Meet Joy & Ben Clifford | Photographers

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joy & Ben Clifford and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joy & Ben, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
Being a husband and wife photography team that mainly works from home and shares an office work-life balance can sometimes be challenging. Our view on work-life balance has changed dramatically through the years. We used to try to separate our work from our personal life. And it made us more unhappy than anything, and we almost ended up with feelings of frustration because it felt like we were at odds with ourselves and what we loved to do. Now we work in a way that compliments our personal and work lives because they’re the same life. And we are less about trying to separate our lives and more about complimenting lives. We are lucky, though, in that we met while working together and have worked together for most of the 23 years that we have been married. So for 23 years, we’ve learned simple tricks to work with your spouse and have a meaningful work-life balance.
Set up “office hours” and stick to them. For us, we typically work 9 am – 4 pm on weekdays. We focus on our to-do lists and things that need to be done during that time but come 4 pm, we shut it off and leave the office.
Close your office door. It’s a simple thing but walking by your office and peeking in frequently made us want to finish “just one more thing.” And as we all know, it’s never just one more thing.
Have dinner (or lunch) together. We take a mental break for the day and talk. Sometimes it’s about work, and sometimes it’s about us.
Take a day when you need a day. We have a rule that if either of us needs it we take the day off. Call it a break or mental health day, but if one of us calls it, we both take it and spend the day together. It could be watching a movie, going shopping, going on a hike, it could be anything. But we’ve found that we work so much better all the other days when we take that one day for us.
Inclusion is part of the answer. For example, our daughter is nine years old and loves photography. We take the time to include her in many aspects of our business. We even teach her how to take photos at a level way beyond what a 9-year-old should comprehend. But she does. Do I care if she becomes a photographer? No. But we spend hours with her where we laugh and talk not just about photography but about life—all while under the guise of teaching her photography. Because the important part for her and us is the TIME together.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Our story is unique, as I’m sure everyone else’s is. For us, we never pictured ourselves becoming photographers. Ben was always going to go into the “business world,” whatever that was. We didn’t expect it to be the business of photography. For us, there was one pivotal turning point. As many people who visit our website know, we had a son, Kyan, who was diagnosed with rare liver cancer at the age of two. We had a friend who had just begun his photography journey that took some family photos of us with our son. And at the time, we didn’t fully realize the importance of those photos. But, after our son passed, those photos became what we remember him by. In addition, our friend captured the small nuances of our son’s personality, which now lives on in our photo books and walls.
It was impactful to us and ultimately changed our lives for the better. As a result, we now look at photos differently. To us, they are not just meant to post on social media but are intended to be a reminder of who that person is. So when future generations look at that photo, they remember who they were, not just what they looked like.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We’ve been to a lot of beautiful places. But, ultimately, one of our favorites is Yosemite. It has an awe-inspiring effect on us. And we never grow tired of going. So we’d hike, climb trails, and breathe in the beauty.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Our success was guided and helped by many other mentors, photographers, family members, and friends who sometimes poured support and love into us daily.

Website: joyandbenphotography.com

Instagram: instagram.com/joyandbenphotography

Facebook: facebook.com/joyandbenphotography