Ep. 18 - Picture Perfect with Valerie Thomas

Summary

In this episode, Valerie Thomas shares her inspiring journey from a competitive figure skater to a full-service family photographer, highlighting her evolution, business growth, and the importance of creating lasting memories for families. Discover her unique approach to pampering and really serving clients with an exceptional photography and studio experience.

Key  topics

Valerie's transition from figure skating to photography

The evolution of Valerie's business and services

Creating a full-service, memorable experience for families

The importance of tangible family heirlooms and art

Valerie's future goals and vision for growth

Action  items & Take aways

-Where can you invest in a full-service experience for clients?

-Where can you create tangible family heirlooms with your service or art?

-Planning future goals for studio expansion and team growth through steady growth and refinement.

Chapters

05:37 Welcoming Valerie Thomas

11:06 Valerie's Journey as a Photographer

19:49 Evolving as a Business Owner

20:25 Navigating Motherhood and Business

27:02 The Intersection of Ice Skating and Photography

34:11 Creating a Unique Client Experience

47:14 Future Aspirations and Goals

Resources

Valerie Maria Photography - https://valeriemaria.com

Atomic Habits by James Clear - https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-James-Clear/dp/0735211299

Guest links

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/valeriemariaphotography/

Website - https://valeriemaria.com

Keywords

family photography, motherhood, business growth, legacy, service excellence, photography tips, entrepreneur journey

Want to learn more about what working with Liz looks like?  Head to Your Business Matters to schedule a Discovery call with her

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What's coming up ahead?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Oh, hey sis. Hey sis, how are you? Oh, I'm super. How are you doing today? Great. Happy Friday. Thank you. Can you believe it? We made it to another Friday. I'm so happy. I need you.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

We did. And look what I'm using. You don't have yours yet, but I'm using mine.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

That's so fun. I can't see the logo on the screen though. Is it on there? Oh, it's etched.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

It's too quiet. Maybe it needs to be a deeper color.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Oh, there goes my brand awareness. So welcome, everybody, to the CEO Sisters Road Trip. And today we're joined by Valerie Thomas, who is a talented photographer and has mastered the art of capturing family legacy while navigating beautiful chaos of motherhood and entrepreneurship. What I think is amazing about her, and I want you to tell us a little bit more, is um, I mean, I think you're pretty tough because of all the fire and hot things that you handle, and like when you're breaking your arms, like do reclaiming clay. Do I know breaking your arms, get building guns about it? Building your already strong guns. Like you're super tough, but then we have Valerie, who spent years as a skater falling on her arse on the ice over and over ice getting up again. Yeah, it's amazing. Um, she I'm really excited to talk about that part of like how that getting back up again resonates in her life today. And as a business owner, I'm sure she has some cool uh stories of things that went perfectly and things that did not. Today's episode. Today's episode is brought to you by LaClique camera. Do you remember? I do, I do, I totally do. The picture I put in our show notes is the exact camera that we had. From the 80s. It's a pick, it's it's pink and it had purple on it and turquoise like full 80s colors. It was like 86. And I remember I just had this camera, and I thought it was like, I am a full photographer. I'm gonna take the most artistic photos.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

And it had to have been film, it had to have been a disc.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

It wasn't a disc. It was a disc. That camera was the disc. One of the first ones. That I mean, yeah, that's the first one we had. Okay, but that was such it was so dumb. The disc film was so dumb. And there were only two cameras that took it, but I loved it. I remember w running around the playground to all over sixth grade, like the last day of school.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yep, in our jams.

unknown 2:47

Oh, dumb.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

And my my Hawaiian, my red Hawaiian jam shorts.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Amazing. Anyway, I just love those cameras. I think that uh started, it ignited the passion of photography that I've never gotten any better since then, but I still love to take pictures.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Oh, I I fully pretend I'm a professional photographer. It's hilarious how much I pretend like I'm a photographer.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I have no gorgeous pictures. We should have Valerie judge yours and be like, I great them. No thanks. No thanks. Be like, this is great. It's beautiful. If she compares yours to mine, you get straight out. Oh, that's true. I would totally win. Yeah, totally win. All right. Okay, tell us a little bit more about her.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

