BOSTON CHILDREN'S PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHER

Saturday morning is the first day of the rest of my life.  I will wake up, no longer employed by IBM and the full time, totally committed owner of Kristina Young Photography.  I could not be any happier or any more excited… but most of all, I am grateful.

The last few years have been an amazing journey of growth.  When I completed my MBA, I knew I wanted to run my own business, I just had no idea what it would be.  I had plans in place, spreadsheets ready, and thought “if I build it…”  I hadn’t owned a camera since my beautiful EOS SLR was stolen from the back of my car in the early 90s.  I loved that camera, but life got in the way and I never thought to replace it.    Owen bought me an original Rebel DSLR before our wedding and I took it everywhere.  I fell in love again.  When I came home from Greece, everyone raved.  What I failed to realize was that it is extremely difficult to take a bad photograph in Santorini… I was no expert, just a girl with a nice camera.

When Christofer came along, I again thought “I am a photographer.”  Friends and family raved again.  They always do.  When I found an amazing resource board for new photographers, I was shocked when I didn’t get the positive reviews I was looking for.  Couldn’t they see?  What they saw was a mom with a nice camera shooting on Auto and using the pop-up flash.  I started totally clean, I broke it down to the bare bones and I put on my hard hat and I learned.  For the next 18 months or so I shot everything I could.  I learned everything I could about light, post-processing, equipment, gear, style, composition…  I thought I was ready.

I began to shoot sessions for friends.  I realized that taking a few great photographers of my child was extremely different that shooting a gallery for a client.  Dealing with dark houses, full sun, mixed light sources.  It was one thing to sit in a friends house and get 5-10 keepers, quite another to be in a total stranger’s and ask have to ask a well-meaning Dad to stop yelling “cheese.”  And so the learning continued.  I learned how to eek out a gallery and correct it in Photoshop… then I learned how much better, easirer, and more true it is to get it right in the camera.  I learned how to edit a session not in 6 hours, but in 2 hours.  I learned how to get diversity from the dullest of conditions, how to shush a newborn, and how to position a self-conscious mom so she looks as beautiful to herself when she sees the image as she does to me when I capture it.

I could finally fill in the blanks to my plan.  Build my brand.  Search out my clients.  I was ready.  But the economy was not.  You just don’t leave a 9-5er at IBM when the economy is at an all-time low.  You don’t leave the benefits, you don’t leave the salary, you don’t leave the people.  And so I stayed.

In the past 18 months, I short-changed IBM.  I short-changed my amazing clients.  I short-changed my husband.  And probably my kids.  But most important, I short-changed myself.  I stopped working out, I let myself go and I got to the point where I don’t even recognize me in the mirror.  I have worked more 70 hour weeks and pulled more all-nighters than I ever did during Babson exams.  I distanced myself from friends because I just didn’t have the time.  I made a lot of friends and family incredibly mad at me, and perhaps lost a few relationships because they couldn’t understand why I just didn’t have the time to get them their photographs.  I disappointed a lot of people.  I lost a lot of emails.  I gave away a lot of freebies as “thank yous” for my disorganization.  But I kept on going because I knew where I wanted to be.

But now I am ready.

With all that said, I wouldn’t be at this amazing place if Owen hadn’t stuck with me.  There is a lot that can be said about the last few years of our lives… we’ve been married for only 4.5 years yet we’ve bought two homes, moved, had two children, I started my own business, left IBM, his company was bought, he had a tough two years and switched jobs and landed somewhere I think he can finally call home.  We’ve raked leaves, planted gardens, cut down trees, bandaged up cuts and scrapes, taken temperatures, given baths, given hugs, given time-outs, slept through the night, been up every hour, lost some savings, gained some back, cooked a lot of meals, ordered a lot of take-out, and made some really truly and amazing friendships.  It’s been really busy, and really chaotic, but I think it’s really good.

I also wouldn’t be at this amazing place without my family and friends (long-time, local and “imaginary”).   I am truly blessed to have the people in my life that I do.  I can’t say enough about them.  My poor parents, and most of my friends, and my sister have listened to me drone on and on about stuff that isn’t even remotely interesting to them.   For hours.  Days.  Weeks.  Months.  Probably thinking “will she ever just stop talking?”

My clients who are also my friends, patient, caring, and uncommonly beautiful.  All of them.  I can’t say it enough.  I really love them.  Really.  I am sorry for any of you that ever fell through the cracks.

And finally my photog friends (the Photo-hoes).  There really is not a better group of woman in terms of support, resources, advice, a dose of reality and a pat on the back.  They know who they are.

So what about the running?  What does that have to do with it?  It dawned on me Saturday afternoon as I ran from the elevator to Melissa’s bridal suite that I hadn’t run for a job in so long.  When I was managing Customer Service at Lotus back in the day, I was so excited and loved what I was doing so much that I would literally run from my office to the bathroom, back down the hall, over to someone else’s cube or office and then back to my own.  I loved it and I didn’t want to miss a minute.  People would tell me to slow down and I’d laugh saying “I can’t, there is just too much to do!”  And it struck me on Saturday that I felt that exact same way.  I was running to do something I loved and I never felt better.

