‘professional’ is probably the last word peeps would use to describe me during this day i’m cool with the things that didn’t go according to plan (and the hippie-flavor-feelyness) because that is being in a family, and being a photographer, and being a doer of anything really. it’s people and circumstances you cannot control and I am starting to see more nuanced starlight in the times we go with it than in the times we (try to) strong-arm things into submission. one of the biggest concepts I teach is the importance of making a plan but also holding space for the beautiful things that waltz in front of you in serendipitous wonder. it’s like writers, who sometimes feel like a work is coming THROUGH them and they’re just the vessel–vs. the times when it’s all they can do to sit down one more day and sweat out the word limit in mediocre garbage. (there’s a lot of mention of sweat in these posts, just roll with it.) sometimes it’s flowing, sometimes it’s sweaty–mostly it’s both in every shoot, every day, every relationship.

so here’s to life as a gloriously fun game full of possibility bigger than our plans.

and yes hi, hey hellooo friend who is still reading. if you are, you’re probably interested in a family session and/or learning how I do what I do with families so you can do what YOU do with families in a more compelling, clear way. let’s make it happen.

a giant wonder-movie burrito

January 5, 2017 •

Have you seen La La Land? I’m obsessed. It’s all the things I love rolled into one giant wonder-movie burrito. Jazz, love, beauty, dreams, authentic moments, heartache (okay I don’t love that one but it’s pretty prevalent in this life-gig). There are lots of dreamlike moments in the movie with just too-good-to-be-true is-this-real-life and you can never quite be sure. That’s the closest thing I can pinpoint to how these two days felt–the workshops. The ones that ended up being back-to-back because I rolled ’em out when we were still living in California with ZERO plans to move back to utah but then we did and then I flew back for them and it felt like pouring out my soul like a giant blob of taffy on a huge tray in two fourteen hour days but ser-i-ously. It was heavenly. Because: teaching is my happy place. Photographing is my happy place. All of the happy places venn-diagrammed into one (well, two!) inexplicable gorgeous experiences. Being that gushy about it might make it seem kinda fake so I guess I’ll stop there but it is every ounce real. Here are the photos I made during the family shoot portion of the first day, where I photographed the family and talked through everything I was doin + why I was doing it, and talked less about my sweating but you will see photos of the (aftermath) of that too, cause I am very in touch with what you want HA. (behind the scenes photos by Jessica Kettle.) PS BIG thanks to The FIND Lab for sponsoring the workshop! Send em your film, peeps. If something about 2017 is calling you to learn, to push yourself and your photography

somewhere new–I’d love to be part. There will be opportunities to learn this year both in person and online–drop your email here to be notified of the details when they go live.

the edge

November 1, 2016 •

when another photographer, especially one as big-deal and talented as jessica peterson asks you to take her engagement photos, you freak a little. and then you remember how annoying it is when photographers talk about what an honor it is to shoot other photographers, and doesn’t that make them so special and it’s all so sneaky look at me, so you remember that these two are human beings in love on the edge of starting a life together–one that’s full of all kinds of possibility, beauty, gutwrench, whoa-didn’t-see-that-comin and joyful adventure. that being on the edge is the greatest thing. grin inducing and heart filling.

so that’s what you (try to) keep your eyes glued to, even though you still gotta be honest and say that your ego wants to have a little pat on the back too. connection wins.

jessica and taylor, so much pure f-u-n rolling in the grassy leaves, kissing on faces in your home and skipping in yummy runny light. thank you for letting me witness this freaking great love of yours, i couldn’t be happier for the two of you.

holler. if you’re engaged and planning a wedding that has everything to do with how much you love each other and less to do with tradition i’d love to document it. let’s chat about an engagement session.

deeper than pretty

October 6, 2016 •

there’s a difference between pretty-ness and beauty.

you probably already know that, but let me explain.

