In Her Words: Jennifer Falat, 53, Focusing on Family and Photography
In Her Words: Jennifer Falat, 53, Focusing on Family and Photography
Jen says you are beautiful and she can prove it. She also wants you to know that you matter and your life should be documented.
When I was a kid, I’d take roll after roll of film, first on my 110 and then on my Kodak disc camera. I couldn't afford to develop most of it. I would turn in ten rolls at a time to be developed at the drugstore, but I’d only be able to afford to pay for one. The lady who worked the photo counter was nice enough to let me look at all the prints and then pick out which roll I was going to take. I didn't have the patience at that age to just drop off one at a time. I just couldn't wait.
In high school, I took photography, and I loved working in the dark room and being creative. When you sit down in the high school guidance counselor's office, they don't say to you, “Oh, you could be a photographer. You love photography. That's an option.” That was never brought up. So, I never thought about it.
My parents died when I was young. I was 11 when my mom died, and I was 19 when my dad died. It was up to me to provide a living for myself, and I did. So, after high school, I didn’t photograph again for years. I was busy working two or three jobs, and I didn't have time. For years I worked full time, but I also had side gigs. From about 2000 to 2018, one of my side gigs was making and selling jewelry. In 2007, Merle Norman in Crystal Lake placed a huge jewelry order, and on my way home from the store I thought, “All right. Now I have enough to buy a big camera.” That was the big sale that paid for the big camera that got me back into photography.
Not long after I bought the camera, my husband and I went to Alaska, and I really went crazy taking photos. Then my son was born in 2009, and of course, I was taking pictures of him all the time. When he was probably five or six, friends started asking me to take their family photos, and that's how the hobby I loved evolved into a business.
When you first start out as a photographer, you do basically free sessions for family and friends. Some people will keep doing things for free or charging a minute amount of money for too long. If they charge $100 for 100 images, by the time all is said and done, they've basically paid the customer to allow them to shoot their family. Something that I learned early on, and I'm grateful I did, is to value my time and my expertise. I'll see people running little mini sessions and charging next to nothing and I think, “You have little toddlers at home. Is your time not more precious than that?”
For portraits, I photograph everyone but babies (unless they're in the family portrait of course). For events, I photograph everything but weddings (unless it’s a small backyard wedding). For a big church wedding, I'm not your girl. If you're having a big wedding, then you deserve someone who specializes in weddings.
To be a luxury photographer, you have to elevate what you offer. I start out with a phone call. Usually, clients call me. In that initial conversation, I provide my pricing structure and the value I offer, and I explain how my sessions work. If they want to hire me, I'll take the session fee over the phone, or I can email an invoice. Then we do an in-person consultation where we talk about their session.
My ideal clients not only value quality photography, but they also value the experience. They like to have everything taken care of for them. They want to be photographed but they don't have time to get everything organized, and pick out this, and do that, and find a location, and then print their pictures. I want to make everything easy for them. So, I tell them where we're going to meet and what to wear. I do the heavy lifting, so they don't have to do much of anything other than show up. I even bring in talented hair and makeup artists to make Mom look her best. After the session, I help them decide what's going to look good on their walls. I help them go through their pictures and figure out what would work well in an album. I deliver the finished product myself and I even work with professional installers to hang finished artwork.
You have to think about your ideal customer. For me, it’s people who value your work appropriately. I want to work with the client who values a gorgeous family portrait, understands that an album will be passed down through generations, and is willing to spend more to get the product I offer. Some people who value having a beautiful family portrait on their wall will save up for it like someone else might save up for a trip to Disney. I have clients who might spend as little as $700, and I have others who might spend $7,000 or $17,000 or beyond. It really depends on what they want. Do they want five photos, or do they want an album? Do they want wall art? Or do they only want digital images and small prints?
I don't have professional photos of my parents. I just have their picture box and a couple of albums and I value that. That's why I started loving photography and doing it as a job. I also know that getting something done is better than being perfect at it. If you can only afford good, then have good.
Most of my experience has been in the customer service industry, which has served me well in my photography business. Customer service is a big part of it. Only a small portion of a photography business is taking photos. A large part of is, of course, editing, but education, marketing, working with customers, and figuring out all the behind the scenes business aspects is where the time and attention is really spent.