All right. So I'm gonna read you a little biography of our friend Val. Valerie Thomas is the founder of Valerie Maria Photography, based in Chester County, Pennsylvania. She has a new studio, newish studio in the Malvern area. Um, Valerie is a mother of three and is married to her husband Andrew. She is a former, as we already shared, a former competitive figure skater, turned elevated family photographer. Val specifically focuses on motherhood, newborns, and family milestones. And in my opinion, she has created the absolute gold standard in a full service experience for busy moms. She handles everything from wardrobe, which I will share my story, is amazing, to the final frame installation, which again is like off the hook. Is she here yet? She's literally on the side of the table. Come on in, Val. Hello. Woohoo! Hi, this is so funny. This is so fun. This is so funny. I'm so happy to be here. Yes. All right. This is Valerie. Welcome. Welcome, friend. We're so excited.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

So happy here. Um, how is the drive? How is how do you like the studio?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I love it. It's beautiful. It's so light, bright, and airy. It's my vibe.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Okay. So let's, I want to share with our audience a little bit about Valerie and how I even got to know her. So she is, I invited her as my guest today. Um, Val and I met almost 12 years ago when we had moved here from Ohio in 2014. We met in a women's Bible study, I think, at our church. I had three little ones under the age of six. She had her very first of three, who is a newbie. And I learned that she was a photographer and asked if she would do a family portrait for us for probably my Christmas card or something. And she came with her husband Andrew, and we went around the front yard and she took pictures of my munchkin teeny little children, and um, still to this day are some of my very favorite pictures. There's a picture of Gabby. The kids are swinging Gabby in the middle. She's one year old. Oh, I love it. She's literally three inches long. She has the teeniest little feet ever. And then flash fast forward to last fall. I checked in with her to see if she would come back and take our family portrait after 12 years and get capture some senior pictures of Jonah now that he's graduating. And those pictures are so stinking incredible in that whole experience. It was great people 12 years ago working with her. She is the kindest, warmest, um, most human, awesome being ever. But the experience has blown up. And I was literally, I couldn't have felt more nurtured and cared for and loved through the entire process. And specifically because she works for with a lot of new moms, young families, it's like a gift. You get to serve people in a way that most people probably it makes me want to cry. You were so good at what you do. Um thank you. Surprise, surprise people. Of course, it makes you want to cry. Yeah, of course it doesn't make me want to cry. Anyway, I I just adore her. I think she's fabulous, and I'm so excited to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

And when Sarah's describing that uh experience, do you have that regularly where a family that you photoed a decade ago calls you back and is like, hey girl, are you still here? Does that happen a lot? And if so, how awesome is it?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

It is such an honor. Uh well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for having me on. You're welcome. This is also an honor. Um, but yeah, I and I'll kind of walk you through my journey in a little bit, but um I have a lot of rides that I photographed years ago, and now they're like, hey, we have three kids. And so just being invited back into their lives is such an honor, and like I'm just so thankful. So, and it's also really cool to kind of walk them through my process now of just serving them completely compared to what it used to be. So, yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

I got goosebumps when you say that because I can imagine how cool that is to say, I remember this day with you, you were this gorgeous, bright, shiny bride, and now you're this still bright and shiny, but a little more tired mom, and you're still beautiful in this cool way of watching life, life, like what a cool perspective. Uh, but my question is about evolving. So you already mentioned you've evolved a lot, and Sarah said that too. That was, I mean, when she hung up with you the first time after sort of getting the new process down, she Sarah's like, oh my god, we've got to have her on the show. She's amazing. It's totally different, and it's everything that you would ever want in this experience. So, what did version 1.0 look like compared to this elevated service that you offer now? What's this? What was the transformation?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

You know, I started this business in 2012, 2011, and it started off as like a hobby for me, um, for me and my husband. We were just two people with cameras and just kind of showing up and and just trying our best, but without really like a structure of where we wanted to go with the business, how we wanted to serve our clients, really the general focus of who I was serving. So it's definitely evolved into like a full service just to really help moms, just make it an easy process for them.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

