This weekend: Hosting a photo booth at the K9 Cancer Walk!

Tomorrow morning, Jason Peckovitch and I will be hosting a photo booth at the 2nd Annual K9 Cancer Walk at Estes Park hosted by the Morris Animal Foundation! If you are in the area, please drop by out booth, No. 19. We will be shooting portraits of humans and their furry family members on location, editing them and printing them on-site! We sell 5x7s for $5 and 8x10s for $10!





Dogs are very important to both mine and Jason's households, as we have three dogs apiece each! You've read me blog about Isis and Raina before, but earlier this month I adopted Maximus the Malamute from Ark Valley Humane Society in Buena Vista, forever transforming "The Wheeler Girls" into "The Wheeler Gang." Jason, his girlfriend Tera and I wanted to participate in this event because our vendor fees will be used to raise money for canine cancer research. The walk hopes to raise $30,000. More than $16,000 has been raised so far! Participate in the walk, or go on a "virtual walk" where you sit this one out but still donate.



Canine cancer is the number one cause of death for dogs over the age of two. Half of all dogs will battle cancer in their lifetime; and 1 in 4 will die. Also earlier this year, I served as a hospice care for Plato, a 7-year-old Malamute who was diagnosed with canine melanoma. Vets were able to remove the original tumor found in his mouth, but the cancer grew back. Plato was an amazing dog for the short time that I had him, and it's almost uncanny how much Max resembles him.

Maximus "Max" Wheeler


Raina Wheeler


Isis Wheeler

To prepare for some of the fun portraits we hope to take of walk participants with their pets, Jason and I attended a VIP Photography Workshop called "Models and their Pets!" Here are some of my favorites that I took from that fun session out at Commons Park in Lodo:

Get Out There: Get a business headshot and win a free session at my exhibit photo booth!

Tomorrow, I am two of my photography colleagues, Jason Peckovitch and Chris Platz, will be hosting a photo booth at the 2010 Success Summit & Expo at the Colorado Convention Center, 10am - 5pm in the Korbel Ballroom.

We will be at Booth No. 420. Studio lights and a background will be set up for attendees to have a business portrait taken for a nominal fee. Photos will be professionally retouched and printed on the spot for up to $15 for an 8x10 or pay $25 for a high resolution digital download.

Leave your business card for a chance to win a free hour-long photo session valued at $75.

Here are examples of business portraits I shot of exhibit coordinator Carla Ladd:







Don't know what to wear? Choose an outfit that you would wear when meeting with clients. When a photo is a portrait of a person (or a group of people), the photographer wants the viewer's eyes to go to the face(s). That means that the faces in the image need to be the lightest part of the photo. Avoid white or very colored blouses or shirts. Men should select a shirt with at least some color; i.e, blue oxford cloth. People with very dark complexions might want to consider deep colors like black.

Conservative clothing in mid-range and darker, solid colors such as blue, brown, gray, red and green will flatter both male and female faces. Avoid busy patterns, large amounts of white or very bright colors. Use the clothing as a frame to draw attention to your face. Tailored suits in wool or linen work well, but watch out for fabrics that wrinke. Simple, classic styles will remain fresh even as styles change.

Get the Job Done: Sunday's car show most successful yet!

Photo by Jason Peckovitch

Sunday's "Hot August Nights" car show in Fort Collins was by far the most successful one yet for myself and partner Jason Peckovitch of Illusive Dreams photography. Our photo booth was one of the most popular at this inaugural event, and I certainly hope Jason and I can be apart of it for years to come.



Jason was able to secure three lovely ladies to be our models for the day. Their presence at the show was undeniable. They spent the first hour or so walking the show talking to car owners and asking them if they would like a photo of one of the models showcased near their vehicles. Having that one-to-one contact with the models got the ball rolling for us, but our exposure skyrocketed even more when the ladies participated in a bikini contest at the show. One of them even won a portion of the first place prize money! Plus, having printed and framed examples of shots Jason took at the last show available helped give people an idea of what to expect, as well as offered another potential revenue stream because several people wanted to make offers to purchase those framed images too.





Before long, we were overwhelmed with people coming up to the booth asking if they could get a shot with Steph, Mandy or Chastity. We had orders from 20 people with everyone spending on average $15 to $20. That's a heck of a lot more than the six orders we had at the last car show! I was editing right up until folks started taking their tents down. One of the keys to our success was Jason's ability to take extremely clean images from the get-go. That meant all I had to do was bump up the clarity and vibrance in Camera Raw, do some sharpening and quick curve adjustments, save and print. Plus, Jason always shot at least three different poses for each car and model combo, making it difficult for clients to just pick one image to print. It was far easier to say, "I'll just take one of each," which quickly boosted our sales.



