Today's Guest: Michael Smith of J Michael Photography in Ravenna, Ohio
Today's Host: Damien Allen
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Michael Smith Expert PageANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight with your host, Damien Allen.
DAMIEN: Good afternoon. Welcome to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight. I'm you're host, Damien Allen for the vacationing, John Bentley, and today we have in the studio with us via telephone Mr. Michael Smith of J. Michael Photography in Ravenna, Ohio. Welcome to the program, Michael.
MICHAEL: Good Morning.
DAMIEN: I understand you've got a big booming senior photography business down there in Ravenna. What's happening?
MICHAEL: Well, we seem to be doing pretty good. We've been in business for approximately 20 years and we recently bought out another studio in the area, and that's given us quite a boost. We work pretty steady every day, so we do seniors from all over the place. We have them come from an hour and a half away to all the local schools. Believe it or not, due to our website we've actually had a girl come from Florida last week and we have a girl coming from Virginia next week. So, it's been interesting.
DAMIEN: So you're getting long distance customers due to the website. What is the appeal for the senior photography that you do that would draw customers in from a thousand miles away in Florida or 800 from Virginia?
MICHAEL: Well, my guess is that as far as I know we're the only studio in the area that will give you your proofing the same day. All of my customers come in for a 2 - 2 1/2 hour session. During that time, they spend the first half of the session taking the photos. We do indoor and outdoor photos. We're in the middle of 46 acres so we have lots of outdoor props and scenery. Inside in the studio we have hundreds of backgrounds and props and all kinds of items of interest. We let the customer bring some of their own items. We take everything digital. We do a lot of custom editing to each picture that we take. The customer gets to sit on a comfy couch and as I do the custom editing, they watch it on the bring screen,and they get to have a say in what happens. As we're finished up, we print them out; put them in a portfolio, and they take them home the same day. And there aren't too many that I know of, if any, who offer that service. So I think that's part of the reason that we get a lot of our customers.
DAMIEN: In deed, that's you know to be able to sit through your session and then turn around and see everything that happened. The editing that you're doing is computer-based digital I would imagine?
MICHAEL: Yes, it is.
DAMIEN: So you're doing photo retouch, color correction, and image tricks.
MICHAEL: Yes, we do lots of things in Photoshop so I'll take, for example, somebody brings in a shirt that's got a favorite pattern on it, and I'll take a picture of the pattern on their clothing, and I can integrate that into their background and there isn't going to be anything that matches their outfit more than the pattern that's on their clothes. They seem to go crazy over that so it works pretty well.
DAMIEN: As the father of three teenage boys, I understand the energy of junior and senior client. What do you do to make a senior client comfortable for their session and what kind of advice do you give them when they're coming in for a shot clothing wise? What do you tell a kind when they want their senior pictures done?
MICHAEL: Well, a lot of kids ask me when they come in, they say, you know, what do I bring? And I say, "Well you can bring whatever you'd like." I want them to be themselves. I want them to be comfortable. You know, there's a lot of things like if they have a favorite shirt that they just love, and they wear it all the time. Bring your favorite shirt, because that's you. Our thing is to make sure everybody can be themselves. They need to be relaxed. We goof around with them. We play with them. We tell jokes. We feel out each individual, you know, their personality, and we try to incorporate that into their pictures. The fact that they have a say in the way that I custom edit each of their pictures, makes them feel very comfortable, and it makes them feel like they really have a say in what's going on.
DAMIEN: Looking at the website, the portfolio looks awesome, and I'm just thinking back now that my children are getting to that point where it's time for them to do senior pictures, how vastly different the choices are from 1985 when I was getting my senior picture taken where you were expected to wear the shirt, the tie, the sweater over the top, one particular look, you had no choice in anything, and then you've got pictures that don't look like you at all because you never dress like that, so.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I would have to say, I understand that, because I got mine done in 1986 so, it was kind of the same way for me. I think I remember taking home either 6 or 8 proofs. You know and they had two different ties and a suit jacket and I think those were my choices. I don't think I had casual or anything. Today's kids, they like casual. They like to be themselves. They like to have fun. They don't want to be told what to wear, so I don't. I don't tell them what to wear. I say, "Mom and Grandma are going to want a nice formal portrait, beyond that, the rest of them if you want to bring your motorcycle, you want to bring your beat up car. I've had kids bring cars with duct taped fenders. I've had kids bring in super hot rods that they built, you know. I've actually had people bring their motorcycles and their dirtbikes into my studio. We have, again, we're in the middle of 46 acres and it's mostly wooded. We have a large stream down below us. We've allowed kids to ride their four wheelers down the hill and into the crick and climb over the rocks and get all muddy, and we take their picture when they do that.
DAMIEN: Good deal.
MICHAEL: It's that sort of a thing, you know, we can do that in the summer, wintertime. We have gardens all over the place with flower beds and all kinds of props. We have lots of things to make it interesting for the customer. Plus we let them bring whatever they want.