And is that the focus? I love, I love hearing that part where you're finding your voice, you're finding this the fact that this is not a hobby anymore. This is now a full business and I'm serving people beautifully. When you think of your ideal clients, how was that always there that you wanted to work with moms and families? Or how did how did that evolve too?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

No, actually, so in the beginning, you know, my husband and I we invested in some cameras and we were just learning together. We we just like went to classes just to learn how to to to shoot and and to use a DSLR camera. And it was a frustrating process because it's not easy when you're when you're um you're just learning and it's like, what is ISO? What is aperture, you know, shutter, all that kind of stuff. You know, at that time we were just photographing families a little bit here and there. Weddings, people started to ask us, hey, can you photograph our wedding? We did our first wedding in like early 2012, and that was scary.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

I I actually stopped there and tell us about that because I feel like weddings would be the most uh scary experience you could have. So tell what was that like? Was it somebody you knew? Were you friends with them?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Uh yes. Okay, and they understood like this was our first wedding, and I I was like, oh wow, okay, we're doing it. Yep. And so um, you know, it it went pretty well. We did have a couple tough lessons with uh backing up our photos and duplicating our images and just having backups of backups, and we learned the hard way a little bit. We were okay, but it definitely uh raised our blood pressure a bit. Oh, I bet, I bet. Um yeah, and and we so when I say we, is it's my husband and I, we we dove into the wedding industry pretty quickly. Um at that point, I wasn't doing anything motherhood really related. Um, and it didn't take until like once I became a mom myself, photograph my oldest, Nicholas, is what I was like, it's like this passion just unlocked inside of me. And that's kind of how I went down the the um the path of motherhood, um, portraits and things like that. Um, and currently now it's just in my business, it's just myself photographing. My husband still has his full-time job, and with three kids, it just became a lot. So that has also changed a little bit too, and and um just like the idea of our brand has changed a bit, but it's really been a total journey. I got so much from your timeline right here.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

We're gonna come back to this. You're gonna go backwards, yes. So go back. Let's talk a little bit about that. You you mentioned, um, and I loved how you said it, I became a mom and my passion was unlocked. And that you're just sort of it's uh it's a bodily feel. You're like, oh my gosh, this is it. Yeah, this is it. Okay. And then you go, oh, now I have two children, and now I have three children. It's still there, but how how was that? How was that? Um, how are you navigating the mom business owner? And what changed from when you and your husband and you and Andrew were doing it to mom of three, primarily you?

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Again, it's been a wild journey. You know, when I had that moment of, oh my gosh, I I absolutely love doing this. I remember I was 10 days postpartum with Nicholas. I had a C-section. I would not recommend doing your own photos after delivering. Yeah. Plus number one. But I was like, 10 days do it. I could do it. I have a camera. But as I was like taking his photos, I was like, this is the most incredible thing. And I I felt this passion inside me that I did not feel when I was photographing weddings. When I was photographing weddings, I I just thought that, like, okay, if you're a photographer, this is what you do. Um, I really didn't look into any other genres, and I just kind of fell into the newborn stuff with Nicholas, and I was like, oh my gosh, I can't get enough of this. And then um, you know, my my brothers had kids and they were just like my little baby models. Um, and then like as I was having kids, my friends were having kids, so they were just here for it. And then, you know, definitely my business has ebbed and flowed a little bit as you know, I had like two kids under two that looked different, obviously, from from now. All of my kids are in school. Thank God. Yes, which is a whole cool like chapter that no one told me about. My business has also evolved. Um, like currently I have a studio, but I didn't always have a studio. I would go to people's homes. My studio was in my living room where you know I'd be home with my kids all day. We would put them to bed. I would clean my whole first floor and then set it up, set up the living room as a like a makeshift studio. People would come into my home. We eventually moved it to the basement, which was like another level of interesting, because then I was cleaning the basement, which my kids played in, and then cleaning the whole first floor because they were obviously walking through, and at the same time getting a sitter and and and essentially having them get out of the house for a little bit. So I was not only juggling all of that, but then also, you know, taking care of my kids during the day, trying to edit during like nap times. And then at nighttime I would put them to bed, and then it was like the 7:30 to sometimes midnight, 1.30 shift of working on the business side of things and editing and posting and delivering uh emails and all that kind of stuff. It was like I got into like this this groove kind of started to to tire me out a little bit, especially my kids were early risers. Yeah. Like 5 a.m. Obviously, like with the ebbing and flowing of everything. So there was times where I could really dive into that, and then other times I had to kind of pull back um with with their needs and stuff. I've loved it.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

