After spending 25 years at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, Juliane Morris is happy to be back in California. “I moved there for my ex’s graduate school, and we thought we’d be away for five years from UCLA. Life happened, and so instead of five years, it turned into 30,” she laughs.
Juliane has been in Coronado since early 2022, but her connection with the town dates back long before she took up residence. “My parents have been here 25 years, so I’ve been visiting since before I moved. As an empty nester, I wanted to finally be able to spend more quality time with my parents,” Juliane shares of her decision to be part of the island life.
Volunteerism in the Coronado Community
Juliane’s professional background is in marketing, a skill she is quick to extend to numerous Coronado nonprofits that she volunteers for. “My professional experience with marketing primarily involves helping a brand find its voice. When it comes to volunteer organizations, it’s helping the mission and the vision of the organization, and giving the story some common ground. There’s a whole storytelling aspect of marketing through visual arts, such as photography and graphic design, blended with writing and editing, that helps give people a visual connection. A story can help people determine whether they want to engage with it or not. It makes it more real. It brings some emotional significance to it and adds color to life.”
Rotary Club of Coronado
One organization that she utilizes her marketing background for is the Rotary Club of Coronado. “I take pictures regularly at the meetings. I’ve made print banners that have been on Orange Avenue to promote their events.” Juliane gives a peek behind the scenes to describe what goes into creating the banners. “It’s a mix of typography with the design work in the photography to help build awareness. This brings more people to register for our events, which are huge fundraisers for local and international causes.”
A popular internal Rotary event is Coronado Wine Tasting, held at the former Hansen Mansion. “Last year at this event, we raised over $200,000, and it mostly went to End Polio Now for countries that really need vaccine help, as polio still exists in other countries. This year, we are adding another charity, Safe Harbor Coronado, to receive some of that funding. We support locally and internationally.”
Coronado Island Film Festival
As the Coronado Island Film Festival gears up for its tenth year, Juliane is proud to be the Panels Manager. “We usually have three to five panel discussions. Sometimes it’ll be women directors, sometimes it’ll be people with disabilities, and how the movies impact them as actors, writers, and so forth. I’m excited for our 10th anniversary. I am also a member of the benefactors committee, so I regularly attend events with the benefactors.”
Impact Behind the Film Scenes
Juliane is passionate about the film festival and shares what it means to her. “I love movies. I’m really excited [about the Coronado Film Festival] because it gives new filmmakers a way to get eyes on their films. With my marketing background and experience in brand building, I appreciate that it helps provide exposure for screenwriters. We have really interesting discussions after the films, where we discuss what we think the director wanted us to understand, picking up on the sites and joining the movie, and what the deeper message is that can only be conveyed through film.”
She continues, “Books have a way of bringing us into situations we could not have imagined. With movies, there’s less interpretation, and it can bring a lot of light to social issues. This helps bring more compassion and empathy to situations that are going on, helps us explore situations that we hope we would never be in, someone else’s perfect tragedy, or enjoying someone else’s triumph, using our imagination and rooting for them. I love the spark that it gives our imagination to vicariously live through the good, and then to also have sympathy and understanding for the bad.”
Juliane nods to her parents and Coronado locals, Vicki and Ed Morris, in appreciation of her desire to uplift the community. “They have modeled a lifetime of service, and that’s one reason I like to be involved; I want to give back. Giving back also ends up giving so much to you.”
Growing up Creative
The writing was on the wall that Juliane had a creative gift. “When I look through some of the papers that my mom and dad saved from when I was in grammar school, there are phrases about creative, artistic, of course, distracted,” she laughs, then continues, “ambitious. I think drawing and painting were something I tried, but I wasn’t very good at them. When I was 15 years old, I started getting into photography. I liked how my eyes could frame a composition and figure it out. Then you learned about the rule of thirds and a lot about composition and color and subject, foreground, background, those sorts of things came naturally when I was very young.”
Her passion for photography continued to evolve over the years. She tells a story of being in her twenties and taking photos of her cat. “I submitted one of my pictures of my cat up in a tree to a photo contest online, and it won first prize. That really encouraged me to do more. I had other people in my life say, ‘Hey, you should really do more with your photography,’ but I didn’t really have time with my career and raising my two children.”
How Photography has Evolved
While her time was constrained, Juliane explored photography in a way that made sense for her as a working mom. “I was a professional wedding photographer and homeschooled my kids when they were very young. I would spend my weekends shooting weddings. Half of the excitement was being in the right place at the right time and setting up the right shot. Still, the other half of the excitement was what I call the digital dark room, because that’s when everything was going digital. I no longer had to use film, which helped with the cost of photography. I could do a lot of cool editing in Adobe Photoshop. Now I use Adobe Lightroom, and it’s incredible how you can modify a picture without losing any of the intended capture. It can be more artistic when you play around with shadows, highlights, clarity, and texture. Of course, straightening and cropping too.”
