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Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Article written by Photographer of the month -Powers Photography
Stewart and Susan Powers – Being Successful in a Difficult Economy
Stewart and Susan Powers from Gainesville, Florida (www.powersphotography.com) know that there is no question that their clients are shopping differently. They are choosing differently, and they are communicating differently. To that, Susan and Stewart’s blog has become the best way of communicating to their clients. It has replaced the traditional newsletter. The idea of the blog is to generate traffic, keep in touch and show their portfolio. It is used to promote specials and to keep their clients up-to-date on their latest photo sessions. Their blog received as many as 50 hits per day during the first month.
Even with a population of 250,000 to draw from in the county, there was still a need to find new avenues to generate customers. The Powers have increased their business with a few promotions. One of the simplest is the portrait wallet special, which is generated by creating eight wallets of a client’s most recent photo session with the promotion information text over it. The current clients give out these wallet cards to friends and family. When their referral submits the card to our studio, the new client receives a free iPOD or phone slideshow of their session. The client who referred them will receive a Powers Gift Card for $50.00 which is created at Natural Color! They use a similar concept with their brides; the bride giving the referral and the new bride each receive a complimentary enlargement of her wedding.
To increase their visibility, they have utilized mall displays for more than four years. Because they are a residential based studio, the mall displays give their images face-time with their clients. They have purchased wall space and have decorated the walls with their portraits. Interestingly enough, their current display space is in the family restroom lounge in the food court, and it gets more traffic that any other spot they had previously rented! There are full color gloss-coated 5x7 cards on the wall for their clients to pick up. As a result, they receive a lot of calls and inquiries; 50% of their calls come from the mall displays.
One of the Powers’ newest features is Curves and Kisses. The nature of Curves and Kisses is to make a woman look her finest! Curves and Kisses is designed to leave a lot to the imagination, and leave a man wanting more. “The difference between the glamour shots in the ’80s and their Curves and Kisses is that we enhance the photographs the same way that Hollywood models are done! LOTS of cheating! We want every woman to look amazing! It’s an entirely different high-end product line including collages and albums. It’s proving to be very popular and profitable.”
The Powers have been successful, even in the current economy, by being diversified. Their breakdown of where their income is derived is Portrait, 48%, Weddings and Events, 39% and Commercial 13 %.
Stewart and Susan plan for each portrait session, allowing 90 minutes for a child’s session and two hours for a family. Their sales presentation, at which time they project their images onto a large screen, is a two-hour time slot. Their raw file processing and retouching is all done at the studio. When they are ready to order their prints, they upload their files to Natural Color using the ROES RTP software. “We use Natural Color because they have such great consistent quality and finishing.”
The Powers create their images with a Canon 5d DSLR with a battery grip and Sandisk Extreme III 4-gig cards. The images are captured in sRGB space in RAW for final files and small JPEG files to show in their sales presentation. They archive their files to a Thecus Yesbox 750 gig Raid 1 NAS and to an off site archive with Mam-A Gold DVD.
Their lenses of choice are a 90mm f2.8 Tamron Macro lens, a 28-75 f2.8 Tamron SP, a 70-200 f2.8 Tamron SP, a 135mm f2.0 Canon L and a 50mm f1.4 Canon lens.
For their studio lighting, they prefer Profoto Acute 1200 and Compact 600 monolights and a variety of Westcott Softboxes. When they are on location or in their portrait garden, they use a Profoto Acute 600R single head (with a modeling light) with a Westcott softbox or Quantum T4d with a Doug Box and a Quantum Turbo 2x2. Each light is on a light stand off-camera for dimensional lighting. They fire their lights using a Quantum Freewire Radio Slave.
Stewart and Susan work with a number of computer programs. They begin with Microsoft Expressions to edit, resort and rename the files and ACDSee Pro 2.0 for quick image selections. Their RAW process is done in Lightroom and their image mastering in Photoshop, NIK Color Efx3.0 and Imagenomics Portraiture plug in and color management with Gretag Eye1. Once everything is tweaked just the way they like it, they upload their images to Natural Color using ROES Ready to Print and request Fuji Crystal Archive paper. For their collages and album designs, Stewart and Susan use Lumapix FotoFusion Extreme 4.
“Because Natural Color does such a great job, all we have to do when the photographs come back from the lab is sign them and either box or frame them for the client.
The real beauty of being photographers is making new friends, making them blissfully, photographically happy and then staying friends for a long, long lifetime! Stewart and I have been so blessed to share in the life histories of thousands of couples and families; we are not photographers, we are Visual Historians.
Our goal is for the experience of the photography to be beautiful and fun and relaxed. When our clients come to us, they know they are getting best quality product in the world, thanks to Natural Color Lab! They will be receiving the best service and they will be treated like family! The concept of being Visual Historians is that we become part of a client’s life and family, photographing life-changing moments throughout their lifetime. We basically function as photographers on call.”
