We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jenny Siegwart. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jenny below.

Alright, Jenny thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

I take as many vacations as humanly possible! You’ve got to make time to reset and disconnect. Since I work from home, I find that I can’t truly “leave the office” unless I leave town. So even if it’s a little vacation up to LA for a few days to see friends, or a two week trip to Europe, it all counts and it’s all important to maintain that work/life balance.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I always loved fine art, but as much as I tried I was never that great at it. Instead, I loved creating photo albums for my friends, and documented my junior high and high school years with my point and shoot film cameras. I graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in 2006, and after a few years of trying to figure out how to make freelancing work in a terrible economy, I found myself working for a wedding studio in Point Loma. I ended up meeting my wonderful friend Becca, and we started our own wedding studio in 2011. Her and I worked together for 7 years, slowly building our business and our network. In 2018, we closed the studio so we could each explore our businesses beyond weddings and family photos. I now specialize in interiors, lifestyle, and editorial photography, and an occasional family portrait session for my long time lovely clients.

I try to give my clients a fun experience with positive vibes when they’re working with me. A lot of the time, we are spending full days together, so I like to keep things light, energetic and happy. I really enjoy working in a collaborative way with clients and their teams, and I’m always open to feedback, suggestions, or constructive criticism. Also, I really do believe in being flexible, being transparent, and always communicating from the beginning to the end of the project. At the end of the day, I want everyone that I work with to walk away from the shoot feeling awesome about what we have created together!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of clients for me are referrals from current clients, or people that I have met shooting smaller editorial projects. That’s actually been a great resource, because a lot of the people I am assigned to shoot are other business owners, and they don’t have a photographer they normally use. So they’ll then hire me to do something for their business, and they become new clients. I think Instagram helps a little, but I’m terrible at posting and keeping up on it. So it would probably be a better source if I was more active on it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is the freedom it gives me. It allows me, to a certain degree, to set my work pace. If I know I need a few weeks to get caught up, I know how to schedule my time. Or at least try to. I can take more than just two weeks of vacation a year, I can meet a friend for a long lunch on a slower retouching day, I can do a mid day gym class.

Another aspect I love to touch on is just how many incredible people I get to meet doing my job, and all of the cool places I get to shoot at. I’ve met fancy CEO’s of giant companies, professional athletes, and insanely talented artists and designers – so many rad people that I otherwise would have never had the opportunity to meet, let alone work with. I get to walk into multi million dollar houses, shoot in secret rooms of buildings that aren’t open to the public, or shoot at wineries in Mexico. Every shoot is different, and all of the different people and places that I get to meet and see are such an amazing part of what I do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jennysiegwart.com
• Instagram: @jenny_siegwart
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennysiegwart/

Image Credits
My portrait was shot by Becca Batista.