DAMIEN: Well, we've been talking about senior photography which is the bulk of your business, what other photography services do you offer?
MICHAEL: Well, we do weddings. I've been in business for 21 years and I've done as many as 30 weddings in a year. I've done more than I can count. I've always enjoyed doing weddings. It's just a matter of, you can only do so many things. I also do sports photography. We do a lot of baseball teams. We do dance studios, lots of dance studios. We do quite a few of those, and they all get the same kind of treatment. I do custom editing to everybody's pictures whether they're at the dance studios or baseball teams, soccer teams, anything of that nature. I sit down and I actually custom edit everybody's pictures so that they match their area or their uniforms or dance costumes. Everything things is done custom.
DAMIEN: Now, do you that on site during the session at location, or do you do that back at the studio?
MICHAEL: No, those are done back at the studio. And sometimes we do dance studios. We'll shoot as many as maybe as many as 1600 pictures in one session, but I can't go to the extreme of the editing right then, but I"ll have to do that when they come back. The only ones that we do, like the instant custom editing on, are the high school seniors. Now, we do do a lot of class reunions; class and family reunions, actually. What we do is we'll go in; we'll take the class photo just before dinner. We'll do a little custom editing to it...put the year and the date and all that on the picture, and I take my laptop and my printer with me, and then as people are eating dinner, they'll order copies of their picture. We print them out right there on site, and they get to take them home that day. There's no mailing. There's no, I didn't get mine in the mail, or I didn't have a chance to get one. So everybody that's there, they know I'm there. They can get their picture immediately. Within 20 or 30 minutes of taking it, I'm already printing them out on the printer. That's another thing that we do that adds an interest, you know.
DAMIEN: As you're doing these reunions and weddings, are there any particular banquet facilities or wedding halls that you tend to use?
MICHAEL: I've been to so many different places. It's hard for me to bring one to mind. I have gone to Springlake Party Center recently. It's a very nice facility. It has a gazebo out on the edge of the water. That's in Springfield, Ohio, and it's just gorgeous. The sun sets behind the gazebo. People get married during sun up to sun set and it's just a really very nice, elegant facility. It's really hard to pin point other ones. I've been all the way from Rocky River to Southern Ohio. I've done weddings up and down. For me to pull one up and say I have a favorite; it's hard to do.
DAMIEN: In deed. What are some of the communities that you service around you?
MICHAEL: Well, we're in Portage County. We work all over Portage County. I do Summit County quite often which is the Akron area. We go into Stark County. I've been all over the place. It's hard to pull one of those out too, but the majority of what we service is Portage County which is the Kent, Ravenna; Cuyahoga Falls is in Akron.
DAMIEN: My sister used to live in Cuyahoga Falls.
MICHAEL: Yeah, we cover people from all over the place. Ravenna, Fritztown, Streetsboro, Gateway, Shalersville; lots of different areas around here we tend to do business in.
DAMIEN: Pretty much range the entire state of Ohio.
MICHAEL: I don't know about that part, but if it's within about 50 miles, we've pretty much been there at some point in time.
DAMIEN: Mike before we go into the break, could you please tell us your contact information and website address for people who want to come up and look at your portfolio.
MICHAEL: Ok, well my website is: www.jmichael.net, my phone number is (330) 296-2612. We also have a secondary line it's (330) 296-2299. I'm located at 6576 Newton Falls Road, Ravenna, Ohio, 44266.
DAMIEN: We are in the studio today via telephone with Mr. Michael Smith of J. Michael Photography of Ravenna, Ohio. We’re gonna take a short break for these commercial announcements. We’ll be right back.
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ANNOUNCER: Looking for a bridal show in your area? Visit www.weddingdetails.com for a list of upcoming bridal shows in your area. Visit www.weddingdetails.com tonight. We now return you to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight, with your host, Damien Allen.
DAMIEN: Welcome back to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight. I'm Damien Allen, in for the vacationing John Bentley. Today, via phone, we are in the studio with Michael Smith of J. Michael Photography in Ravenna, Ohio. Welcome back, Michael.
MICHAEL: Hello.
DAMIEN: During the break we were talking about one of the 4-H events that you shot where you told me you did 55,000 shots for that particular event. I imagine for that you probably had a little help. Are you a single photographer? Do you have extra staff that helps you shoot. Do you farm out work when need be? How many photographers do you use on a shot like that?
