First, let me explain, Sleeping With The Chef is not THAT kinda of website… I know that many people have smirked when I’ve mentioned the name of my newest project with my husband, Bryan Caswell. This new project is about people, community, chaos, food, love, family and art… it’s about life. I have always loved working with babies, children and their families and will continue to do so. That said my life has changed quite drastically in the last few years mostly because I met and married the love of my life. With my husband being a restauranteur and chef my daily routine and challenges have also changed. Obviously restaurant life has crazy hours (7 days a week) and we travel quite a bit as we are often invited for events, festivals and dinners across the country. With these new and welcomed changes, I have had to make adjustments to how and when I work as well as where to focus my energy. Which is how SWTC was developed.
We thought very long and very hard about how to better merge our lives professionally. We have been successful at combining our families, our social lives and our households. But, the work/life balance was still a little off. It’s tough to find time together when we are both working 50+ hours a week most weeks, not to mention when do make more time for our children? There’s a reason the term Restaurant Widow exists. Although it doesn’t have to be a negative term. I hope that I can help shatter those perceptions.
Being that we are both incredibly driven and love to create, we knew that me quitting photography or working was not going to be an option. So, we put our thinking caps on and we spent many nights and days discussing how we could better intertwine our careers so that we felt more of a balance in our lives. One day it came to us… clearly we are both story tellers. Only difference is that Bryan spins his stories out of food and I develop mine from photographs. Why shouldn’t we create a visual essay authentically documenting what life was truly like for us and our friends in the food industry? Why not shed a little more light on the adventures we go on and feature the amazing people that we meet along the way?!? I have already been doing this a little via my iPhone and on instagram, but I have all these fancy cameras and lenses, perhaps I should put them to use in this part of my life too. So, we sat down and started planning something new. Something we could share together and with the rest of the world.
Lately, friends and family have asked… “does this mean you quitting your portrait work!? You’ve worked so hard to build your business!!” The short answer is no… the long answer is a little more complicated and in the interest of being authentic (remember that blog post I wrote about fear?) I will give you an answer somewhere in-between. I will still be shooting my clients but I will not be taking nearly as many as I used to in order to continue building SWTC and help guide it to what, I hope, will be an exciting future. I do still love photographing and working with my clients, but this move is more about fulfilling a creative goal. My previous goals were more focused on my work here and building a client based business… but sometimes our goals must change in order to continue to grow both as a professional and as a creative. It took a while for that to sink in and I was exhausting myself trying to fit my old goals into my new life. The harder I tried to make it work, the more miserable I became. Since letting those go and technically starting over (eek, scary!!!), I have become incredibly excited and completely emerged in the creative process… much like I was 8 years ago when I started this portrait business.
I have had some incredible opportunities and have loved every second of my adventures so far, and I know there are many, many, more to come. I hope you decide to follow along with my new project and continue to follow me here as well! The support of my clients, friends and family mean the absolute world to me and I know that I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am today without it.
Last night I documented and detailed our most recent chaos… one that involves six ducks and a special “surprise gift”. Here are a few photos documenting the events from the day… you can find more photos as well as the full story on the Sleeping With The Chef website. I am incredibly excited to share it with y’all!