If it weren't for one of the model's boyfriend's helping us take orders while I did the editing, we may not have made it! As a matter of fact, we may need to get assistance from another shooter too. Of course being at a car show makes it easier to find out about others that are happening around the metro area, so we are busy trying to fill up our schedules with more events to come. I was sitting and editing and staring at my laptop for so long that my eyes and my butt ached. But these photo booths are a ton of fun and I love being able to interact with our clients, shaking hands and handing out cards.

This Weekend: Booked a senior session, hosting another photo booth

ON SATURDAY:

Today, I booked my first senior portrait of the season! I met my client, Monique, last year when I took senior portraits for her friend Christine's daughter. Monique attended the session and hung out with Christine while I shot her daughter. Monique enjoyed the photo shoot and loved the photos so much that choose me to shoot her son's session. That's one of the best referrals you can ask for, and because of it, Christine's daughter will receive $25 worth of free prints!

I am extremely excited about this session because it will be the first one I've shot with a senior male and a prop. Jordan, 17, plays the violin and he wants several shots with his instrument in them. Jordan said he wanted his photos to be edgy, urban and abstract. We decided to start shooting along the 16th Street Mall in Denver, and specifically near a sculptural garden that captured Jordan's eye.

Here are some examples of the kind of poses he's looking for:





ON SUNDAY

On Sunday, Jason Peckovitch and I will set up our photo booth and sell prints at the first annual "Hot August Nights Car Show" in Fort Collins. We met the client who hired us to shoot this event at our last car show coverage where we discovered that beautiful models and fast cars meant lots of print sales. If these events keep being profitable for us, I think Jason and I should start coordinating our schedules so we can be prepared to have booths available at various events throughout the car show season next year!

Get the Job Done: Car show photo booth profitable!

Photo by Jason Peckovitch


I think Picture Your World Photography may have unearthed a business goldmine! I had no idea that holding a photo booth at a car show would be so profitable, but photographer Jason Peckovitch were even more successful at the Red and Jerry's car show last weekend than we did at the fair at Walmart the weekend before.

Maybe since it was our second time hosting the photo booth, Jason and I were just more experienced and better prepared. But we actually didn't take a portrait of anyone in our makeshift studio under a 10x10 tent. All the equipment we rented, including backgrounds and stands went unused, to my initial surprise.

Everyone at the car show was more interested in having their treasured and well-loved vehicles photographed with a bikini-clad model. Jason and I quickly adapted our plan of business, adding $5 extra to our prints to have a model pose with the vehicles. Jason worked the show, shooting and brought his CF cards over to me so I could upload images, edit them in Photo Shop and print them. We sold so many prints and I was so busy editing shots that Jason took that my fingers hurt by the end of the day. And the best thing about it for me: the job was done when we left...ie, no more post-processing to do and the clients took their items with them immediately.

If you ever do something like this, make sure to hit up Model Mayhem or something similar to have some models at your booth. Just having them stationed near our table caused a flurry of interest, making folks come over to see what we were up too. And it goes to show you how important it is to know your audience and understand what those clients might be interested in spending their hard earned money on.

Breaking News: Photo Booth snags a new client!

I'm pleased to share that Saturday's photo booth has netted me a new client! A woman who stopped by and picked up one of my cards called to book a senior session for one son who is graduating as well as a headshot session for another son who will be acting in a local play. We have arranged to split the session up, shooting both sons for an hour in studio this Saturday and another hour on location outdoors in another week or so.

One of the things that I think is neat about this experience is that the client lives a few blocks from me! However, she would never have known that a professional photographer lived so near to her had I not been essentially marketing my services while working at the photo booth. It's good to know that I was able to benefit from the event even if people weren't interested in getting their picture taken that same day. Hopefully in the future, when any of the people I met on Saturday need images, they will remember the day they met me, shook my hand and asked questions about what I offered at a local fair.

Get the Job Done: First photo booth a hit!