MICHAEL: Well, almost everything that we do here, I do myself. I just don't believe in having my name put on someone else's' work. Although, when it comes to some of our event photography that we do, such as we do the Randolph Fair every year. It's a local fair that's out here in our area. We photograph all of the animals. All of the horses during their contest and pleasure riding events. All the animals that go up for auction, and pretty much anything that anybody wants us to do at the fair grounds, they just come over to our booth and say, "This is what I need." I do have two other photographers on staff during the fair that help me capture all the, pretty much they do the action photos for the horses. They could spend all day, every day, at the whole fair just doing that. We manage to cover quite a bit of territory on the fair ground and again, as I mentioned, I think we took around 55,000 pictures last year at the fair. So there's a lot of them that are there. The people get to come down to our booth around mid-afternoon and the pictures we took in the morning will be ready on the computer for them to sit down and go through and search and look through the pictures and then they can order them. We'll have the pictures printed up for them by the next morning, because most of the people that are there spend the whole week at the fair. So if their pictures were taken on Tuesday, they can pick them up on Wednesday. It makes it pretty nice. It's one of those instant gratification things. We also do sporting events. This past weekend we shot state softball tournaments here in our area, and I had three other photographers working for me. We had four cameras going, four different fields, all day long Saturday and most of the day Sunday, and we will be returning next Saturday to finish up the championship game. Those pictures will all go up online and people can go and view those pictures and within a day or two of finishing those up. Predominately I do most of the work myself, although, there are certain occasions I do have to hire people. I do have one gentleman who occasionally will shoot a wedding for me, but I do inform my customers up front that he will be the photographer at that wedding. For now, I like to do it all myself, the best that I can. If I can't do it, I think it's too much, and I don't want to compromise what I provide to the customer, I try to take on too many things at one time.
DAMIEN: You've been in business over 20 years now, and you see the change from film to digital and taking 9,000 shots at an event or 55,000 shots; I'm going to assume that's all digital and the editing that we've been discussing is digital, do you still use film in any way, or have you put the old film cameras up?
MICHAEL: I've got about an inch of dust on my film cameras that I have left over. I just don't use them anymore. The digital, in my mind, is the coolest they ever came up with. I just don't have any need to shoot film anymore. I had one job that I shot on film every year. It was a charity event; a golf outing for Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and I finally convinced them last year to go digital. So that's what they're doing now. Last year and this year they'll be accepting the photos digitally. I imagine in today's society, everybody likes that instant gratification. Quality of the cameras that they are coming out with are on a professional level, live no film, in many ways as you can count. No reason to go back to film in my opinion. We're putting out a good quality product and we're putting it out as quick as we can and everything is able to be done custom and some of the old timers will disagree with that, but I think we're doing alright. I really enjoy doing the digital.
DAMIEN: What made you decide to become a photographer?
MICHAEL: Well, believe it or not, when I was ready to graduate from high school, I had no idea what I was doing with my life, and my mom asked me what I wanted for a graduation gift, and I said, "I have no idea." I didn't expect I was getting anything. So, she said well think about it for a while, and I did, and I still came up with nothing. She said, "Well you did mention once a while ago that you might like to have a nice camera." And I said, "Yeah, I would like to have a nice camera." So, my mom and my grandma and my sister and a few other of my friends pitched in and they bought me a nice camera. Just a small 50mm lens on it, and I'd say within about a year, I had a touch of deep interest in it that I read every book and practiced everything I could and worked my tail off, and it ended up all people were starting to offer me money for the things that I was doing. So, I thought, hey this is a pretty good gig, I could get used to his, and I have to give credit that the good Lord gave me a talent that I didn't know I had, and I was able to take that ability and turn it into a business, and I'm self taught in just about everything I do, so I just kind of continued from that day on and here I am now. I have a business.
DAMIEN: I understand the gratification of being self-taught and building a business and having the ability to make your living doing something you absolutely love to do every single day. That's a wonderful thing.
MICHAEL: I do, I absolutely love my job. I wouldn't trade it for the world, and I don't know what I would do if I couldn't do photography. Cause I just...it's my passion, and my wife will attest to it. The business is our lives, and it's good thing, because it provides well for us, and I'm happy and she's happy and she doesn't have to work outside of the home. She works with me every day. We work in the same office. We do have another girl, her name is Ann, and she works for us. My sister works for me as well part time, and so we've kind of got everybody and a bunch of people involved and everybody helps the whole business end of it as well. I just get to take my pictures and do my creative art with it, and everybody is happy when it's all done.
DAMIEN: Michael could you give us the website and contact information again, please.
MICHAEL: Yes, we can be found on the internet at: www.jmichael.net, my phone number is (330) 296-2612. We also have a secondary line it's (330) 296-2299 and we are located at 6576 Newton Falls Road, Ravenna, Ohio, 44266.
DAMIEN: We've been in the studio today with Michael Smith of J. Michael Photography and the website information again is: www.jmichael.net. The portfolio includes pictures from theater recitals, a very nice senior portrait portfolio, weddings, family, children, pets, sports, business photos, school dances, reunions, 4-H, lots of content. Go up and look at the images. Wonderful editing. Wonderful photography. Michael thank you very much for joining us today.
MICHAEL: It's been a pleasure. I enjoyed talking to you.
DAMIEN: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight. I am your host, Damien Allen, in for the vacationing John Bentley. Have a wonderful day.
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