Bride And Boom

Photographer Jefferson Todd figures he's discovered a way to grab the attention of the most elusive of wedding clients?the groom.

Let's face it. Many grooms aren't paying for the photography; the bride's parents are. Most grooms are not anxious to review portfolios of wedding photographers. And finally, evolutionary biologists can't really explain this yet, but most men just don't grab co-workers and say, "Hey, come look at my wedding photos."

But Todd, a former videographer in Phoenix who's quite new to shooting weddings, thinks he's discovered the key to almost any man's heart: a cool electronic toy. Specifically, an iPod.

Here's the pitch: Given his video background, Todd is adept at preparing slideshows of his wedding photos, using pans, zooming effects and fades, with music added to the background. He's so quick at it that he can have a slideshow of the wedding up and running on a big projection screen by the end of the wedding reception.

That's pretty cool in itself. But then Todd looked at the new video-capable iPods and realized that there was another way for his clients to view their wedding photos, to review proofs and to play his slide shows.

He buys two iPods, has them custom engraved on the back for the bride and groom, and presents them to the happy couple as the "iDo iPod Set," with their wedding slide show pre-loaded. A few weeks later he adds the proof prints for them to look at. It costs Todd about $600 for the two iPods, and he's planning to sell the wedding add-on for $1,100. (Right now it carries the low introductory price of $800.)

At this point it's sounding pretty good to the bride, who can slip the thing in her purse and play the slide show for friends, co-workers and anyone she can grab. "That's what any bride wants to do," says Todd. "She wants to show off the images from her wedding day."

But Todd says the package sounds even better to the groom. That's because he gets a brand new iPod out of his wedding. The chances are that it was his new in-laws who paid for it by covering the photography bill. How cool is that?

And maybe, just maybe, he'll even show the pictures to a couple of the guys at work.



Neal Clipper admits that he is a sucker for new technology. "Every time something new comes out we feel almost compelled to purchase it."

But then again, new technology is pretty good to Clipper. His goal, and he gives seminars on this, is to maximize the size of the invoice for every wedding, bar mitzvah and other event shot by his company, Abbey Photographers, in Palisades Park, New Jersey.

Clipper did 250 events last year, riding the success of a family business that has been around for more than 50 years. (He says he doesn't even have to advertise anymore.) Some of these are really big events: During our interview, he takes a quick call from the woman paying for the photography at the previous weekend's wedding, which Clipper and six staffers worked, and grossed about $15,000. "It was a home-run," he says.

How in the world does he bill that much? Well, he supplies both photography and videography services, and uses several photographers and assistants. But then there's also the high-tech stuff.

At the above-mentioned reception, Clipper had a photographer using a new D2X with a Wi-Fi transmitter. As the photographer shot, each image was transmitted to a laptop computer loaded with Nikon Capture and ACDSee Pro and hooked to a huge projection screen.

"Eight seconds later [after clicking] it pops up on the screen," says Clipper. The photographer tells his subjects to turn around, and there they are, larger than life. "It does have quite a big 'wow' effect," he says.

Then there are the 5 x 7 dye sublimation prints that Clipper's staff can print on site. These are an ideal take-home for wedding guests, who arrive all dressed up, get photographed, and are then presented with a high-quality print in a pre-printed folder.

Clipper's Mitsubishi dye-sub printers also come in handy at the end of the wedding day, when Clipper surprises his bride with a 4 x 6 "brag book" of wedding photos to take with her. "They're really overwhelmed when they see it," he says.

With 50 years in the business, it's sometimes the case that Clipper's parents photographed the happy couple's parents, or even their grandparents. But it's a sure bet that those weddings of days gone by didn't have extras like the ones Clipper offers today. "Everybody in our area has come to know that we're on the cutting edge," he says. When it comes time to figure out the bill, these additions are what really make the difference: "All the extra stuff adds up to more than the original price" of shooting the wedding, Clipper explains.



Ed Zemba knows what moves his wedding and portrait clients to tears when it comes to the DVD presentation of their photos. It's the music.

Zemba, co-owner of Robert Charles Photography in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, has been doing DVDs of still images for more than five years. The studio happened into it quite early and by chance. They did a portrait session with a child who was seriously ill. A friend of the child's family saw the photos and asked them to make a DVD of the images set to music. When Zemba and his brother saw the final result, they decided this was something they should offer their clients.

