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

Hristina , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts about making remote work effective.

Since our team is so small (just my partner and me) working from home was always the most profitable option. It took us a while to build our creative studio in our home and make space for us to be creative and run a business while still enjoy our home life.

We have managed to separate our work space from the main home by dedicating space for creating and working. We still draw inspiration from our entire space, however, staying strict about what we consider working spaces vs personal space is where we make it work.

It definitely comes with challenges. Sometimes it’s hard to stop working and before you know it it’s the middle of the night or we’ve gone weeks without a day off. What prevents us on going into auto mode at home is a structured working schedule and the mindset that it won’t be perfect every day.

What I’ve found very helpful and necessary for a productive day at work at home is the space itself. If the space is meant for living it won’t be comfortable for working and vice versa.

I created a balanced environment by thinking what will make my work day stress free. Having a lot of natural light, no clutter, and having prepped lunches are keys. We travel often and most of the times we bring work with us. Therefore I look for large spaces with a comfortable-to-work-in kitchen and dining area, lots of storage space, and a separate area to relax. This way, I can transform the space into my own little studio where I feel comfortable spending my day, ensuring creativity will flow easier.

When we work on bigger projects and require a bigger team we outsource freelancers and rent larger spaces which gives us a nice balance between working from home and outside of it.

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 am a commercial food and product photographer based in Chicago, and alongside my husband, Bryant, we run The Pineapple Cooks, a food photography and videography business. We supply brands and foodies with ad, social media, and marketing content. Through my business, I’ve had the opportunity to work on all kinds of fun food-related projects, from my neighbors cupcake stand to large scale TV commercials.

We set ourselves apart with our ability to capture a wide variety of aesthetics that complement our clients’ diverse audiences. We are often hired for our creative ability to shape-shift styles and bring a client’s vision to life. I love food and anything that will get me closer to that world. Whether that’s filming a chef as they are preparing their signature dish, or capturing the essence of a particular product, this entire world is so fascinating and captivating to me. I firmly believe that food is a universal language and I enjoy capturing and sharing food stories that bring people together.

On most shoots, I tend to focus on food and prop styling, but I’ve also done creative direction on several bigger projects. As a creative, I take pride in the relationships I build with other creatives in my space. I love to hear when someone hired me from a recommendation or when I have met someone on a project and later we do one together. I think relationships are important in this line of work and the best jobs and project come from word to mouth.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We weren’t very well-know or respected in the beginning stages of building our business. In an effort to get our names our there, we were taking on any job or project we could get our hands around. This also included taking on a client that contacted us to develop recipe for a soon-to-open cafe. While we were excited to have this new project, we failed to do our due diligence, and were completely blindsided by our client’s inability to “fulfill their financial obligations.” This was also at a time where other clients were taking their precious time to pay us for work that we had delivered. Being ghosted and not paid for was a dagger in the heart for me. I felt defeated and wanted to quit.

However, this proved to be a blessing in disguise. We sat down and optimized our contract template to protect us against this happening again in the future. While I can share other stories of growing pains, I’d like to believe that growing through low moments like these were necessary in order to get to where I am today.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When we first decided we wanted to build a business, we took several different approaches. We first started a food blog, then we dipped our toes in catering services, and eventually, we both realized we can focus on one aspect of our business that we wanted to grow, photography.

Because all of this was new to me, I didn’t know what I was doing and thought that by doing everything myself will give me the best results. This approach, however, brought nothing else but burnout and frustration.

I had to unlearn how to be everywhere all at once. I had to leave room for my partner to do his part and contribute with his creativity and knowledge.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thepineapplecooks.com
• Instagram: @thepineapplecooks
• Linkedin: Hristina Polk