beauty isn’t just a bigger grander version of pretty. It’s full of depth and knowing, like the way your mother is gorgeous to you because she’s lived, even though her body isn’t as “pretty” as it was when she was 18 and her face has lines now. when you look at her eyes you can see she’s known sorrow, big rivers of it–but that she’s strong and isn’t afraid to rip her heart open to huge joy too.

beauty is the thing that gets me. the stuff that has a few raw edges from experience, the poems that take an unexpected turn, the photographs that say more than what the person looks like.

on this day i felt like we were doing more than documentation of what this family looks like. because let’s just call out the elephant in the room, they are one hundred percent pretty as pretty can be and their house is like whoa, but also, they are so, so beautiful–and that. that’s what i wanted to show you.

well hello, if you’re still here you just might be interested in a family session that feels like this–kicking cheese-saying to the curb and full of, you guessed it, feelings. your best people and most treasured relationships bottled in a way that’s more than “documentation.” here’s what Aubrey had to say: “The pictures are everything I was hoping for with a little somethin’ somethin’ extra that only you could make happen! I didn’t just want to have a keepsake of our faces, I wanted to preserve the nuances that are specifically us–the relationships that are each unique and dynamic–and you certainly brought that to the table. Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving us this experience.”

Let’s chat about your family session–cause there’s only 1 count it o-n-e family session left this fall in time for Christmas cards and I’d love you to have it.

meant for all the glow

August 25, 2016 •

i could tell you how adorable becky kimball (yes, that becky kimball) and her family are, about their fab house, and glowy light, and blah, blah.

but that’s not what I want to tell you about, as much as I want to tell you about heartache being the other side of this crazy joy we know as family. they are forever interlaced, two sides of the same coin, because to know one you have to be gutturally familiar with the other. you have to go to sleep with the ache of knowing that your mistakes will affect your children. you have to wake up with the punch of realizing that your choices matter so much and that you can’t control or save from hurt or force to love or even live.

but when you know all those things, there is only more. we are meant for all of it. you know that on your insides, don’t you?

and sometimes–not every time, but sometimes: it is all necessary, even the most painful parts.

(obviously) now we’re getting more into my heart’s journey to make peace with being a mother and less about this family, though they’ve known plenty of pain themselves–but this duality is what I want to show you when I photograph you. don’t worry, it’s not too hard or scary. it’s simple, like the fact that you pull your little one into your arms after she bonks on the floor, and just hold.

so this fact, that from knowing sorrow we know greater heights of joy–that’s what I want to give.

hello, if you are still reading, you might be interested in a family session. I still have openings this fall for families who want non-cheesy photographs of their favorite people in their favorite places. let’s talk about your family session.

my mom never let me say butt.

August 18, 2016 •

it’s true. “bum,” or “bottom,” she always corrected.

now i’m doing the same–unconsciously–with my kids, i realized the other day. (while i edited this session i kept whispering ‘baby buns!!’ to myself. cause oh em gee you will die of adorableness when you see lulu’s cute lil self.)

those things you do with your babies that they think are dumb and then end up getting passed down. it’s funny, isn’t it?

have you noticed? every single podcast or radio guest talks about their family upbringing interwoven with their expertise in writing, or insects, or marketing. and specifically, their mom. how she told him to carry a notebook, how she let her explore, how she taught him to be open minded and sent him off to summer camp and took him around the world and read him poetry until he fell asleep.

i’ve squirmed about this power before.

but i think–i think–i’m finally wrapping myself around the beautiful magnitude of it. the world might never remember my name, but my babies–they will always have me in them. (whether or not they choose to say the word ‘butt’, haaaha.)

and yes if you’re interested in family photos for this year’s walls and books and Christmas cards that are heartfelt and not cheesy i’d love to be your lady. let’s chat about your photo session.

i’m ba-ack (utah mini sessions)

August 10, 2016 •

hey friends.

you asked for minis, i give you minis! 20-30 min, 10+ images ready to print, yours for $350.

location will be outdoors in salt lake county, to be determined, but hey–it’s gonna include gorgeous green outside stuff and yummy summer light, i’ll tell you that.

fine print: these aren’t for extended families, but come on down families + couples! book your time slot below and i’ll be in touch with more details + a questionnaire to get to know your crew a bit before we meet.