Photography Now
Today, with her kids out on their own, Juliane has more time to explore photography again. “I get satisfaction taking pictures and then editing them and seeing how the edited versions come out compared with the raw capture. I share many of my Coronado and San Diego photos on our social media sites, including Coronado Happenings and The 92118. It’s really rewarding to see a lot of people responding with comments about how pretty they think it is, or how it gives them a sense of peace. Or, it brings back a memory of Coronado. That positive reinforcement makes me want to keep sharing my photos, but I also love doing it for myself. It’s a way to express and create.”
Niche Photography
Juliane describes some of her favorite niche photography. “If the people are silhouetted with the form of a body, I like capturing that. Everyone can relate to it; it’s almost like a shadow.” Along with this are candid moments.
“I love when I get an expression of someone, knowing that if it was a split second later or before I wouldn’t have captured that because it’s gone. I took one the Fourth of July, I was over by the Peohe’s, shooting the Big Bay Boom. I intended to try to shoot some fireworks, but there was a girl who was encroaching on my frame, and I couldn’t move. I was sitting on the wet sand, and so I thought, ‘Okay, how am I going to work with this?’ She had a little American flag in her hand, and every once in a while, she would move it, or the wind would catch it just right. So, it’s a firework going off in the background, which is what most people would probably focus on, but there’s this silhouette of her. You can see a little girl wearing a glow-in-the-dark necklace, and the flag looks perfect. It’s lit up from behind, translucently from the fireworks. It’s a really cool shot. Everyone who likes fireworks or has good memories of them might see themselves in that young child. That’s the kind of photos that I like capturing, so a little bit abstract, but what they can see themselves in it.”
Working with what you have
When discussing Juliane’s decision not to move to get the photo she originally intended to capture, she explains, “It’s really important to me with my photography to be totally authentic in it, and not to change anything. I could have made the flag how I wanted it to be, but I don’t believe in that. I feel like that’s wrong unless I’m doing something like advertising and I am changing a photo.”
She gives another example. “I used to hike a lot in the forest when I lived in the Midwest, in Indiana, and one of my favorite things to do would be to take pictures of the autumn leaves on the ground. It might have looked better if I had arranged them a certain way. But, something in me says I can never do that. You just have to shoot them how you find them – no manipulating of reality other than in the Lightroom, that’s a composition.”
Connecting with Neighbors
I came to Coronado as a new empty nester with time on my hands. I’m working, of course, but I have time on my hands. I’ve always been heavily into social media for education and entertainment. On Coronado Happenings, Joel [Ortiz] would publish a picture, and he would have a call to action like, ‘Caption this, and you’ll win.’ Well, I wasn’t interested in winning anything, but I like the idea of captioning it, because of my marketing background. So, I would throw out a caption.”
At one point, Joel posted a picture from an Indian wedding with a neon dance floor, and Juliane shares that it inspired her to reach out to him. He invited her to see it, and although that didn’t work out, it did open the door for the photographers to become friends.
It had been 20 years since she was a wedding photographer. “He gave me advice on what camera he recommended for someone getting back into it, and then I got that camera used. We ended up hanging out together at Balboa Park, and he gave me some tips and tricks for using that camera. He really reignited my technical capabilities with photography. We’ve become close friends and have collaborated on photography and videography projects, paid and volunteer, for the last three years now.”
Meet Your Neighbor: Joel Ortiz, Photography & Fireworks
Dueling Photographers
Always one to push the creative boundaries, Joel and Juliane teamed up to be dueling photographers, similar to dueling pianos. “I had a dream one night, what if we had the same subject, but two photographers shooting it in their own style? We did a couple of those photographer events for senior portraits, and it was really fun. That’s the interesting thing about photography; it might seem really objective, as if you’re going to get the same shot, but no, the dueling photographers idea shows that different people behind the camera really do capture different things, and they also edit them quite differently.”
Advice for New Coronadans
As someone who was new to Coronado not too long ago, Juliane gives her advice to others looking to make connections. “Think about what your interests are. There are so many ways to find the right groups to help you, and, of course, community service. Coronado Fourth of July is a great thing to get involved in. I served on staff with the Coronado Fourth of July this year. I was in charge of their PR and marketing, which has been wonderful, and that’s something that came about just through people who I have connected with in the community. If you’re new to Coronado, connect with people and share your interests!”
Service Opportunities
“I like sharing with people that I’m a person of faith,” Juliane says. “Going to different places of worship to find one that feels like home has really enhanced my feeling of inclusion and service. There are more service opportunities there, and you get to know even more people. It also surprises me how many events or group gatherings I can attend that overlap with the same wonderfully active and positive people. I recently joined the Coronado Island Beer Club, it’s a super fun group!”
Read the Coronado Cultural Arts Commission feature on Juliane.
Say Hi to Juliane!
You’ll often find Juliane at the beach, or walking along the bayside enjoying the view of the downtown lights at night. Be sure to say hello when you see her working or photographing events in town. Follow her photo journey on Facebook, work with her at morriscrownmarketing.com.