I had so much fun yesterday at my first photo booth hosted by my studio! It was a lot of work and of course my muscles were crazy sore and tired, but it was a great experience and I will be doing it again for one of my assistant's car shows on July 19 and for a local church event on July 26! I and my assistants raised nearly $100 in just a couple of hours, but storm clouds (and the threat of another batch of hail) scared off customers and closed down the fair early, so there's no telling how much more profit could have been made had we been able to keep the booth open until that evening. We had access to power! Yeah! Plus it was clear we caught a lot of people off-guard in that they didn't feel comfortable getting shots taken if they weren't well dressed, with their hair and make-up done, etc. :)



I couldn't have done it with my assistants, Jason Peckovitch, who runs his own studio called Illusive Dreams. Jason took all the shots, I helped with posing and did quick basic edits to each image. Inspite of all of my planning, of course something went wrong: my new iP100 Canon Mobile Printer was malfunctioning. Those annoying white lines kept getting scrawled across the image when we would try to print them straight through Photoshop CS3. Jason figured out that we needed to print the images through the software that came with the printer called Easy-PhotoPrint EX. When he did that, the white lines disappeared and we got some amazingly clear, crisp and beautifully colored images from the iP100. The printer is so tiny and easy to carry that it's amazing you can produce 8x10s. But the photos were gorgeous.



I was worried that the technical difficulties would make people hesitate about paying for the portraits. But I think the display I set up of several of my previous images spoke volumes about my abilities. It was such a thrill to see people walking by my booth and stopping to get a closer look at my photos. They were actively choosing to pick up one of my business cards and discount post cards. And they were asking if I was the photographer. It was amazing and humbling. I enjoyed being able to meet other small business owners from my neighborhood who had set up a booth (even the less than generous ones who fought over booth placement!). I got several new ideas for how I might grow and market my business from many of them. I felt like I was a part of something. It's kinda hard to explain, but we were all there early that morning setting up our work, putting ourselves on the line, hoping that someone would spend their hard earned cash on something we made or created. Several people who stopped at the booth said they needed family portraits, senior shots, a few boudoir images and some professional portraits for newly developed business websites. There was even one woman who needs photos of her horses shot!



I would like to give a special thank you to Cheryl Carter, who's public relations firm notified me about the event. I also do contract work for Cheryl at the Auraria Campus. Cheryl has been such a boon for my company since I shot her parent's rededication ceremony last year. Her faith in my abilities has helped take me to heights I would never have dreamed possible. And yesterday's event is testiment of your need to treat every client with courtesy and respect because referrals are the best advertising available. Cheryl helped me book my first wedding last year with a young couple you may remember, Tolisa and Jordan. At least half of the people who came up to my booth not only recognized several photos of the couple I had taken during their wedding on my display table, but each one had been personally told by the couple to choose me for their future photography needs!

I would also like to thank my photographer friend and colleague Christine Tydingco for arriving to assist during the late afternoon shoot, even though things were pretty much over by then. As always, she was extremely courteous and helped me break down all the equipment and pile it into my car. I would love to be able to do this at least two or three times a month because I think it's a great way to be out within the community and allow customers to have direct contact with the person they hopefully will be trusting to photograph their special moments.



One of the new things I was able to do this time was get contact information for each person who purchased photos yesterday. That allowed me to call them today, let them know that I had made their photos available for them to download from my website and give them a chance to ask any questions about the process. Their names will go on the customer list I'm creating. I learned another idea from a few vendors: many of them had products available for a raffle. When booth visitors signed up for a raffle prize, they gave the vendors contact information as well! I could raffle off a free photo session and get numbers for future clients too.

Maybe I could contact some festival coordinators and offer a deal: If they purchase my event coverage service, I could set up a photo booth at their event and take photos of their guests for free (free for them at least)!

Growing Pains: Photobooth placed near the main stage

As a cub reporter for the Denver Post in the late 1990s, I can't tell you how many festivals and fairs I covered. It was always interesting to see how the many vendors set up their wares and did their best to standout among a sea of other businesses. I never dreamed that I might one day own my business, much less be one of those vendors at a festival, but my time to get out there and shine is just three days away!

It's very exciting to see my company name on a vendor table! If you look closely, Picture Your World Photography will be stationed at Table 5 on the left-hand side of the event map. The table isn't too far away from the main stage and seating area so that should help us in generating some customers.



All week long I've been getting tips from friends and colleagues about how to make this idea happen without a hitch. My iP100 Canon Mobile Photo Printer will allow us to bring 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10, which I think we should sell for $5, $10, and $15 respectively. Sean Donnelly, said it might be a good idea to consider offering a bulk "discount price" of all the images on CD, such as 6 for $45 or something like that. That's definitely worth doing!

