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5 Adar II 5765 - March 16, 2005 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family

A Woman's Work
By Chedva Ofek

Part I

6:15 a.m.: Wake the children immediately. Be a little sympathetic but not too much; there's no time. Prepare the baby a bottle in record time. Listen to Moishe cough heavily and discover that he's burning up with fever. Stuff him with Acamol and send him to nursery (you'll run with him to the doctor in the afternoon). Make everyone sandwiches. Give Sarahle a note about being late yesterday. Get dressed in a heartbeat, quickly kiss everyone, take the steps two at a time and catch my ride at the last second.

Yes, women who don't work outside the home don't have this grueling morning. Their children are spared wandering around with a key in their bags and they have a hot lunch every day. But they have other problems. The women interviewed for this article touched on a sore point: "Five years ago, before I opened the photography studio in my home, I was desperately looking for some income on the side," says Tammy Glick, owner of Tzilumit studio in Bnei Brak. "I thought of taking girls in to learn cooking but then I didn't even have the money to buy an electric vegetable peeler. I told my husband that I would start photographing children as a hobby, I'd earn a few shekels and I'd use them to buy shoes for the kids."

Miriam Shmuelevitch, who has been selling jewelry from her home for years, described the economic woes that spurred her to invest in a home business: "The children were born one year after another and we needed income. I looked for an occupation that would enable me to combine running the house and working."

Many women run businesses from their homes. The women interviewed for this article emphasized the fact that in order to succeed at running a business from home, it's imperative to keep a strict schedule, maintain self- discipline, separate work and home and most importantly — not to give up on the way but to jump the hurdles.

All Beginnings are Hard

Tammy Glick's diary is packed with appointments a month in advance. They come from all over the country aside from the regular clients from London and Zurich. Tammy is a pioneer. Only five years ago, there was no such thing as a home studio.

"It began as a lack of choice coupled with a hobby," Tammy recalls. "I finished the seminary without a smidgen of work. My husband sat and learned, and there was no income. Here and there I worked as a saleswoman for a paltry sum and the one who profited from most of my money was the babysitter. I looked for work from home and it occurred to me to adopt photography, which was my hobby, as a minimal business. Without professional knowledge or money to invest, I jumped in the deep end without a life jacket.

"I went in blind, as they say. I took 1500 shekels which were earmarked for a suit for my husband and I went with my husband and 8-month old baby to buy a camera that seemed to me then to be professional. The whole way, my husband kept asking, 'Are you sure you know what you're doing?' I had the daring to try. With a certain heaviness, expecting another baby, I began working a few hours a week. I still didn't leave sales. Surprisingly the clients were enthusiastic, 'Your pictures aren't the usual thing,' they flattered me on a boy sitting next to a basket of apples while biting into a juicy one.

"I started to learn the profession diligently and I spent hours on it. After a half year of studying, I understood that I had to buy a really professional camera and accessories. But that wasn't the end of it. I did a second photography course and then I went to learn lighting. At the same time, I invested hours of thought to develop original ideas. I checked into things and I traveled out of town. I captured special moments and I began investing in props and sets because the background is very important for pictures."

However, aside from expensive equipment, backdrops and a treasure trove of accessories, Tammy gives her clients a lot of attention. "This work requires patience," Tammy explains, "To win over a frightened child is a very demanding task. Even to photograph an esrog and the four species as one arts teacher requested, you need expertise, and still life doesn't object, doesn't run away or whine, doesn't get fever or hives and doesn't cling to the couch or his mother. I'm always equipped with candies, wipes and Acamol . . . the important thing is to get the kids to smile.

"I didn't know I had such reserves of tranquility and tolerance until I started working in photography and I think that to have discovered this side of myself has been a gift. When I was just starting out, I suggested to a mother that I photograph her son holding a sefer Torah. `That's old,' she said. `Suggest something more innovative.' I was speechless. I immediately said to her that the Torah is really very old, not just the scroll.