Stewart and Susan Powers from Gainesville, Florida (www.powersphotography.com) know that there is no question that their clients are shopping differently. They are choosing differently, and they are communicating differently. To that, Susan and Stewart’s blog has become the best way of communicating to their clients. It has replaced the traditional newsletter. The idea of the blog is to generate traffic, keep in touch and show their portfolio. It is used to promote specials and to keep their clients up-to-date on their latest photo sessions. Their blog received as many as 50 hits per day during the first month.
Even with a population of 250,000 to draw from in the county, there was still a need to find new avenues to generate customers. The Powers have increased their business with a few promotions. One of the simplest is the portrait wallet special, which is generated by creating eight wallets of a client’s most recent photo session with the promotion information text over it. The current clients give out these wallet cards to friends and family. When their referral submits the card to our studio, the new client receives a free iPOD or phone slideshow of their session. The client who referred them will receive a Powers Gift Card for $50.00 which is created at Natural Color! They use a similar concept with their brides; the bride giving the referral and the new bride each receive a complimentary enlargement of her wedding.
To increase their visibility, they have utilized mall displays for more than four years. Because they are a residential based studio, the mall displays give their images face-time with their clients. They have purchased wall space and have decorated the walls with their portraits. Interestingly enough, their current display space is in the family restroom lounge in the food court, and it gets more traffic that any other spot they had previously rented! There are full color gloss-coated 5x7 cards on the wall for their clients to pick up. As a result, they receive a lot of calls and inquiries; 50% of their calls come from the mall displays.
One of the Powers’ newest features is Curves and Kisses. The nature of Curves and Kisses is to make a woman look her finest! Curves and Kisses is designed to leave a lot to the imagination, and leave a man wanting more. “The difference between the glamour shots in the ’80s and their Curves and Kisses is that we enhance the photographs the same way that Hollywood models are done! LOTS of cheating! We want every woman to look amazing! It’s an entirely different high-end product line including collages and albums. It’s proving to be very popular and profitable.”
The Powers have been successful, even in the current economy, by being diversified. Their breakdown of where their income is derived is Portrait, 48%, Weddings and Events, 39% and Commercial 13 %.
Stewart and Susan plan for each portrait session, allowing 90 minutes for a child’s session and two hours for a family. Their sales presentation, at which time they project their images onto a large screen, is a two-hour time slot. Their raw file processing and retouching is all done at the studio. When they are ready to order their prints, they upload their files to Natural Color using the ROES RTP software. “We use Natural Color because they have such great consistent quality and finishing.”
The Powers create their images with a Canon 5d DSLR with a battery grip and Sandisk Extreme III 4-gig cards. The images are captured in sRGB space in RAW for final files and small JPEG files to show in their sales presentation. They archive their files to a Thecus Yesbox 750 gig Raid 1 NAS and to an off site archive with Mam-A Gold DVD.
Their lenses of choice are a 90mm f2.8 Tamron Macro lens, a 28-75 f2.8 Tamron SP, a 70-200 f2.8 Tamron SP, a 135mm f2.0 Canon L and a 50mm f1.4 Canon lens.
For their studio lighting, they prefer Profoto Acute 1200 and Compact 600 monolights and a variety of Westcott Softboxes. When they are on location or in their portrait garden, they use a Profoto Acute 600R single head (with a modeling light) with a Westcott softbox or Quantum T4d with a Doug Box and a Quantum Turbo 2x2. Each light is on a light stand off-camera for dimensional lighting. They fire their lights using a Quantum Freewire Radio Slave.
Stewart and Susan work with a number of computer programs. They begin with Microsoft Expressions to edit, resort and rename the files and ACDSee Pro 2.0 for quick image selections. Their RAW process is done in Lightroom and their image mastering in Photoshop, NIK Color Efx3.0 and Imagenomics Portraiture plug in and color management with Gretag Eye1. Once everything is tweaked just the way they like it, they upload their images to Natural Color using ROES Ready to Print and request Fuji Crystal Archive paper. For their collages and album designs, Stewart and Susan use Lumapix FotoFusion Extreme 4.
“Because Natural Color does such a great job, all we have to do when the photographs come back from the lab is sign them and either box or frame them for the client.
The real beauty of being photographers is making new friends, making them blissfully, photographically happy and then staying friends for a long, long lifetime! Stewart and I have been so blessed to share in the life histories of thousands of couples and families; we are not photographers, we are Visual Historians.
Our goal is for the experience of the photography to be beautiful and fun and relaxed. When our clients come to us, they know they are getting best quality product in the world, thanks to Natural Color Lab! They will be receiving the best service and they will be treated like family! The concept of being Visual Historians is that we become part of a client’s life and family, photographing life-changing moments throughout their lifetime. We basically function as photographers on call.”
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Server Maintenance
Dont worry if you haven't been getting you order confirmations. Your orders are here, we are just doing some work on our server tonite..Thanks for your understanding.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
July Newsletter
http://www.naturalcolorlab.com/Newsletters/july08nl.html
Please feel free to read our newsletter as our hours have changed
Please feel free to read our newsletter as our hours have changed
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