Sean also thinks I should be good to use my Vagabond II battery pack as portable power my laptop and my printer.
Sean had his Macbook Pro plugged into a Vagabond II and running for approximately 2.5 hours and didn't notice anything unusual, including no odd smells or excessive heat.

I'm still a little anxious about using the Vagabond like that (as I've only ever used it for powering my Alien Bees). I will use a Canon PU-200U Printer Automobile Power Unit and a Canon LK-62 Printer Portable Kit Battery to keep the printer powered, and use the Vagabond for a last resort if necessary.

Canon PU-200U

Canon LK-62 Printer Portable Kit Battery.

Jason Peckovitch of Illusive Dreams let me know about a great deal going on at Vistaprint for numerous "free" offers, including a banner. At previous events he has hosted, Peckovitch has used a laptop to run a slideshow of his images, but said the sunlight made it hard to see. He suggested that a digital picture frame might work as well.

Christine Tydingco, my photography friend and colleague who will be assisting me at the booth Saturday afternoon, said a few framed prints on the table (even available for sale) and a postcard or flyer giving people discounts on a future photo session if they book a date with me that same day would be great too.

I thought Rachel Hawthorns' idea to put a sticker on the back of each purchased photo sending customers to the password protected gallery on my business website where they can purchase additional prints and enlargements.

Growing Pains: Preparing for my first photo booth set up

Photo credit: National Geographic

On Saturday, I will be hosting my first photo booth at a local community fair. So this week's blog coverage will be about how to set one up successfully. I've turned to several professional colleagues who regularly run photo booths at various events throughout the Denver metro area, as this state seems to have a festival nearly every weekend in the spring and summer months. I've also found some helpful resources online.

Rachel Hawthorne, one photographer in the Mile High Photographers group, said by printing 4x6s, she was able to generate $100 in two hours with a photo booth at a horse competition:

We do instant photo prints at horse competitions, and our typical setup runs like this:

Shooter swapping out cards (we don't have a tethered or wireless setup yet) as she shoots in Raw
I'm at the table - I dump everything into lightroom, and since she's shooting with a fixed setting, any additional post processing is done based on that setting, so I apply the changes en masse in the library.
I scroll through the pics of each rider, and apple+select the multiple ones that we're going to print, and send them to the printer (Epson PictureMate Dash 260)

While that's printing, I then take the photos and export them to iPhoto and run a slideshow of everything taken so far on another monitor facing the crowd. That keeps them patient while waiting for prints.

We charge $5 a print on site, and each print purchased has a sticker on the back sending them to our website to purchase more from our smugmug account. I'd love to hear what you do choose for your final setup!

Another MHPer, Sarah Cutright, suggested a wireless route to prevent customers from tripping over wires, shoot tethered to a laptop; stick to one background; and bring a stack of model releases. I definitely didn't think of the model releases, and I'm working on going the tethered route. That one will be tricky because one of my assistants shoots with a Nikon (and I a Canon) so all of the software we would be needing for teethered shooting would be different. He also has a PC laptop and I've got a Macbook Pro. Well, the day should be interesting, that's for sure.

Sarah pointed me in the direction of this great blog post at Photocrati.com about photo booths that was helpful as well. I love how Bill Millios, the photographer uses guests during an event to help lure in more victims, er, customers to the booth. And I think having the guests pick items out of a box of goodies glasses, feather boas, and party hats is a great way to get some genuine smiles, laughing, and a crowd gathering around to watch. These practical tips from Bill were great too:



People will want to bring more and more people into the picture – and your backdrop is only 9 feet wide. (Or rather, MY backdrop is only 9 feet wide. A 12 footer won’t fit in the minivan.) At the second event, I taped out a rectangle on the floor using gaffer tape, and said, “You can put all the people you want in the picture, but they have to fit inside the rectangle.” That made it self-regulating.

I recommend using a 50 mm lens or larger – this will prevent problems with the people on the outside getting squished around by the lens distortion. If you don’t have enough depth, then do what you can – but keep in mind not to go too wide, or it will look funny. More depth will also allow more people to fit on a given backdrop (since you are farther back, your angle of view is smaller to include the entire seamless, but the AREA for the subjects is wider.)
Equipment list

backdrop kit – two stands and a crossbar (I have this one)
White seamless
AB800
Large softbox
Camera
Tripod
Lightstand
Trigger cable

Make sure to read the comments at the end of the blog post for more ideas. One commenter in particular mentioned something about using a video feed to show customers their photos instantly. I think I'm going to use a second laptop and have a slideshow running the images. More ideas to come!