Today's guest post is by Davina Fear, Familyness Adventure Seeker, wife, mom, familyness photographer and creator of Love 15. “By day, I photograph families. By night, I build forts the size of elephants with my family. I live in a yellow house and I believe real life is the best getaway ever.” Follow her on Twitter.

As a wedding photographer during the first two years I was in business the start up seemed slow but steady. In the third year the amount of work that came to me as a result of those first two years became overwhelming. I was involved in a variety of projects, not to mention speaking engagements and weddings almost every weekend. It had been one year since my fourth child had been born and the summer had flashed by me before I had even taken a breath.

That’s when I knew that my life had to change.

My business became bigger than me. My life had become my business.

It didn’t feel like I had a real life anymore.

And most of us think that’s what we want.

Until it actually happens.

We think that the rush of what we’re looking for is in the next $1000 that’s handed over to us or the next presentation in front of a room full of people.

An entire summer passed by me while I shot weddings galore. An entire summer when I didn’t see my kids. We didn’t go to the pool, camping, or the other summer stuff that we looked forward to each year when school was out and the sky was clear. Instead, they had a nanny. The entire summer. I have nothing against nannies. I just didn’t plan to have a nanny. Ever.

Life can pass that quickly when we’re not paying attention. It happened to me.

It happens daily. In the little ways.

I was in a place I had never intended to end up.

At the time I was traveling and speaking and shooting sessions and weddings like crazy. I had raised my prices three times and still had plenty of work. It seemed like I was successful. It seemed like I was arriving.

… Arriving to a place I didn’t want to be.

I have a great family so the support I needed wasn’t an issue.

I was the issue.

I meant to be a mom and then a photographer. Not the other way around.

In the past few years I’ve met 100s of women from around the globe. What we all want most … even more than a successful business … is meaning and relationships that we can lean on.

This community of people, these photographers, want more than a successful business. They want a successful life.

I hear that call! I was one of them. Six months ago I knew that Familyness was what I am meant to share with the world and with that assurance came Love 15.

As an industry we talk about balance and how much we need it. And I’ve wondered what that means?

And what I think we really want is to know that each day we’ve honestly connected with the people that mean the most to us.

We want moments every day where we’ve really looked at and seen the people we love most. That’s when we feel like we’re doing okay. That’s when we feel balanced. It means that we’ve done what we were meant to do for the day. We stopped our world and we saw what we’re blessed with.

That’s the purpose of Love 15.

A chance to really see the people we love the most.

I believe it can change the world because it changes our relationships, it makes us feel like a better mom, wife, husband, daughter, friend.

Love 15 is a little prompt each day. One small idea that takes less then 15 minutes.

Each morning an email arrives in your inbox as a little reminder with an adventure idea of how to spend 15 minutes with your spouse, child, friend, or someone you love that day.

The reason the idea arrives first thing in the morning is so that it can be there in your mind, just waiting for it’s perfect opportunity. Many people who are doing Love 15 go about their day as usual and in a pocket of time while they’re sitting and waiting for someone to come out to the car they’ll think, “This is it! This is a Love 15 moment.” And they do their adventure idea on the spot.

When I thought of the Love 15 concept I knew it would have to be easy and guilt-free. It’s not designed to be something that you add to your to do list. It’s an idea that floats around until it finds a landing place. If today got crazy. No worries. Tomorrow is a new day. And that means a new idea for a fresh day. They don’t pile on top of one another. They drift into a day and leave with the day.

Most days we know we want to do something meaningful with the people we love. We just don’t see the opportunities when they present themselves and sometimes when the opportunities do arrive we don’t know what to do in them because it’s unexpected.

Love 15 solves both of those problems.

So, starting today … spend just 15 minutes to a happier life and more familyness.

Love 15 went up to $12/month last Friday but Davina has graciously offered to bring the price back down to Tiffinbox readers until 5.30 pm EST on Tuesday, February 14 … yeah, for Valentine's Day … to $7.50/month. If having “family time” is as important to you as it is for me, I say “jump” on this special offer. I have!

Davina also offers Get To Know You (GTKY) kits – templates, essentially – for photographers. Use the code: seshu20, to receive 20% off anything you put in the cart. Buy either the WEDDING bundle or the INSIGHT bundle and save even more! (nope, I don't make a dime for promoting Davina's products)

This a guest post by Ken Jarecke, a world-renowned photojournalist and founding member of Contact Press Images, an illustrious photo agency based in New York. Please also visit and read his blog, Mostly True.