New business is mostly word of mouth. I market through Instagram and Facebook, but I don't pay for ads. It’s mostly personal connections. I find that when you meet someone and you genuinely like each other, and then you need something that they offer, you kind of gravitate to them. I had a call today with a lady who I met a year and a half ago when I photographed a fashion show. I hadn't talked to her since, but we became Facebook friends, and had a little bit of connection back and forth. Today, she reached out to me for headshots and during our conversation I learned that her company may be in the market for a new photographer too. I find most of my work comes that way. But sometimes it’s also people looking for “photography near me” on Google.
What do you love about what you do?
I love helping women to see and feel their own beauty. My niche is beauty. It could be a glamour or boudoir session. It could be a high school senior session. It could be a family session. You’re beautiful, and I can prove it. My favorite thing is helping women see how beautiful they are.
Everyone knows, moms aren't in enough photos, right? It's always our kids or our husbands or our husbands with our kids, but it's not us. If we are in a photo, it's a selfie. For a mom to say, “I'm going to go ahead and be seen” is important. Part of my why is that we need to be documented, to show that we were here, that our lives mattered. Otherwise, we're two generations away from anyone knowing we existed or knowing what you looked like. My son will have photos to teach his kids who we were and who they are. My son's kids will probably never get to meet their grandfather. He is older than I am. But they'll know him through pictures and stories, notes and letters, things that I write. They'll have that, and that will get passed down. I think that’s important. That’s my why.
What are some of your biggest challenges?
As someone I know told me recently, time is a pie chart, and the pie chart changes. She said, “Your seasons change,” and she's right. If your child plays football, during football season maybe you’re not going to cook homemade meals but you’re going to hit the games. How you allocate your time may change from season to season.
In this season, one of my challenges is around taking time away from my family, which is most important to me. I also struggle with taking time for myself, for my own health. I have multiple autoimmune conditions, and my health has not been optimal. It's getting better because I’m making time. I joined a gym, and now my son and I both work out three times a week at the gym and we work out at home.
When you're a business owner, your fear is that if you don't take this call, or if you’re not available, you’re not going to get this job, or you’re not going to be this or that. You have to get over that and say to yourself, “What's the most important thing?” What’s most important to me is my family, and for me to be healthy and alive, and live to become a grandma someday. I need to take care of myself first.
What do you know now that you wish you knew at age 25?
At 25 I got married and I thought, “In one year, we're going to start our family.” But I suffered 11 years of infertility. I would never have guessed I'd have 11 years of waiting for our son to join us. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself “In God's time, you will become a mom.”
God created this beautiful child who is just perfect for us, from his personality to his looks. He’s our baby. No doubt. In those 11 years, God gave me an appreciation that I don't think I could have matched at a young age. That biological connection that comes when a mother carries a child in her womb is beautiful, but I carried him in my heart for 11 years before we adopted and I couldn’t imagine a stronger connection.
Belle Curve Stories is about women navigating life with grit, grace, and growth. What do those three words mean to you?
To be a business owner, you have to have grit to get through the stuff that's hard and ugly, and not fun. You have to keep moving through. There's some study that says if you have a thought and you don't go with it in the first five seconds, then you're going to talk yourself out of it. You have to know what you're doing, and you have to do it. You have to move through the hard stuff.
You have to allow yourself grace to know that you're going to make mistakes along the way, and it's okay. I mean, I'm not in a profession where I'm saving lives. Just move on and forgive yourself. We hold ourselves so accountable for everything. Sometimes we forget to forgive ourselves.
I'm very happy and content, but I also feel that if I don't continue to grow, then I’ll get stagnant. I want to keep moving forward. I'm growing in multiple ways. I’m trying to be a better wife to a husband who's at a different stage in life than I am. I’m growing to be a better mother to a son who’s a teenager. I’m growing in my business to accommodate changes and in my understanding that not everyone is my customer. I’m growing in my own self-care to do things for my health, for my happiness, to fill my cup. I’m also growing in my relationship with God, which to me is first and foremost, and I want my son to grow in that same direction. Up!
As told to and edited by Teresa Bellock and Sandra Ditore.
Jennifer Falat, 53, is a luxury portrait and event photographer. She works primarily in the Chicago suburbs where she lives with her husband and teenage son. To see more of Jennifer’s work and read her blog, visit her website or follow her on Instagram.