I have to say that's not sustainable though. That's not sustainable, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

You know, yeah, like I I like to go to bed at like 9 30 now.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Yeah, because you're like, I can't keep doing that. This is not working. When when did you get to that point where you're like, okay, because there's a lot of years and it's probably too, too many years that we say we can do anything. And we're like, I so it's fine if I'm working from 7 to 1.30 in the morning every night. That's totally fine. It's working. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I can't. I'm like, I'm done. I can't do it anymore.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

What how long did that take? Because it's probably longer than it should have, just because you're like, it's fine, we'll just keep doing it. We're cool.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Right, right, right. Um, when I had the third kid, yeah, I was like, oh my goodness. So my youngest, his name is Ben. Um, when he was about two, I was like, all right, I'm gonna get a babysitter uh like twice a week. Yep, right. So he went there all day. And so even when like the older ones were in school, and so I had those two days to work, you know, 8:30 to 4. And that was like, I think was a really good like impetus. It just really helped me kind of get on a good trajectory. And I was like, working during the day is awesome. Yeah, it's you know, and then I've it's so easy, you're like, this is amazing, yeah. And then I would pick up the kids, and then then we would do all the other stuff um in the afternoon. But just having that set apart time was life-changing.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Good for you for realizing, you know, I can work 16 hours and knock a lot of stuff out and then be really there with my kids. Like it's cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, I didn't want to feel like I was just, you know, kind of in in like just you know, not really there when I'm there, that kind of thing. And so I felt like like a comfort level, it's like, okay, I do have the time that's carved out to do what I have to do. Um, and it also helped me make like quicker decisions, be like, all right, I'm on the clock here, you know what I mean? Yes. Or coming home at four, that kind of thing. So that was that was life-changing for me for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

And and I'm uh paying for a babysitter. I've got an expense. This is part of the cost of doing business now, and I don't want to waste those hours and be really fruitful with that time.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yep, exactly. Can we can we move to ice skating? Yeah, yeah. You you would go at some extra. As you saw, I posted the other day. I'm slightly obsessed with the fact that you're an ice skater and a photographer. I just think that is a cool mix that you don't hear very often. So I love that you competed until through college and then you're back at it. Three kids later, you're like, let's get back on the ice, kids. How does that discipline of all the things that you do as an ice skater translate to what you do now? We mentioned before that ability to get back up. I picture it's probably the most obvious thing that you think of with ice skaters. They just fall hard. Y'all fall so hard. I can't, I hate falling so much if I like trip, let alone going 40 miles an hour on skates on ice and flipping around. Like, I can't even and you just fall.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Well, and it doesn't, it you don't fall the same, and it is it's it's it's rough.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Yeah. So so how did you know, how is there an intersection of these two things? How do you see that previous life helping with where you are now?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

