We had the pleasure of chatting with Joshua and Yesi Fortuna, creative couple and team that comprises Fort Lion Studio, a production company based in Dallas. While Yesi is a photographer and Joshua a filmmaker, they both wear many hats and certainly can’t be defined with a single title.
The Fortuna home also serves as their headquarters and they have designed their space to be very modular. The setup is ready for the Fort Lion team to have a comfortable and open work environment, while making an easy transformation into the evening when they often have family over for dinner or wind down watching a movie with their pup, Winny.
What does an average day look like for the Fortuna’s?
JOSHUA: I wake up at 5:30 everyday. I make some coffee and some breakfast and after working for a few hours then Yesi joins me.
YESI: I wake up (very messy hair) and go through all of the rooms and find which one he’s been residing in. Then we’ll have coffee together and get straight into work. Since we work in our home it’s just the matter of stepping down the hallway or pulling out a laptop. We try to stay on a normal work schedule to separate work from life. So around 6:30 we start planning dinner and shift into family mode.
JOSHUA: Unless it’s a shoot day. Which means a ton of gear prep first thing in the morning, loading it all up to meet our team at the studio. Then we go to sleep and do it all over again.
What is your favorite part about working together?
JOSHUA: We really are better when we’re together no matter what. Whether it’s just dealing with traffic, a new client or any situation that arises, I know no matter what she’s always got my back and i’ve always got hers.
YESI: It’s pretty cool to be with my best friend all the time, I know that sounds really corny but it really feels that way. Whenever we have a bad day we can both figure it out, go through it together and if we don’t understand it then it’s just a learning day because we get to learn how to better communicate. It just makes us stronger at the end of the day, and while it is really hard sharing those tough moments it’s also the most rewarding because we always get through it together.
Tell me about your personal style. What sort of pieces are you drawn to? What comprises your wardrobe?
JOSHUA: My sense of style is a lot of naturals, neutrals and being able to keep everything close to the same so that when I wake up in the morning before the sun rises I can just grab any two pieces and I know that they're always going to go together and it’s always going to look like me.
YESI: To a certain degree I feel that I’m the same. I tend to gravitate towards the same colors that he does and because of that we seem to match a lot. I always have a lion somewhere with me. Whether it's on my bag, a ring on my hand or hanging around my neck, I draw a lot of energy from it because it reminds me of who I am at heart. With my clothing, it changes all the time but everything I wear is very purposeful and I hardly am ever in casual clothes.
What is the impression you hope to give people by the way you dress?
YESI: The way I dress is very important to me because if I could have a conversation with someone, I would want to be able to make the same statement through my voice or by what i’m wearing. You don’t always have the luxury of being able to have a long a long conversation with someone but I hope that my clothing can give an impression of me in a matter of seconds. I’ve really seen that it helps because even our clients will say ‘I feel like you get it’ and with that one sentence they’re telling us that just by our sense of style and the way we carry ourselves that we’re giving them the right first impression.
JOSHUA: I like to be as subtle as possible. I have definitely curated my wardrobe over the years to find the right individual pieces that play to who I am.
What is success to you?
YESI: I feel like I know what success means to us, because I force us to talk about it all the time. We’re so goal oriented in our household that we constantly create goals and work towards meeting them and I think we feel success all the time in that way. But more than that, we’ve learned that being able to have a fmaily life that is comfortable is what success is to us, because the only way we can afford to live a comfortable life is if our business is doing well and our minds are nice and clear. If our family life is doing well then it means everything else is doing well and that’s what success is because it’s wholesome.
JOSHUA: I would pretty much say the same thing. Success is being able to balance work and life and making sure your work is something that you love. It’s important to have purpose and to have balance, if you have those two things then you're a success.