This week marks an incredibly important time in my life.  It is my last week at IBM.  After 13 years of an incredibly wonderful career, I have resigned and on Friday I will turn in my Thinkpad for good.  I’d love to say I have mixed emotions, but I don’t.  I am completely and totally thrilled to be making this move, it is the right decision for me and I have waited and planned and thoughtfully executed.  I am done.

That said, I’ve loved my job almost all of the time I’ve been there.  I started in February of 1997 not knowing what I was in for.  I managed Customer Service for Lotus.  I worked incredibly long hours, pulled all-nighters, and formed a good deal of my work ethic that I still have today and will carry with me when I leave.  I worked with Ellen (C) and for Ellen (G) and can’t even put into words what they taught me as friends and mentors.  I had a lot of fun with the crew up on 4E in North Reading.  Gary, Stella, Heather, Jean, Lyndsey, Tina… I hate naming names because I already know right off the bat I am not mentioning everyone who was so near and dear to my heart and so I apologize for that.  We accomplished a lot in that group… we moved from a small local center to managing Customer Service for North America complete with outsourcing to an ibm.com center (unheard of in those days!).  It was incredible.

I moved into the education group in the fall of 2000 and went through yet another series of similar transformations.  Under the guidance of Crystal, and along side my dear friend Julie, and a very talented staff of managers and team leads, we joined multiple individual education sites into one national (now global) virtual center.  I had once again, so many dear friends… Kindra, Doaa, Shari, Erin, Carol, John B, Tony, Tom G, Kerry… “the Eds” from the LP side… again, too many names to name, so worried I’ll leave something off the list.  Melody (the Doctor is in).  I will never, ever forget the beautiful wedding shower everyone threw for me at the offsite — so amazing to have had friends and colleagues with such generous hearts.

In 2005 I began to focus on the migration to Learning@IBM and once again participated in an incredible transformation.  Long hours, odd hours, new team members… about 15 months delayed, but the final project was an incredible success.  Hours spent with Pam, strategizing, planning, whining… she talked me down from many a ledge.  AJ, Avis, Jeroen, David, Libby, Jason, Paul, Tim, Terry, Viv,  the entire LMS team.  In that transition I had the pleasure of learning from Vonnie who helped me greenlight the GLRT.

With the GLRT came a number of new challenges, successes, headaches and laughs.  Helping me through that was Jonas, Michael, Ron, Ron, Jim, Eric, Carrie, Chris, Stan, Ernie and Bill.  Another transformation that people thought would take weeks, but getting it right took months, and quite possibly years.  A project that I can’t take full credit for, but am incredibly proud of.

The last year or so has been spent supporting Vonnie’s infrastructure for Learning Delivery, working for Cynthia, alongside her wonderful team — Angela (my new partner in crime), Jim, John, Melody, and Pat.

In every single job role, and during every single year, I actively participated in major transformational changes of how we do business.  I am constantly amazed when I look back and think “we never, ever took a break.”  But that’s what I thrive on, and it’s how I have excelled and built my own business… build a distinct brand, become the best you can be, deliver exceptional value because that means more than being a low cost solution, give back where you can, develop those around you to bring the marketplace to a higher level and evolve before the world passes you by.

So with that, Farewell IBM, I wish you well.

Many, many more to come.  This is proofed on my laptop, colors could be crazy, but I promised her I’d post just one…

This session was one of them.  Kacie did a lot of advance planning with me to make this session happen for her family, and for her daughter’s first birthday.  And wouldn’t you know it, the day arrived and it was gross and rainy and dark.  We were sort of hesitant to reschedule because who knows what November can bring weather-wise, but we took a gamble on pushing it out one week and we hit the jackpot!  It was chilly, but not so much that faces were red… it was windy, but just enough to give Kaycie’s hair this awesome lift (this is where I pipe in that I drag huge fan around to make mom’s look like wella-balsam wind blown… and if you don’t know what that is, that should tell you that I am pretty old).

Anyway, the day was awesome, the family was awesome and I really had a great time hanging out with them, learning about their lives, blabbering mindlessly about mine (they humored me).  I think my mother-in-law thought I was a little crazed last night because I just kept saying “Really  Robs, I love my clients… I do… I love them all… really, I love my clients…”  I will say it once and say it again, I am really, really fortunate to be doing this and to meet such cool people that feel like old friends.

So that’s that… check out how seriously cute this little girl is.  I am not joking, just look at her eyes!  Love!

I can’t believe I forgot to blog this.  Well, I sort of can, because I have about 6 sessions from the fall that I never blogged… but I actually had this one ready to go about 30 minutes after I shot it.  And then I forgot to blog it.  Back on track… these little boys were the sweetest little twin babes you could imagine… I think maybe 12 days old?  But still oh-so-sleepy and oh-so-good.   This session was really fun for a few reasons (1) I spent a lot of time drooling over the most fabulous farmhouse these two boys will cause trouble in, (2) I like their mom, (3) it took me less than 2 minutes to drive there, and (4) Terri Lee helped me the entire session!  It was so fun having her with me and as much as you might think she and I would get sidetracked talking and what-not, we actually worked really well together and she helped me figure out a bunch of shots!  She’s welcome any time.

Back to the boys, I don’t care if I have to beg, plead, kick and scream… I am coming back to photograph these boys for life.  I already have so many ideas for when they can sit, crawl, run, chase each other, and… RIDE!  Carolyn, thank you for having me over!  I am so sorry I forgot to blog these!