I started skating when I was young. I think I was like four or five. Again, I just like fell in love with it and I deep dove into it and I skated competitively, like um right about until high school. And then I graduated, I went to Penn State, they had like a club team, and I was with them for a little bit. And then like I got busy like getting married and having kids, and so I like I took a bit of a break. But now, you know, once I got closer to like my late 30s, I'm like, oh my gosh, this part of me is still there, and I love it, and I deeply miss it. And so I'm slowly getting back on the ice. It's a lot different now, and I'm not trying to like push myself like I used to, I'm just doing it for just for the love of it, um, the beauty of it, the grace of it. And also I love teaching my kids, and they're amazing, uh, which is so cool to see them like just go. What that really taught me, like, you know, when you have your own business, it's just you, uh, you know, at some points, most points, and like still it is just me. There's just like a level of grit, and it, it's, it's, it's kind of like you're in it for the long haul. And I feel very just like intertwined personally with my business. You know what I mean? It's it's so much of my heart, it's so much of me, sorry about that, that I pour into it. And so you have wins and you have way more failures, you know, you have a lot of mess-ups, mistakes, things that you should have done different. Um, but it really is the grit of getting back up and being like, you know what, this is still my passion, this is still what I feel called to do, and I'm gonna keep going. I remember like when I was trying to like land my axle when I was like in middle school, and you're just fall after fall after fall, you know, and your spirit gets a little bit crushed, and you're like, I don't know if I could do it, and you just keep at it. You know, one of my favorite books is Atomic Habits. I'm not sure if you read James Clinton's. Oh, yeah, we were just starting this morning. Oh my gosh, I love it. One percent. Yes, one percent better. Yes, and um just like those small incremental changes over time and with consistency get to better every day. And so whether that's in skating, whether that's in just like everyday life or even in business, um, there's days where like life is lifing. You know what I mean? My kids are sick or something is happening. But if I can, you know, push my business a little bit more each day over time, and I think that's kind of been the coolest lesson over time. And and it's cool for Sarah to have seen me at one point and and then now like working together and how things have changed, and that that definitely wasn't overnight, right? You know, and it's all like refining and practice and failing, falling and getting back up.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

That's exactly what I wanted you to say because that's sort of I I I want everyone to feel that, and I love that you've lived it and that you get to a live it again, but you also get to show your kids the power of that getting up. It's the fall 10 times, get up 11, and you just keep getting up. And there are days you're like, we're gonna just stay down for just a day because my butt hurts, but you know, like my ankles are sore, so we're just gonna rest, but I still love it. There's so much grace in it. I love that. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

I feel like that was a timely message too. I just had this, we had the conversation earlier today about somebody's you're like, What am I even doing? Right? How why am I even doing this? And you just keep going every day. You just get up and you keep going. And you are alone, so it's you've got to figure it out on your own. Yep. All right.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Well, that's but you're also alone on the ice, too. Like, even that, yeah, it's just you. Like my kids play team sports, they are one of seven, nine, or eleven. It's just you, like for your whole career. Like that, that's a powerful message, too. It's like, I got this because that's all I got.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

So mental. It's it's it's all like that self talk and and realizing progress over perfection. And it's you know, it's better done than like, you know, I have a tendency to like overthink and mull and stuff. But even just making a little bit of progress and then and then you can keep refining, you know, and re refinement is a is a long. process and especially as an artist too and seeing what speaks to you seeing what works um and really deep diving into those really hard um like foundations of building a business and also being an artist is really fun.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

So I want to share with our audience just my a little bit of my experience with her full service experience and and then have you share with us like what was the catalyst to start incorporating these new additions to the services that you offer. So folks that are listening when I called her this summer or fall to take photos of our family again she said send me pictures of the outfits you're looking to wear and I bought 33 dresses from Bowden. She did I really did 33 dresses and I sent them all to her. She said why don't you bring them down to the studio and we'll lay them out together. And the way like because you are an artist as well as all many other you wear a thousand different hats and the one thing she said when I brought this dress that I thought I really wanted to wear. The red one? The red one right I I wanted this beautiful because I I'm in I'm doing that poppy red in my pottery and I was like oh this is so timely for my for my season. And I show her this dress and she said okay okay so let me ask you a few questions. What color is in your house right now? Like what color is your interior design in your house your decor? And I said oh it's pretty muted it's kind of gray and a little earthy and she said is there are there any pops of red anywhere? I said oh no no hilarious these photos these photographs are going to be on your wall and as you're watching TV there's always out of the side of your eye you're going to see this big red thing that pops off the wall and it distracts you. And it's not a good distraction it just kind of takes your attention away and I thought oh I never even would have considered that a bright color like that in that type of setting to be on my walls for 20 years and she's like and you might want to redecorate at some point and you want it to last wherever for some length of time. So for starters your experience you have done this a billion times over now so you get to share this experience with people. What are some other ideas, some other ideas of things that you've incorporated just like that based off of your experience working with families.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

