Today we’d like to introduce you to Josefina H.
Hi Josefina, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I got my start as an artist, very young in life. I’ve always been drawn to the artsy side of things. Colors, clay, cameras, paints, markers, yarn. You name it, I was interested in it. I was still a child when I was first put in choir, which ignited my lifelong love of music. I was also given little disposable point-and-shoot cameras to take photos with, and I ran around taking photos of EVERYTHING. In between, I was learning how to draw, getting lost in books, and working with my hands.
When I was twelve years old, I was sent to my first ever “fun” summer camp. Not summer school, not something academic, but true, just *fun*. There I got lesson on dark room photography, which really captured my attention. No longer was I just running around with little point-and-shoots. Now, I got to take photos, and turn them into something physical to hold. And that was just *the coolest thing* to me at the time.
From the ages of twelve through fifteen, I attended a boarding school, in North Carolina, called the Arthur Morgan School. This was a very small school, that really helped shape and prepare me for the world and life to come. It was very Montessori focused, which really helped with my learning style. It was there I got to explore more hands-on art. Not just dark room photography ( though, there was still that too ). I learned how to throw clay on a pottery wheel, how to cut and create stained glass pieces, how to build to-scale models of famous bridges, discover new ways of creating art with different styles of painting, took a brief trip down a blacksmithing lane, learned how glass blowing worked from a distance, and most importantly, learned how to knit and crochet. ALL of these various fascinations and quick learning may have been an indicator for ADHD, if someone had actively looked for it then. But all of these skills would be applied to my life, as I continued onwards. There was plenty of academic learning too – it was not all just fun and games – and there was life-learning as well. Learning how to survive in “extreme” situations – wilderness like the Appalachian Trail – and just day-to-day activities, like cooking, cleaning and laundry. The more boring, yet important life skills.
The following school wasn’t important, in many ways, other than continuing to give me a source to work on art. There, it was mostly on singing and photography – and these two skills, would be the most important as I transitioned into adult years.
At just eighteen years old, I launched Josefina Photography ( http://www.josefinaphoto.com ), and spent many years into my college career, also learning various photography skills on the side. It wasn’t just point and shoot cameras anymore. Or even dark room. It was digital. I was learning how to edit in Photoshop, how to work with professional lighting and taking lessons from other incredible photographers like Jaime Ibarra ( http://www.ibarraphoto.com ) and Lara Jade ( https://www.larajade.com/). I transitioned away from landscapes and headshots, to full scale fashion and glamour shoots. This eventually lead me to build up a strong portfolio to allow me to work with some truly incredible people.
Photography has always been a lifelong passion, and a lifelong thread, somehow connecting all the dots. I’m a big believer in memories – even if the moment might seem mundane, there is beauty in every photo. A split second in time, caught forever. It’s also can be a story starter. Whether it’s a personal memory or a photoset that had been designed to tell a story, every photo has one. The famous phrase, “a photo is a 1000 words,” is very true. Especially if you’re looking for the image to tell you something – or invoke a feeling.
My whole photo career, which has now spanned for the past sixteen years, has been about telling stories. Whether that’s through color, or clothing, poses, moods, or the actual people, I have built a career on helping women, especially, stand in their power, and tell their stories how they want. From simple headshots, to full scale shoots, there have been dozens of stories and dozens of trips.
For the past 6 years, however, the photo side has slowed down. It’s not due to a lack of interest, but more about a situational circumstance. My father came to live with me in 2018, as his health had slowly started to decline. For several years, I was only a light-duty caregiver. I could still travel and work, in between school and various scheduled classes. But as graduation got closer, my caregiving demands grew.
I graduated the year the world shut down. Which is a bizarre time to just be spit out into the world, after a lifetime of education. I didn’t go to school for art, initially, I sought out a Psychology Degree, and had thought I’d be doing something in that field, directly after graduation. That was obviously, not the case. I also hold a degree in Integrative Arts with a focus on Singing, and a minor in History. None of those fields, are what I’m in now.
Caregiving meant that my work life had to readjust. And for awhile, caregiving was my full-time. I did not really have space to travel, to edit, to create content, nada.