Buy a mini session 6:00pm

Buy a mini session 6:30pm

Buy a mini session 7:00pm

Buy a mini session 7:30pm

Buy a mini session 8:00pm

thanks times a zillion for your support, mypeople. you are incredible.
and hey! if this round of minis isn’t gonna work for you but you’d like to be notified of future mini session dates + special offers, drop your email here. (no spam ever, pinky promise.)

the FIND lab guest post: creatin a film look you l-o-v-e

August 3, 2016 •

Well hey! Welcome to a guest post for photographers from the FIND Lab, the lab where I send all my film to be processed, scanned, and magic-ified. Their customer service and results are plain fabulous, so I really dunno what you’re waiting for–go try them out.
(And get your first roll free! AND they’re sponsoring my workshop this November. Infinite reasons to love ’em, I tell ya.)

And now, their tips for creating a film look you love with your lab:

Film has a very personal look and unique aesthetic no photographer can achieve alone. Only with the help of a lab, can a film photographer achieve the look and feel they are going for. Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic wand the lab can wave to nail down your style. This can only happen with an open dialogue and two way communication between photographer and lab.

Here are a few pointers, from a lab’s perspective, on the best way to communicate to ensure they nail down your look every single time:

Whether it’s your first order with your lab or you’re wanting to fine tune your preferences, we’d recommend setting up a color profile.

When setting up a color profile you’ll have some homework to do. As photographers we are very visual people so providing images of your preferences is the way to go. Everybody sees color differently. A client may say they like warm skin tones, but does that mean golden, pink, or peachy in color? By providing imagery, we can see what you see. If we notice an inconsistency, we’ll put you back to work and encourage you to narrow down your images or hone in what you like about each image provided. Addition to color, we also like to ask about contrast and exposure. Do you like high, neutral, or low contrast? Bright, darker or neutral exposure? Again, if the images provided don’t match up with your description, we may ask you to go back to the drawing board.

We all wish we could be shooting under perfect conditions every single time. However, the reality is there will always be less than ideal situations. As a lab, we like to know how you’d want us to handle your images in these situations. When you underexpose do you want us to darken down the shadows so they’ll be less muddy, or leave them flatter to retain more detail? When you overexpose do you want us to scan for the highlights to save as much highlight detail as possible, or leave your images brighter? We’ll ask you to provide images in all different lighting scenarios, back lit, side lit, full sun, open shade, indoor, outdoor, under and over exposure. We want to know how you want your images handled in any and every lighting situation that you can think of.

Next, provide feedback, but remember, feedback works both ways.

If your lab processes your order and you’re not happy with the results, kindly let them know. As far as your lab is concerned, no news is good news. If you’re not loving what you’re receiving and not speaking up, your results will be the same. Your lab wants feedback and to give you a product you are both proud of. The best way for a lab to get feedback is with example edits of how it was originally and then with the changes you made.

That being said, your lab may not be able to fix everything.

Your negatives don’t lie and sometimes your final product may be less than ideal because of the way it was exposed. If you’re not happy with your scans, you should go to your lab with an open mind that it may be something that needs to be changed on the photographer’s end. If it is something your lab can improve, your lab should be eager to work with you to get your order on track. Who better to trust than the people who are looking at your negatives and who you’ve already trusted to develop and handle them?

Lastly, now that you have started a relationship, you need to foster it.

We’d love to say that as soon as a color profile has been made that everything will be perfect overnight, but that’s hardly the case. This back and forth communication may take a handful of orders until both lab and photographer are happy with the results. It may take time, but in the end it will all be worth it. So whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned photographer, start compiling images and get that dialogue started.

*photo by Noelle Reynolds, Portra 400

ONE more time infomercial style, seriously you’ve got to give The FIND Lab a try. I’ve never used another lab because I’ve never had a reason to–they treat every client like gold and are truly invested in your success as a photographer.

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