My goal um is just to really serve moms. And that's kind of what I base everything off of. And a lot of that kind of is drawn from like my own experience um from doing my my son's newborn photos 10 days postpartum. I just think about like what are the pain points of moms like getting photos done. It's like first of all okay what are we gonna wear? What is my husband gonna wear what what am I gonna wear? Do I have time to like go to the mall which doesn't really exist anymore buy everything from Amazon return it. Like what's gonna look good um helping to put together a cohesive look for your outfits because you know you have five people in your family and you want it to all coordinate you also want it to be timeless too. I have an entire wardrobe that that you're welcome to to wear so wardrobe is taken care of and oftentimes clients will come to my studio to like figure it out and like that's what we did. We like laid everything out on the floor we hung stuff up we had all different options for everyone and it just gave you like the reassurance that like this is gonna look good together. It's gonna work. Yep usually you're doing that like an hour before right last minute and then you're upset with your choices because you haven't processed no it's this is amazing. So we start with wardrobe um I also have a hair makeup team who um I have a couple different girls they're all amazing who will style my clients so like say you just had a baby you just come into my studio with your yoga pants and your messy bun and you get pampered they will do your hair they will do your makeup can you imagine like being just given birth like last week and then you're you're tired you know what I mean like you've been up all night with a crying baby you're nursing all of that but just to feel pampered you know what I mean because moms are always doing it all you know what I mean working moms stay-at-home moms we're just doing it all just to feel loved on and to be served is really my goal and then we do your session I try to make it fun especially with like toddlers you never know what's gonna happen but I try to make it as fun as can be the most important part I think is after your session. Yes. So this is like the best part where we sit down together. I will either come to your house which I did for you Sarah um or you come back to my studio and we view the images on a slideshow.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

It's set to music you know you cry I cry we all cry um even Doug cried Doug cried Doug came into the kitchen and I was looking over our shoulders and I look back I was like are you crying?

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Of course he was I love that he was like trying to hide it of course he was he's like I'm fine I got this yeah and then so we figure out like what are we gonna do with these images that we've created of course people want the digital images and this is like my true passion is to create something lasting that they're gonna see every day that they're gonna pass down to their kids that they're gonna hold tight snuggle up on the couch and look through this beautiful album. You know kids nowadays they they're used to just scrolling and and you know on a screen and to have that tangible art that is where like my passion lies too to create something beyond just the digitals. I helped design Sarah had this beautiful uh it's like your dining room this wall and I was like this is where this should go. So we did like a five frame gallery wall um of her finished images and we mocked it up and I'm like this is exactly what it's gonna look like. This is the sizing you don't have to worry about it. We're not talking about a five by seven we're talking about custom sizing here's um the different finishes this is the one that I think would look really good with your house. And then a few weeks later I came and I hung them myself. So like Doug didn't have to do anything.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Literally installed them people and I think that's the one of the many missing links of the process of having family photography done is you get the digitals. I mean I printed a few but I never did anything with them. And I would have loved to have watched that looked you know seen them on my walls for all of these years. The finishing so we you we're so good at starting things but it's the closure and the finishing that you you just take that thinking out of it. And and even I mean how long did I struggle with trying to understand what do I want this this or this she comes up with a mock-up takes a picture of my wall and then sends me the mock-up so I can actually see what the display looks like with my own credenza there and my lamp and whatever. Every step of it was just so well thought through and executed I do have to backtrack though when I went to her studio with all of my Bowdoin dresses none of them worked really none of them worked. They were adorable dresses Bowdoin but they didn't work for the purpose she had a rack of these beautiful dresses in all colors in all sizes and she had a few dresses that she calls the unicorns and when I say a unicorn and I put them on every dress I put on fit me beautifully and it would have fit the woman to my left the woman to my right and I felt like that was one of the the most beautiful gifts you could give to a woman especially a new mom who is has postpartum body and just doesn't feel like herself and doesn't even know what to put on do I I I have nothing to put on you just take care of people in such a quiet way. It's just soft and sweet and you don't have to think about all of the little details that you typically have to think through. People will give you the service but not like that. Yeah I don't know I just I feel like it's absolutely genius.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