The past few years it’s been hard for me to pick up a camera. We all know that the industry, at least the editorial side of it, has been at an all time low. Sure, I’ve worked to put a good face on it, like in this piece on the New York Times Lens blog, but more often than not, my desire to make wonderful images has been absent. My heart has just not been there.

It’s not the creative side. I’ve rarely cared about the choices editors make about my work. That’s never been my motivation. Besides, I figured if I made great images, they’d get published. Somewhere. Sometime.

For example, here’s a take from the Beijing Olympics. After nine Olympics, I felt this was the best job I’d ever done. Normally, the Olympics will generate tons of tear-sheets, but outside of China, where my agency had a deal with the local English language newspaper, I managed to get only a single image published (in a French newspaper).

Frustrating to be sure, but still, not something that would stop me from making pictures.

No, I’m sad and ashamed to report that my lack of desire stemmed from nothing more than a lack of money. More specifically, the constant worry, and the ongoing struggle to pay the bills had taken its toll.

It’s sad, because I didn’t become a photojournalist to get rich (I was never that crazy or misguided). I’m ashamed because much of my money problems were the direct result of poor or stubborn decisions that are completely my fault.

In the past, I hesitated to book weddings. I made the excuse that I couldn’t book something that far in advance. What if an editorial job came up? In reality, I felt this type of work was beneath me. I felt the same about the portrait market (Yes, I know where this is being read). It’s easy to say now, but what’s more important than a wedding, or capturing a child’s life? Oh well, live and learn.

I didn’t let the magazines determine if a picture was good or not, but I sure put them in charge of what was important enough for me to photograph!

Pride and arrogance, a nasty couple of vices. As you can imagine, the only people to suffer from the choices I made was my family. Over the past few years, we’ve cut expenses, and eliminated most of the extras that come with family life, in my vain attempt to reinvent the editorial market and make things right (vanity, there’s another one).

Although I never stopped loving being a dad or a husband, the only thing I accomplished was to give my family a grouchy dad who hated making pictures.

As a photojournalist, I always try to have a backup plan. I would look at every situation with the perspective of a worse possible case scenario. Like, what would happen if I got a two flat tires in a post-Katrina New Orleans?

Practical to be sure, but it also gave me a sense of being in control. Maybe we all do this. It would explain tings like always having a pocket bulging with extra batteries.

Well, about three weeks ago, I ran into a situation that I couldn’t control. One of our children came home from camp very sick. It took twelve days for the doctors to figure out what was wrong. Plenty of uncertainty. Lots of prayers. Scary times. I don’t want to put too fine of a point on it. She spent four nights in the hospital and has been home for about a week now. She’s getting better everyday and is on her way to a full recovery.

Ironically, being in this powerless situation has seemed to heal me also. I have no cares about my reputation, or my standing in the photography world. I should be totally freaked about the medical bills (on top of everything else), but instead they just don’t seem important. I just want to be a better dad and husband (I thought I always was, but I didn’t give any thought to the huge burden I had placed on my family).

Strangest of all, I also want to make some really good pictures. Go figure.

I’m working on getting some portrait jobs… I booked one yesterday! I did my first wedding back in June. I gotta say, I really enjoyed it. The pictures were good too! I hope I have the chance to do some more.

The medical bills? Well, I hope to pay for some of them with a special print sale. I’m going to offer eight or ten prints at a special price for seven days only. They’re signed, archival pigment prints made by me.

You can see a preview here. I don’t know what the final selection will be, but I’m open to suggestions. Please check the above site on Monday to find out. The 17” x 22”s will be $300 and the 8.5” x 11”s will be $97 (plus shipping).

The two black & whites shown here are from an essay I did for Time magazine in 1990 called, “The Rotting of the Big Apple”. They’ve been very popular with collectors over the years.

The image from the Tiananmen Square student protests of 1989, shows a lone hunger striker sitting in front of Chinese soldiers. It has also been popular with collectors. At some point it was named “The Rose”. The Beijing Opera performer was made in May of 2007. It’s one that I like. I think it works well.

If you have ever considered creating a photography collection for yourself, Ken's offering here would be a terrific start. In fact, I have already told Ken that I will be buying one of his prints! Supporting each other through the valleys and peaks of life is what will make us stronger. Give it some thought, but don't wait too long because these prints are very likely to be gone soon.

UPDATE: Ken sent me this slideshow that you see below. It has all the images he has on sale through this Friday (September 10, 2010). I hope this inspires you to invest in one of his images.