But I also still wanted to do something artistic. At the height of the “Zoom Boom,” I was taking a writing workshop – just to explore options. I loved to write too, and have always wanted to write a book, but didn’t know if that was going to be a viable option at the time. Sitting in one of those zoom meetings, listening to the speaker, I was absentmindedly crocheting a baby blanket. It hit me out of nowhere. “What if I could also make a career out of crocheting things? Is that even possible?” This is a thought that would sit with me for almost 3 years. I began researching and exploring what that might look like.
In 2023, two things happened. My father was diagnosed with dementia and I decided I was going to go all-in on a career pivot.
So in the middle of navigating a new life arrangement, I was also buying a new domain, creating a new social media presence, and setting myself up to take commissions. In August, I launched my LLC, Sweetie Knots ( http://www.sweetieknots.com ), and hit the ground running with markets, website building and store drops, commission orders and creating a new kind of artistic content.
In the year that followed I participated in four big markets, locally, have made over 200 toys, and was able to ship my makes to 12 states across the US, and to 14 countries, across the globe. I had friends who helped. They shared my work, they shouted me out on livestreams, they shared stories, or recommended me to people and so much more. And for that, I’m very thankful.
I am not done with photography, by any means. I will always be a photographer. But right now, those skills are largely being used for product photography. I am still unable to travel for the foreseeable future, so the kind of photo work I did, is just not feasible at this time.
That said, if people travel to me, I will absolutely still tell their stories, real or made up, via a camera. I do tell stories now too, just in a different way.
My crochet invites people to celebrate their inner child. I don’t just make things for kids, though of course, I’m happy when they gravitate towards my things too. I also make toys and collectable pieces for adults.
Everyone should have a moment where they get to feel carefree again.
Sweetie Knots is about embracing that childlike curiosity and fun again. And I do hope to expand it this year, with my own patterns and designs, in addition to other art piece like Amigurumi Safety Eyes, stitch markers, and maybe even some clay based crochet hooks.
This might also be the year I teach myself a new instrument, write the start to a book that’s been floating around in my head for forever, and return to stain glass making, just for the ✨ ADHD fun flare ✨ ( my birthday is in October, so my new year starts then ). I’m sure whatever happens this year, is going to be an art-filled adventure.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh, definitely not.
With photography, because I was so young starting out, it was really fighting for my place in that atmosphere, in that world.
Often times, the workshops I attended, had attendees decades older than me, who thought my being there was either a disgrace, or a disruption.
I was told such, to my face, on several occasions.
Older photographers would get mad at me too, when models connected with me and posed for me in ways, they wouldn’t with them, which often lead me to getting the more unique takes, even in group-work settings.
Fashion photography, in particularly, was still an incredibly male-dominated field and there was a lot of pushback, both in person, and online, of someone so young, working with agency repped models, and more.
There still is pushback, in this day and age, but with the rise of smart phones, and the rise of digital work, in general, the pool is a lot bigger now. People, even the “elders” are a bit more tolerant now, of new artists, than they were just sixteen years ago.
I think too, as a woman online just existing, there has been hate given my way over types of content that I shoot. I understand that certain genres of photography, are not for everyone, and I respect that. However, if anyone is going to understand how to portray women, I feel it would also be a woman.
Not saying men can’t, or don’t. There are plenty of skilled male photographers. But there is a different feel, a different edit, a different look, when a woman is behind the camera. One may not notice it right away, but it’s there if you look.
I think that adds an edge, or an element that makes it harder to compete with. I think that also gets under people’s skin, and contributes to the hate. I can’t be sure, because I’m not in hater’s heads, nor do I care to be, but I have definitely seen my fair share of “ugly behavior” in comment sections and direct messages.
It can be hard to deal with, and it’s not always easy to get over. It does take thick skin to be a content creator of any kind, and breaks away from digital platforms are both necessary and encouraged, but if you really love what you do, I don’t think anyone can truly get in the way of it.
With starting an LLC – that is it’s own challenging road, especially if that’s not something you’ve ever done before. It is not a get-rich-quick move, and worrying about certain levels of adulting tasks you never had to before, certainly comes with it’s own learning curve.
I can’t say that I’ve experienced the same level of pushback in crochet and the fiber arts community, that I did with photography. For one, it’s a very different field and a very different medium, and for two, most of the people I know within the fiber arts community, are pretty chill.
That’s not to say that there isn’t competition. I think in every field there are always people who want to compete with someone else. But it’s not necessary. There are plenty of artist that help others and build each other up, are willing to help, or hop in on a collaboration. The overall vibe is very different.
