By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
As an estate attorney Angela Bilen helps clients to plan their lives. And with her other passion – photography – she helps them tell the story of those lives in spectacular portraits.
Bilen and her friend, Jen Dera, co-owners of Capture A Moment Photography, will celebrate the opening on their new studio in Mount Clemens with an open house from 1-6 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 19.
It’s an interesting dual career for Bilen, who knew from a young age that she wanted to be an attorney. After graduating from L’anse Creuse High School Central, she attended the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and during her studies, married her middle school sweetheart in November 1997.
Despite an illness that nearly prevented her from graduating, Bilen in 2001 received her undergrad degree in English with a minor in business then headed to the University of Detroit-Mercy School of Law.
Graduating in 2004, she passed the July bar on Election Day — and by December was expecting her first child.
“I quickly specialized in estate planning because I needed a job that allowed me to stay home with my son,” she says. “From there I began working in the estate planning field with other attorneys that would be willing to mentor me as I went along.”
After the birth of her second son in 2007, Bilen incorporated her own PLLC.
“Estate planning is an important field that many take for granted,” she says. “It gives people an opportunity to plan for the ‘what ifs’ in life and I’m a friendly face willing to guide them through that.
“My estate planning business is by referral only because I come to your home and work personally with each client. For whatever reason, I’m busiest with that business during the cold Michigan months, which works well with my photography world.”
With the birth of her second child, Bilen’s passion for photography grew and flourished.
“As I child I loved taking pictures with whatever camera we were allowed to use,” she says. “I remember staging a photo shoot with my sisters where one sister would hold an umbrella as a ‘model,’ the other would spray the hose and one of us would take pictures.”
With two children of her own, Bilen and her little Sony Cybershot couldn’t keep up and she purchased her first “big girl” camera in 2009, a Nikon D3000.
“It was in that year, I realized I wanted to become more than just a ‘mamarazzi,’” she jokes.
By the start of 2010, Bilen and her friend, Jen Dera, became serious about opening a photography business – and that spring launched Capture A Moment Photography. Bilen sold her camera and switched to a Canon T2i, to have the same camera as Dera.
“Jen had dabbled in photography for years and had already accumulated a nice stash of equipment but added a T2i to her ensemble as well,” she says.
The new venture struggled to get off the ground.
“Our first summer we had to basically beg people to let us take pictures and much of our winter that year was pretty dead,” Bilen says. “Spring of 2011 was a wet one and we started seriously working with clients in June of 2011. We were scheduled to shoot a wedding at the end of July 2011 and that’s when we took the leap to the Canon 7d and our pictures have blossomed from there.”
The duo worked steadily through the rest of that summer; and in August of 2011, Bilen was expecting her third child, this time a daughter.
After running a Living Social special that September, the photographers were swamped with work.
“We had a blast and worked harder then we ever imagined, even through the winter,” Bilen says.
In March 2012, her daughter was born, the new “guinea pig” of Capture A Moment Photography. In April 2012, Bilen and Dera ran another Living Social deal and by May 1 of this year were in full swing.
A Groupon deal in May brought a huge response, and made the need for a studio apparent.
“We needed a place for all of our ‘stuff’ we’d collected and we needed a place to meet with clients, take backdrop pictures and have a place to take clients when the Michigan weather just isn’t as pleasant as we would like it to be,” Bilen says. “We have a bright and cheery space painted with the colors of our logo. We’re excited to have our Studio Open House on August 19 and more than pleased to have a place to call home.”
The studio, in the historic Mineral Bath Hotel at 117 Cass Avenue in downtown Mount Clemens, has been restored to resemble the elegant setting that the hotel maintained at its opening in 1910, and soft lighting and vintage props adorn the rooms.
It’s a dream come true for Bilen and Dera, friends since middle school who lost contact for many years before finding one other in 2008 through social media.
A graduate of Baker College with a degree in microcomputer science, Dera has Formal UNIX training at Sun Microsystems in Chicago. Between them, the two women have six children ranging in age from 12 years to 5 months old.
“Our experience with our own children and our degrees has helped us in so many ways,’ Bilen says. “In many ways, Jen is the Yin to my Yang. She handles all of the technical issues with computers, equipment, website, blog, etc. I handle most of the client interaction, I’m often the voice that people read on our Facebook, website and blog. And of course, I handle all the legal logistics from incorporating to client liability waivers. I often joke with clients, while out in the field, that Jen is the brains and I’m the one that talks a lot.
“In the last three summers, we’ve seen our business grow tremendously and I believe it’s because we have such a solid friendship and a combination of intelligence and commitment that allows us to produce the best possible results we can for our clients. It’s important that customers are happy in the end, and we take pride in our quality of work.”
According to Bilen, Capture A Moment Photography was born out of a need to feel productive outside the home.
“It was created because we had a gift we wanted to share with other families — and it’s an example of what two ‘stay-at-home mothers’ can do while taking care of their families.”
For more information, visit www.captureamomentphoto.com or call (586) 646-8189.
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