That's awesome. It's so cool to hear you like repeat that back like I'm like that's that's my goal that's my passion. I don't think I would ever go back to just being uh like just digitals only because I think you know maybe people might not realize at you know in the beginning but what they true what we truly want is something to hold on to to something to we want to see you know our kids' faces on our walls. We want to see that history of our family um we want to have something tangible to give our kids and so I helped you know talk through my you know talk with my clients to really kind of get to the bottom of that and like and I even challenge them like if you're just doing it to do the digits what are we what are you now it's on you you have you have a lot of homework to do the whole process is you have to pick out your photos um you have to sort through them you have to narrow them down you have to figure out where you're gonna put them where are you gonna print them from it's not that simple. What you know what I mean like the sizes like people love eight by ten. And then you put the eight by ten on the wall and you're like that doesn't look proportionate. And then are we doing a canvas? Are we doing framing I just love helping busy moms you know whether they're working or they're at home they're busy my goal is just to like take it from them and help me like to help them just enjoy the moment feel pampered and served and to just do it all for them.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Love it um that's my that's that's what I heard. That's pretty much what I heard it is such a gift. I mean it is above and beyond for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

That's amazing now it's it's honestly what I what I wrote down as you're telling this whole story is um you stick the ending friend you stick the landing you stick the landing that's great yes you just nailed it you know people first of all but most importantly you know your audience the fact that you know to whom you want to speak which is moms and then you think like them and think how can I be of service how can I be loving and supportive for this time while still doing what you want to do which is we talk about this it's so funny. I love this I love doing this we talk to a painter she doesn't sell paintings she sells memories you don't sell photography you sell lasting images you also sell memories but you sell art and beauty and lasting memories you sell that entire process it's not just pictures like it's really when it's done well this is what it looks like thank you it's really cool we have time for one more question I know that you love wicked so did you want to sing Define Gravity or oh not today no but that's like that's thinking of that song thinking of the gra you know wicked in general and it's all about this one big goal.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

So what's another big scary goal or something that you're chasing or you want to see in five years from now how do you think your business will look so I would say in the next five years well hopefully in the next one to two I'm looking to move out of my current studio and get a bigger studio okay um where I have like a wardrobe room I have um all of these gorgeous like gallery walls for clients to see and just like a bigger a bigger space. That's a huge goal of mine. I would love to grow a team yes so having like a studio assistant someone just to help like with the the studio tasks and stuff like that being like my right hand man would be amazing. I do have like a photography skating goal. I am obsessed with like Lake Banff in Canada. I want to take my family up there and I want to do some like wild ice skating on the lake and I want to hire a photographer to take like landscape photos of skating um my family on the lake and just like create beautiful like videos of me skating on the on the lake and then also like my kids too and just do a whole family session but incorporating skating on the lake.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

That's like a wild thing yeah I love that absolutely super fun beautiful story. It's such a fluid gradual progression and you've given yourself the time to grow and expand and I mean I I came to your house so to see that I think you I think I was upstairs when I came to your house I think I saw online years later that you were in the basement and that part of your process and then to see your studio now which is gorgeous and lovely and then to see what your next vision is I just love how steady not slow necessarily but how steady and mindful and you're just you're kind of killing it. It just is so impressive. I'm proud of you I'm not your mother I say this all the time when I'm proud of people but I'm not their mother but I'm so proud of your journey it's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

And thank you for being a part of it too. Yeah it was such an honor to photograph your kids and now they're like giants they are huge and just they are giants to create you know what we did together was really really fun. Yeah and was great.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Well thank you friends thank you so much Valerie for Val for joining us. Thank you for sharing your story and uh that's it. And uh we would love to hear your thoughts we would love to have you follow us and like us and subscribe and all of those things. If you would like to be on the show we would love to talk to you. So you can please send us a note DM me whatever you want to do. And then also Valerie how can people get in touch with you my friend?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Sure. You can follow me on socials on Instagram at Valerymaria Photography and then my website is just valerymaria.com.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

We will have all the links and everything in the show notes as well all right friends have a great day thank you for sharing your story with us and our listeners all right