I will say there is more of a need for content creation, if you’re really pushing self-marketing on social media, with fiber arts, than with photography. You are selling a final product, whether that’s a PDF file of a pattern, or a finished handmade piece, so the approach is different. That’s a learning curve too. I, by no means, have figured everything out, as I’m only a year in, but I’m learning as I go. And that’s an adventure, within itself.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
With photography I started in wildlife and nature and really settled in to my style and groove, with portraiture. I would say, in that realm, I’m most known for my fashion, glamor and portrait work. Above all the other styles that I’ve shot or have been hired for. I think because those three are where the most stories are told.
I’m probably the most proud of how I utilize colors to help dramatize or enhance an image. I’ve spent countless hours in Photoshop just experimenting and teaching myself how to retouch and edit. There is no magic “one way or. the highway” to do it, and I think every editor is different in their approach to images and that also helps create an artists’ “signature style”. It took years to get there, and I do feel that about every 5 years I overhaul some things and change and adjust.
I think as we grow as artists and start to view things differently, that’s natural. But I’ve never lost the storytelling aspect or how color usage, or not usage ( black and white ), might contribute to how that split second in time lives on.
In terms of what sets me apart from others, I think it’s the way I see things. I notice far more details than the average person, and that definitely shows up in my work. If I’m working more for my portfolio, than I am for hire, you can also see that come out in editing. A single image can take over 6 hours to “perfect” to edit. And I won’t publish something unless I really like how it looks.
Since artists are the most critical of themselves, that certainly is a tall order. That attention to detail, the attention to color, and how I view the world and the subject all plays a part in the art that’s made. What I see, and what someone else sees differs. And that also sets me apart.
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With crochet, I’m still new. I would say that I specialize in making things that makes the soul happy. I want my work to stand out in color and choices. I want my work to entice both children and adults, and I think it does.
While there is a lot that can be “made in bulk” and I do occasionally batch items, I do try to stick to more unique designs. That definitely sets me apart in markets, and has actually been a top comment in vendor events. “Your crochet isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen.”
Good.
I don’t want to just blend in with everyone. I want to create pieces that make me happy and in turn, also make you, the viewer and the buyer, happy. Will I appease everyone? No, probably not. No one ever can. But I think the positive feedback that I have gotten so far, definitely is an indicator that I’m headed in the direction I’d like to be in.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Listening the airplanes overhead, on weekend mornings, while on the front porch with my mother. I used to live right outside of the DC area, in right in the middle of three of the biggest airports. There were always planes flying overhead. Not loudly, but at a high enough altitude that it was a familiar hum.
Every weekend, my mother would call her friends to catch-up about the week, what they had done, where they went, what raising children was like, etc. I do not remember details of those conversations. I just remember that they happened. But in the springtime, she would make those phone calls on the front porch, in the early morning hours.
I have never been a morning person. But those mornings I’d drag myself out of bed, take a coloring book, or a little pad of neon pink/green or purple paper, a pen or crayons, and a blanket, and join my mother on the porch. I’d watch the sun stream through the trees with sunlight dancing in the yard, the clouds overhead, and the dew drops on the grass slowly melt away. I’d sometimes try to “dictate” what my mother was saying by scribbling her conversations on those neon colored pads of paper. Why? I have no idea. But maybe that was an early sign of memory keeping.
I realized just the other day, that where I live now, there aren’t as many airplanes. I hear the hum of a lawnmower far more than I hear a plane humming overhead. And at times I do miss those moments. My childhood home no longer stands, long since been replaced by some new monstrosity. But occasionally I’ll hear that familiar plane hum and get transported back to sitting on the porch, with a blanket, listening to my Mother talk about her week. It’s a comforting one.
Pricing:
- Made To Order Keychains: $15
- Made To Order Stuffed Animals start at: $45
- Made To Order Wearables start at :$222.
- Portraiture starts at: $350
- Full Scale/Half Day Shoots start at: $850+. Depending on theme, changes, location, and mood boards.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.josefinaphoto.com & http://www.sweetieknots.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/josefina_photo & http://www.instagram.com/sweetieknots
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/josefina.photography/ & http://www.facebook.com/sweetieknots/
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/sweetieknots
Image Credits
Photos are Copyrighted © Josefina Photography 2009-2024 & Copyrighted © Sweetie Knots, LLC 2023-2024.
