Faces of YWSE: Julie Kay

Age: 32
Connection to YWSE: Introduced the two co-founders Niko Everett and Sara Ellis to each other, longtime fan of YWSE, SF board member Adriana Dakin's wedding photographer
Affiliations/memberships: Wedding and Portrait Photographers International, Temescal Masters swim team
Academic background: Stanford B.A., Columbia School of Journalism M.S.
Awards/honors: Kurt Schork Memorial Scholarship, Elaine Exton Scholarship, Mother Jones Magazine Fellowship, Outstanding Media Award from the Association of California School Administrations, Best Business Idea Award, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center - Winter 2008 Business Planning Class
Hobbies: Swimming, camping, time outdoors, art, documenting, spending time with the people I love

---

Where did you grow up? What’s your history?

I grew up here in the Bay Area. I've always been drawn to creative things, and I've always had an obsession with documenting things, through any medium I could get my hands on.

I graduated from Stanford in 1998, uncertain of what I wanted to do professionally. I was curious about so many things and found it hard to narrow it down to one field.

I spent the year after graduating doing various jobs and saving up money, then spent 6 months in Ecuador (see photo). My time there ended up being a hugely transformational experience. In fact, it helped define the course of the rest of my life back when I was 23.

I spent much of my time in Ecuador in the Amazon. A good friend had a grant to do research on oil exploration in indigenous territory. We spent eight weeks interviewing dozens of people about the impact of oil development in the region. It really wasn't until then that I ever connected documenting with a career. It had always just been what I did. When I saw that documenting had power that I could leverage, I decided to pursue journalism as a career. Then, after years as a journalist, I started my own business, JK Life Stories.

What were you doing for the nearly ten years between when you came back from Ecuador and starting your business?

I started a reporter training program at KPFA radio in Berkeley when I returned from Ecuador in 1999. Later, I got a fellowship at Mother Jones magazine. In 2003 I went to the Columbia School of Journalism to get a masters degree. Then, from 2004 through 2007, I worked as a newspaper reporter here in the Bay Area. Also, somewhere around 2001, I took my photography, which until then had been a hobby, and began doing some professional work – weddings, special events, etc.

How were you sustaining yourself before you became a professional journalist?

I had so many jobs, it was not even funny. I worked on a farm before Ecuador. Then KPFA radio training and waitressing at the same time. The Fellowship at Mother Jones Magazine paid a stipend. Between 1998 and 2003 it was a lot of crazy random stuff. I temped. It was not a typical career path. I definitely relate to people who take a long time to find their way, like I did.

What led you to start your business?

I wanted to be able to express myself fully, to do what I was best at, and to fully take on the risks and rewards of the work I did. Up until I created JK Life Stories, I had a dual life. I was a print journalist with a photography business. I was bringing photography to journalism, and vice versa. It was exciting, but it was challenging to sustain. I thought, “I need to find a way to bring these things together.”

So what does JK Life Stories do, exactly?

I document people’s lives through time in a multimedia format. So, some of the work I do is like that of a traditional photographer – photographing weddings, pregnancies, families, etc. But I also do audio interviews to record the big and little stories of people's lives. Then, I mix together the photographs and audio recordings to create Story slide shows and/or books with both photographs and people's stories.
Some of my most frequent projects are: Love Stories, which document people's stories of falling in love through interviews and photographs, and usually are debuted at weddings; Pregnancy Stories, which document the 40 weeks of pregnancy through photographs and interviews, and usually debut at baby showers, and Baby's First Year stories, which document the first year of newborns and their parents through photographs and interviews. (See the end of this profile for links to stories Julie has created.)

While I work with some clients only once, the idea is to continue to document the same people over time, providing them with a running chronicle of their lives for them to share with dear ones, and pass on to future generations.

Why is this important work?

I believe very strongly in preserving life's powerful moments, as well as in the power of storytelling. It's truly amazing what people will say if prompted, that they might not otherwise have said. It is a really magical experience.

The point of my work is to give people an unusual opportunity to see their lives with a big picture perspective. I want people to have a new way of valuing and loving how precious the little and big moments of their lives are.

Ultimately, the goal is to create a running chronicle of people's lives, a “multimedia memory library” that allows people to say: “This is where I came from, this is where I’m going. This is who I am.”

How has it been to have your own business and where do you see it going?

It has been an extraordinary experience. The first year definitely had its share of challenges, but things get smoother month by month, day by day. My goal is to thrive and be fully self-expressed as a multimedia capturer, and to help lots of people tell and share their stories.

In the last year have there been things that surprised you?

Yes! In particular, I never thought of myself as a businessperson. I’m finding it a really neat challenge and joy. What has surprised me about being a businessperson is that it requires a great deal of creativity, which I didn't expect. But I’m a creative person and it helps my business.

