Conversations with Natalie Bubentsova

Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Bubentsova.

Hi Natalie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My name is Natalie, and I was born and raised in Russia. I was one of those kids who was always making something. I wrote stories, drew, sewed, knitted, sculpted – basically, if there was a way to create something with my hands or imagination, I wanted to try it. I’m still very much that person today. I get excited about new ideas easily and love learning how to make them happen.
When it was time to choose a profession, I went into marketing. Looking back, it actually made a lot of sense for me: it gave some structure to all that creativity and taught me how to turn ideas into something real.
My career wasn’t a straight line, though. I worked in marketing departments for large companies, organized events, and tried quite a few different things along the way. Eventually, I became really interested in production – I loved being the person who could bring different people, ideas, and details together and make the whole thing work. Around the same time, I started styling photoshoots, and little by little, visual production became a much bigger part of my life.
Today, I’m a mom of two, and my family and I live in Orange County. My husband and I co-own our creative production agency “F13 Production”. I mostly work as a producer and art director, and very often I’m also the prop stylist on set.
I genuinely love photoshoots and everything that happens around them. I love starting with an idea, figuring out how to make it possible, finding the right location, props, people, colors, and little details, and then watching all those separate pieces come together on set.
In a way, I feel like I’ve found a profession that lets me use all the different parts of myself at once – the creative person, the organizer, the problem-solver, and the kid who still gets excited about making something from scratch.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Oh, definitely not! But I guess a perfectly smooth road would make for a pretty boring story.
One of the biggest adventures was moving to the U.S. with my family and basically starting a new chapter from scratch. You arrive with all your experience, but suddenly you have to figure out how everything works again – the industry, the culture, the people, even the little everyday things you never thought about before.
I’m also a mom of two, and one of my kids has special needs, so my calendar can sometimes look like a very complicated puzzle. There’s work, school, therapies, family life – and somewhere in between, you still need to remember to buy groceries for a family dinner.
Running a production agency adds another layer of fun. Budgets, locations, casting, props, wardrobe, deadlines, last-minute changes, and the occasional “we need to solve this right now” moment. As a producer, you quickly learn that Plan B is not enough – sometimes you need Plans C, D, and E too.
So no, working is not always easy, especially when you carry a lot of responsibility for your family as well. But the funny thing is, I really love my job. I can have an absolutely crazy production day, come home exhausted, and then find myself getting excited about another idea the next morning.
I think that’s how I know I chose the right thing.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We mostly work on commercial photo projects for brands – lifestyle campaigns, product shoots, e-commerce, beauty, CPG, and more. My part usually starts long before the actual shoot. I take a brief and slowly turn it into something real: locations, casting, props, wardrobe, colors, schedules, budgets, and about a hundred little details nobody will ever notice if I do my job well.
And then there’s the shoot day, which is probably my favorite part. I love being on set. I love seeing an idea that existed as a PDF or a moodboard a week ago suddenly become a real scene in front of you.
Because we’re a relatively small production team, we’re also very hands-on. I might be producing the shoot in the morning, steaming clothes ten minutes later, moving flowers around the table, checking a model’s wardrobe, and then standing next to the photographer making sure we’re getting everything the client needs. I actually love that part of it.
I think what sets us apart is that we care about both the big picture and the tiny details. We also try to make production feel easy for the client. There can be a small storm behind the scenes. But ideally, the client never has to feel it.
What I’m most proud of is that we’ve built a production business that feels truly ours, and that brands come back to work with us again. For me, repeat clients are probably the best compliment. It means they liked not only the final images, but the whole experience of creating them together.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I think it’s my ability to adapt and figure things out.

I’m not the kind of person who needs everything to go exactly according to plan – which is probably a good thing, because production almost never does! A location changes, a model cancels, something doesn’t arrive on time, the weather has other plans… You learn very quickly to stop asking, “Why is this happening?” and start asking, “Okay, what can we do?”

I’m also very curious by nature. If I don’t know how to do something, my first instinct is usually to learn it rather than decide it’s not for me. I think that’s why I’ve collected so many different skills over the years.

And maybe the other important thing is that I genuinely care. About the project, about the little details, about the people I work with. Sometimes probably a little too much! But I think clients can feel when you’re truly invested in making something good, rather than just getting the job done.

So I’d say: adaptability, curiosity, and caring a lot. Maybe more than is reasonable sometimes. 🙂

Pricing:

• Custom pricing based on project scope and production requirements.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.f13production.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/f13production
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/f13-production
• Other: https://www.egorv.com