Casual Friday: Tiny steps led to baby photography career

Unruly subjects aren't exactly the norm for Stephanie Krupicka, but they are fairly common.

Krupicka owns and operates her own photography studio in the backyard of her Lewiston Orchards home, and specializes in taking pictures of children 1 and younger.

Her studio is adorned with props and backdrops, and various images of precious bundles of joy hang on the walls. It's an interesting work setting for someone who never envisioned taking pictures of infants and toddlers as a career.

"It's all trial and error, and there's been a lot of errors," said Krupicka, whose family relocated to Lewiston about seven years ago when her husband took a job at Clearwater Paper.

"I'm 100 percent self-taught, and there's still so much I don't know," she said. "I don't think you ever can know it all when it comes to this type of industry."

Doug Bauer: You say you fell into photography as a profession. Can you elaborate?

Stephanie Krupicka: I had always assumed that I would finish my schooling and get my nursing degree; I actually wanted to go into midwifery and I kind of went on a different path. I wanted to stay home, I wanted to be with my kids. And moving up here enabled me to stay home. We had lost two of our point-and-shoots, so we went and bought a 'big camera' just because 'we're not going to lose one of those.' And I despised that camera. I hated that we had to look through the little viewfinder - you couldn't just hold it, point and shoot it. So it took me a long time to even pick it up, but when we had our third baby I was finally like, 'OK, I'm going to take some pictures of her.' So I started using the camera. I did the pictures for her birth announcements and one of my friends who is a photographer stopped me one day and she said, 'Who did those?' And I said, 'I did.' And she said, 'Oh my gosh Stephanie those are awesome.' I didn't think anything of it. I just said, 'OK. Cool. Thanks.' You know, no big deal. So I kind of started playing with the camera a little bit more after that but still wasn't really, like, into it. When we moved up here, we had one friend up here who had her son's first birthday party and she asked me to take pictures, and so I did. And when she had posted them on Facebook people were saying, 'Oh, who took those pictures?' And then it kinda started to snowball from there.

DB: How hard is it to photograph infants?

SK: Very. (laughs) People all the time say, 'Oh my gosh, it must be so easy to photograph newborns. They sleep all the time.' Well, you get 'em naked and you're messing around with them, and they don't always sleep. Some of them get really angry. You get some angry babies that just aren't quite ready to be out in the world yet. Yeah, it's difficult. The sessions usually last anywhere from three to five hours, whereas if it's a senior session or a family session they're like 45 minutes. So I definitely picked up a profession that takes patience and time and dedication.

DB: Do you enjoy working with kids?

SK: It's funny because growing up I didn't want any kids. And then this is what I did. I tell my clients that all the time: 'I'm not sure how I ended up doing this.' (laughs) Because I didn't want any kids.

DB: You call yourself a 'chicken hoarder.' How many chickens do you have?

SK: I think right now we have like 14. Most of them are babies. I grew up on a farm, and as an adult I said I would never have chickens. And we decided to get some chickens for the girls. I thought it would be cool. They could do 4-H and they can experience some kind of country (lifestyle). I always loved gathering eggs when I was a kid, so I thought, 'Oh, they'd love that.' Originally we had six, and then I got into Polish frizzles, and they're like crazy. They have these huge feathers on the top, and their feathers are curled. So I got into those, and so now I'm starting to raise those. They're really cool.

DB: So you and your family eat a lot of eggs then?

SK: Actually, I don't eat eggs at all. Everybody else does. I did until I was pregnant with Piper, the last one. I loved eggs before I was pregnant; after I was pregnant I couldn't eat them and haven't been able to eat them since. I'll go out and collect them and cook them, but I won't eat them.

DB: How many eggs do your chickens produce in a typical week?

SK: Well, usually we get about five a day. And with seven people in the house they don't last for long.

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Bauer is managing editor of the Lewiston Tribune. He may be contacted at dbauer@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2269.