Have there been significant challenges in your business-building process?

Definitely – all of the normal ones that go with creating something from nothing. But the biggest one I think is maintaining my own confidence and vision. It’s hard to wake up in the morning in the beginning and feel confident. All you have is your vision and your faith. So when your faith wavers, it’s pretty darn tricky. But you can create an infrastructure to generate and sustain faith. I’d say my confidence has increased day-by-day, month-by-month, to the point that I’m excited and grateful for where I am.

You’ve had help, people on your team. Tell us about the team.

I took two courses at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center in San Francisco, which offers low-cost courses in starting a business. They were amazing, and I highly recommend it.

I’m also very fortunate to have amazing people in my life. My closest friends and family have been absolute lifelines in this process. I couldn't have done this without them.

Of course I think YWSE is an incredible resource! The funny thing about it is that even though I was there when Niko and Sara created it, I was so not at the right stage in my life to appreciate what it was about. I could hardly say “entrepreneur”. I didn’t get it AT ALL. Now I say to them, “Remember that thing you created, YWSE? That was such a good idea!” It took me a decade to get why it's so amazing and valuable. And now, a decade later, I’m taking advantage of it.

Do you have advice for young women who are social entrepreneurs?

I guess I have advice to women who aren’t sure if that label applies to them. Until very recently, I didn’t identify with the phrase at all. These days, I think of it as wanting to make the world a better place and doing it with creativity. You might be a waitress with a dream, and it hasn’t realized itself yet. If you have that impulse, it’s a wonderful thing to nurture and it can look a lot of different ways. If you think that’s a part of you, nurture it. It’s amazing all the paths it can take.

Whom do you admire?

I admire my close friends. I learn so much from them. They take on the world with optimism and a level of faith that I’ve found in very few people. I feel very blessed to have them as my friends. And there’s a motley crew I admire — Ani di Franco, Bono from U2, Aung San Suu Kyi … There are so many unsung heroes as well. Those are some of the people I admire the most. People doing incredible things, not for recognition, they just have it in their hearts. Those are some of my greatest heroes.

What books or other resources do you recommend?

I have a handful of books that I’m obsessed with, that I carry around for months or years. There are some I won’t leave the house without. One is Creating Your Future by Dave Ellis – it’s an incredible resource that’s brilliantly done. Others are Artist’s Way, and Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and It’s All Small Stuff – a brilliant book, very very wise and the author Richard Carlson died at a young age this last year. There’s another … The Joy Diet by Martha Beck. I reference Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and Creating Your Future the most often.

How does your personal lifestyle fit with your work life?

For me it’s great. I’m a creative person, not the best at being super regimented. I like doing things according to my own schedule. So I love the flexibility having my own business affords me. I love how my business spills into my weekend. It’s really important to me to be there for my friends and family in an emergency situation. I can actually serve them if need be because of my flexibility. There are challenges, such as needing self-discipline to do what I need to be doing to make a profit. I’ve gotten a lot better with self-discipline. For 2.5 years I commuted 100 miles a day. Now I commute 10 steps to my living room. I love that. I live in Oakland and love it.

What are your top values in your life and work? 

It’s important to be there for my friends and family, as I said earlier. The other is to stay connected to the big picture in life, remembering that life is short. The experiences we have are precious and fleeting. It’s important for me and it’s also at the heart of my business, reminding people about it. One of the most important things about being alive is to enjoy being alive as much as possible.

Is it hard to have the last say, rather than asking a boss for answers?

Definitely, that’s one of the challenges. I’m constantly wanting to run things by people, and there’s no obvious constant set of people to do that with. I’ve gotten more used to that. The other thing that’s hard is self-discipline. I used to get annoyed at my bosses for imposing deadlines. But that got things done. To meet my deadlines and feel satisfied with myself is a totally different experience. I’m still learning how to make that work. But the learning process is part of the joy.

Links to Julie's slide shows:

Musical wedding slide show
Featuring YWSE board member Adriana Dakin

Pregnancy slide show
Starring YWSE co-founder Niko Everett

Baby's first year slide show

Find out more! www.jklifestories.com and jklifestories.blogspot.com are the best places to find out more about Julie’s work.

Julie is offering the YWSE network a special promotion — a 20% off coupon — to everyone who's a part of "Julie's Inner Circle." To become a member, you need to subscribe via e-mail at the top right of her blog at jklifestories.blogspot.com. She slipped this information to us so that YWSE friends can get in on the deal. You just need to become part of the Inner Circle by November 10th.

Interview by Adriana Dakin and Koy Hardy, Board Members with YWSE-SF.

Comments

[Best Friendship songs]

Definitely one of the best post I've ever read. It contains huge information and idea every reader like me must follow. Thanks for providing anyway!