"I started small and I have to cope with major expenses. The pictures cost only a few shekels and none of my clients imagines that I spend thousands on film, professional developing that I send with a messenger to an excellent laboratory in Tel-Aviv, and I haven't even mentioned the income tax, national insurance and all the pictures that end up in the trash, all the faces and closed eyes. There's also the competition — I have to raise my level of service, not my price, like giving a free wooden album with my logo to clients. There are tremendous payments on expensive equipment. The lighting alone costs eighteen thousand dollars and you also have to include the props, for example, a straw bicycle for 850 NIS, a slide from America that costs 250 dollars, a $200 chair from abroad, a doll carriage for 450 NIS and more. When I first investigated these prices, I didn't have money for a baby carriage. I borrowed chairs for my house but for the studio, I looked for the best. I was drowning in a sea of debt. I didn't spare one shekel so that I could establish a good quality studio."

The Living Room is the Studio

Tammy runs the studio from her living room where the lighting is set up, the umbrellas, the props, the backgrounds, the wooden albums and this is where the clients come. And what about Shabbos? "Everything folds up and moves over," says Tammy. "It's a bit crowded, although now, the situation is relatively good. We made the salon bigger. I felt there was breathing space until the lighting guy came and said that the space was too narrow and how could I work under such conditions? My children have gotten used to it. I've encouraged their spending time in the children's room so the salon is not within their play territory.

"On the other hand, I have to be a policeman when it comes to keeping the house clean and that's not an easy job. But with cooperation and recruiting everyone to maintain order, it's easier to cope."

Tammy says that she isn't the one who organizes her schedule. There's Someone who guides it from Above. A child was given an appointment a month in advance, and got sick the day before. Tammy plans her work schedule exactly and a cancelled appointment is a loss for her. And then, at exactly the same time, a woman called who had come to stay with her mother-in- law in Bnei Brak and wanted to photograph her son. Or "I had this dream to make a sand castle," says Tammy. "The kind where kids can stick their hands in the sand. It bothered me because I'm a doer who has to do what she plans. And suddenly, one evening, a friend calls me from Ashdod that she's started to create props for photography from styrofoam. I suggested my idea to her and the result was a greater success than I could have imagined. This also happens: I had ordered a garden background for a reasonable price that I had borrowed for this purpose and I didn't like it. It happens that out of 28 pictures, I throw 26 away. Then I ask myself, if I did the right thing by opening the studio. In a home business there are a lot of compromises, a lot of investment, expenses and risks. You have to be very strong to withstand the waves of anger. My husband is the one who strengthens me and gives me hope. He always says that you start on a small burner and progress from there."

My Children are My Career

"With all my success in photography, I aspire to be the best mother!" pronounces Tammy. "Sometimes, I get work offers to teach photography or to photograph events, and I turn it down because of the kids. Working from home allows me to be a good mother first and foremost, to fulfill my main role — to take care of the kids. I make an effort so that my business doesn't hurt them and my ambition is to educate them in the way that's important to me.

"So I learned to make a schedule and stick to it. At the beginning, I worked whatever hours I was asked, even on Friday afternoons, and my family paid the price. I decided to get organized, to work mornings when the children were in school or in the afternoons when they were sleeping and to rest in the early afternoon. I turned people down from lack of time. I'm not made of steel. My work is very physical. I work on each picture separately and if we're talking 15 pictures, it involves a lot of investment. When time is pressured, before Lag Ba'omer or Erev Purim, you can't even talk to me. And there comes a point when I don't have energy to talk. Because for a good picture, you have to talk a lot, convincing and complimenting.

"I'm also my own secretary and have to worry about payments, national insurance, income tax, organizing albums, making appointments with clients, etc. Therefore, I have to set clear limits that allow me to breathe and enjoy the results of my work. As an independent, I have one advantage — the ability to be flexible. I won't work if there's a simcha in the family or at the other extreme, I can work extra hours during peak periods. Today, I always tell myself, 'If you can be a good mother and a good photographer - - that's great. And if not, it isn't your job to be a photographer, only a mother."

To be continued

 

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