BBW VIP MEMBER INTERVIEW: Jessica McDaniel, Baby & Family Photographer of Boston Baby Photos

What is your name?

Jessica McDaniel

What is your title?

Baby & Family Photographer

What is your business name?

What is your website URL?

What is your Instagram handle?

What is your LinkedIn URL?

How long have you been a Boston Business Women member?

More than 3 years

Where are you based? How did you end up there?

Milton - I grew up here and once I had my own family we moved back here, I just adore it. Both my parents live within a mile of my house, can't beat it.

Tell us more about your company! What do you do and what pushed you to start?

I started Boston Baby Photos 20 years ago so that I could spend my days telling family stories in photographs. I’m thrilled to document you snuggling your newborn at home, your kids giggling at a minishoot in the Public Garden, your high school senior ready to go off into the world, or your whole family at a lifestyle session. I just adore kids and babies. I made a video business card this year all about me – it’s at www.bostonbabyphotos.com, just click on MEET JESS.

How have you grown within your personal and professional life due to the success of your business?

I absolutely have grown personally and professionally due to the success of Boston Baby Photos. Twenty years ago I was a single, childless, night school grad student in BU's MBA program, and now here I am, loving this job I do -- I've completely become the woman I am because of doing this thing I love for the last 20 years. And May 15, 2023 is the actual exact date of my 20th anniversary in business! It's the date 20 years ago when I started my business checking account, so that's the date I use as my ``business birthday``.

What is your definition of success? How do you know when you’ve reached it?

Loving work every day? Being just absolutely thrilled to do my job every day I do it? That's success to me, and I'm absolutely here.

Tell us about your most transformational moment as an entrepreneur?

When covid hit, we photographers were knocked on our butts. We all had to completely reimagine how to do what we do. Pivoting that year (I did social distancing outdoor minishoots all year - I took photos of babies outdoors on roofdecks in Southie in the middle of the heat of July and I shot through windows into families' homes in February in their front hallways to maintain distance)... helped me identify what I love most about my business. I just adore being with families... and documenting their time together. Now that I'm back in families' homes it just means so much to be there for those special times. Indoors. 🙂

What was one of your biggest challenges in business?

My biggest challenge for Boston Baby Photos was definitely 2020 & 2021, due to covid and due to needing to completely shift the way I photograph babies and families. I bought a zoom lens and shot from a distance... brought babies outdoors... it was cold and hot and stressful and hard... but wow, it made me appreciate how much I love what I do when I'm able to go indoors and get that relaxed special time with families.

How has being a BBW Inner Circle member influenced your life + business?

Absolutely. I have connected with so many extraordinary female entrepreneurs in BBW - I am inspired daily by their wisdom. It means so much to me to be part of this group of wonderful business women.

Tell us about your most proud moment in your career.

This year, on March 7th, I pulled off a kind of epic, extraordinary day. I wanted to host a 20th birthday party for my business, and I thought the coolest way to do that would be to hire a photographer (I chose the ever-fabulous Mariah Gale, branding photographer extraordinaire) to photograph me taking pictures of babies.

Boy, oh boy, was it amazing. Nearly 100 families applied to model for me, and selecting the eleven models for the session was the first challenge - my GOODNESS I just love babies and every single one who applied was perfect! But I put together some really specific age parameters and was able to confirm three tiny newborns, three babies who were about six months old and three babies approaching their first birthday, in addition to two gorgeous women who were expecting a baby. Shockingly, we only had one baby drop out at the last minute due to illness (which meant that at 11pm on the night before the session I'm messaging with a mama who was able to drop everything and bring her babe with her to the studio the following day - bless her!)... and after it was all done I said to Mariah and our assistants that it felt like we'd danced this beautiful dance in the two hours we were there... it was 100% magic.

We set the models up around the room in different spots and I bopped from one beautiful baby to the next, as one mama gave their babe a bath, another would spoon feed their baby some mango... and a third would be helping their one year old walk while holding hands with her over near a pretty window... and then that group of babies would be done and we'd bring in the next group. It was extraordinary, speedy, lovely, intense... and at the end we got lots of the babies to sit on a couch with me and take a group photo.

After I handed the babies back to their parents my eyes just completely filled with tears. Everything about that moment felt like such a mountain I'd climbed - all those years of all those babies I've just adored... and being able to celebrate twenty years in this magical way, it was truly just everything.

Who is the woman behind your business? What does she like? How does she spend her free time? What does she value?

She's an extroverted introvert. Or maybe an introverted extrovert? Depends on the day, but I love salt, I love being super organized and also totally messy... I love the smell of my nieces' and nephew's little necks when I snuggle them (I just dropped my dog over at their house this morning and they all piled on top of me with their morning deliciousness and squeezed me so hard... it was the best). I love my two daughters and my adorable husband with all my heart... I spend my free time obsessing over minutia and my family would tell you I'm intolerable when it comes to getting ready to go on a trip... but once we're there (sigh, a week in Martha's Vineyard every summer) lying on a hammock sketching with a charcoal pencil or reading a Jodi Piccolt novel... that's my happy place. I love my people fiercely, I do things quickly, and it's hard to offend me. I'm pretty sure (now that I understand myself better) that I'm ADHD, but it's made me a better business woman because I can harness the laser focus that happens when I'm in the zone and make fabulous things happen.

What makes you stand out from others in your field? What do you do differently?

I’ve built my business as a lifestyle business, not a money-making venture, because I’m passionate that photos should be something that families do over and over again with me, so I don’t want them to have to sell a kidney to afford their session each year. I want to tell the stories of families as they grow and change, so I’ve built a business model that puts the onus on me to reach out to families to remind them it’s time for their next session, through my Baby’s First Year package and my Annual Plan program. I made a video to explain the Baby’s First Year Package, you can find it here. And if everyone in your family is over a year old, here’s the info about the Annual Plan.

Where can we keep up with you? What social media platforms do you use the most?

Instagram is my favorite, @bostonbabyphotos is me. But I also run a Facebook group for expecting parents and families with babies under a year old – you can find that on Facebook here.

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