Mother's Day with our CEO & cofounder, Valerie Lopez

This is a special Mother’s Day for us at Shoot My Travel because it is the first Mother’s Day for our CEO & cofounder, Valerie Lopez. Earlier this year, she and her husband welcomed a baby boy into the world and the Shoot My Travel family!

So this Mother’s Day, we tiptoed into the nursery to spend a little time with Valerie and ask her some questions about her new role as a mother, what this first Mother’s Day means to her, and how motherhood compliments her other life passions.

How do you feel about being a new mother? 

Becoming a new mom is a whole new life experience. It’s opening a door to a new life, a new opportunity, and once you step through there’s no going back. It’s a mix of feelings and emotions, a mix of so many things, all beautiful, yet all contradicting. 

It’s a new responsibility in a really, really beautiful way with a lot of joy and happiness and, in my case, peace. The peace of holding this new human and having this role of mom. If I could choose a word to describe it I would have to choose “surreal.” You can’t believe that you had this baby inside of you and now this baby is here and you get to start, as the days go by, discovering who they are and their personality. Yet it’s also challenging and pushes you outside of your comfort zone at all times and on all levels. 

So it’s a mix of things, challenging to describe, and something you can’t grasp until you’re doing it. You can be compassionate and empathetic to women experiencing motherhood, but I truly feel that, until you live it, you can’t really understand it. Just like with most things in life. For example, until you have a startup, or become an entrepreneur, or work for yourself, you can’t really grasp what that will be like. Or having a cat or dog or any pet; you don’t really know what it feels like until you have them and they’re yours. That’s what it’s like to experience motherhood for the first time.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge as a mompreneur?

“Mompreneur” makes it sound like you’re a mom who then becomes an entrepreneur, but for me, it’s the opposite. I was an entrepreneur before becoming a mom! [Laughs] And the challenge will be finding balance, whatever “balance” will mean to me and this baby, especially when it comes to the time we will spend together and time that my other “baby,” my business, will need from me. And finding a way where I can feel at peace and be the best version of myself in each of those roles. 

Motherhood takes a lot of your time and attention and it requires a lot of you, so it will be about figuring out how my days will look like and what help I might need. I may work at different times than I used to, like waking up earlier to get things done beforehand, and I will need to rely more on my team and the network we’ve built.  

Yes, I think the biggest challenge will be figuring out what that balance looks like for us as a family and for myself, and finding a way to be the best version of myself in both of my roles - mom and entrepreneur - because they’re both very important to me. 

Do you consider that photography is important for a mother? Why? 

100%. You want to capture every moment with this little human. You want to make sure that you document it so you don’t forget it, but also so that when they grow up they’re able to see who they were as a baby, all the things they experienced. And photography is the best way to do that. 

Time really does pass so fast and our babies grow up so fast. Photography reminds us how little they were and of moments that might have been very challenging but were also some of the most lovely experiences you’ll ever live. 

When you have a baby for the first time, everything becomes a first: the first time you take them to the beach, the first time they laugh, the first time they walk. There are all these firsts and it’s like you’re living life for the first time again, being a kid with them, and you want to document that for you and for them and for your family history. 

So photography is SO important. And I would say that it has actually reached another level of importance in our lives, when millions of moms like me are experiencing motherhood very differently, away from their families. Photography has been the only way that we’re able to share their birth, how they’re growing, what outfits they’re wearing, their first smile, the first time they breastfed. Photography has kept us together when we’ve been apart. It is one the most beautiful tools we have to remember and cherish and share. It’s vital.

How will you celebrate your first mother's day as a mother?

I seriously have no idea! I have no plans or expectations. As long as I am with my husband, and my baby, Draco, I don’t care what else we do, because every day has become such a celebration, a new adventure, and new experience. So even if we stay home in bed, watching a movie & ordering take-out, or my husband cooks for me, or I cook for myself, just being together is what’s important. Cherishing these first few days of our baby’s life, learning from each other, and spending quality time being present is how I really want to spend my Mother’s Day. 

I commemorate Mother’s Day but I also better understand now that you’re a mom everyday and everyday should be celebrated. Just as life is one breath at a time and we should cherish that too. But I’m excited too. I have never experienced this. It’s going to be my first Mother’s Day so I will remember it always, however we spend it. And I hope I have many more with this new family that we’ve created and that we’ve chosen.