Using stills?à la Ken Burns?to make a video presentation is pretty common today. But as the Zembas investigated it in a serious, businesslike way, they discovered two things. First, the appropriate music?with lyrics?made a huge difference in how clients reacted to the video. Put on instrumental music and show a sample to potential clients, and they like it, but talk through the viewing. Add in appropriate lyrics, and they are literally reaching for the Kleenex by the end of the presentation. Zemba recalls one man who watched a sample video with his family, reached for a facial tissue and said, "We're going to spend a lot of money."

A comment like that catches Zemba's attention.

The second thing he and his brother discovered was that there was no simple, legal way to get the music. Some photographers simply add whatever they like out of their personal collections. Zemba investigated and says he found there was no legal loophole in the copyright law that allows that.

That discovery launched the family-owned studio on a year-long quest to find a solution. The one they ended up with was to hire good local musicians to record songs the studio could legally make unlimited use of. Of course, we "went out of our way to get musicians who wrote touching lyrics," Zemba says.

The project turned out to be expensive?easily $500 to $1,000 a song. But the Zembas are now are doing 75 to 100 DVDs a year. Some of those are small marketing pieces for the studio's commercial clients. Others are for the roughly 25 wedding clients the studio takes on each year, clients who pay $1,000 to $10,000 for a DVD.

Zemba describes a recent job at the high-end of that range: For an engagement shoot, his brother traveled with the soon-to-be-happy couple around Boston, visiting the school and other sites where they had met and fallen in love. They also gathered childhood photos of the pair for the DVD. Finally, the studio recorded audio interviews with the couple and their families. Put it all together to play at the wedding reception and you have a production Ken Burns himself would be proud of. "It's a very powerful, very moving presentation," Zemba says.

Meanwhile, the whole music business has led the Zemba brothers and a third partner into a new business. On the Web at <www.theslideshow company.net>, their new company will prepare DVD presentations for photographers who supply the images. But it also offers access to a library of DVD-ready songs, targeted at everything from kids to weddings to seniors. For just under $100, photographers can download a song and license it for a year for DVD production. (To help market the idea, the team has enlisted Professional Photographers of America, whose members get music discounts.)

Ed Zemba says he thinks the idea of a service creating the DVDs for photographers will make sense. As the businessperson in the studio, he says, "I think most photographers shouldn't do it [create DVDs] themselves. It's more profitable to outsource."



Wedding albums are a traditional, highly profitable product for wedding photographers, often the epitome of their work. But some photographers have found a way to offer their clients a second, more portable type of album, one that doesn't displace the traditional one, but does provide an additional sale.

They've turned to online services that print full-color books, but do it in press runs as small as a single copy.

"It's not really like traditional wedding albums," says Jeff Woods, of Jeffrey and Julia Woods Wedding Photography in Washington, Illinois. "It's like the MTV wedding album."

Jeff and Julia Woods use AsukaBook, billed as custom "coffeetable-quality" books available online at <www.asukabook.com>. They come in different sizes and bindings, from something you might put on a coffeetable to something a bride can slip into her purse.

The books that the Woodses produce are not just bound collections of individual images. They have two graphic designers on staff to create the layouts, adding clip art, vintage effects and image overlays.

Jeff Woods says the books have two uses. The first is as part of the overall wedding sale. Although one book may cost only a couple hundred dollars from AsukaBook, the Woodses consider the cost of the design and also what an album of 40 8 x 10s would cost. Figuring in those factors, Woods says the studio quotes prices starting at $1,500 for the books.

A second use is more surprising. Though the Woodses are based in a small town, they photograph weddings around the country and internationally. So they select photos from high-end weddings that would appeal to the other vendors, turn them into books and give them to the vendors?for free. These turn into a marketing tool for both the vendors and for the Woodses, whose contact information is prominently displayed.

"It's a true gift," Woods explains. "Of course we make sure it's the right kind of vendor?we're not doing that for the American Legion hall."



www.jeffersontodd.com

www.abbeyphotographers.com

www.robertcharlesphoto.com

www.jwweddinglife.com