Today's Guest: Bill Artman of Bill Artman Photography Inc. in Shawnee, Kansas
Today's Host: John Bentley
October 2007
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Bill Artman Expert PageANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today's program is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
JOHN: Today we are in the Studio with Bill Artman of Bill Artman Photography of Shawnee, KS. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight, Bill.
BILL: Thank you, John.
JOHN: It's a pleasure having you. Can you tell us a little bit about your photography business?
BILL: Sure. I've been doing professional photography for 34 years and we're located in Shawnee, KS, which is a westerly suburb of the Kansas City metro area, and we do all kinds of photography. We do a lot of portraits to include children and families, high school seniors keep us real busy. We also do commercial photography, corporate photography, special event photography, and also do weddings. So, we just do a little bit of everything.
JOHN: Bill, what other types of services do you offer through your company?
BILL: Well, we are primarily digital and in addition to the portraits, we do all kinds of portraits. We offer three different styles of portraits, the Heritage, the Regal, the Basic portrait. They're all different portrait styles and finishes. We just started offering what we call paint or water color portrait which gives a painter effect. We offer lots of different special effect photographs for all of our portrait lines and the same for weddings. We offer special effects in weddings, and we can do black in white, we can do brown tone sepia. Really anything that our clients want, we're prepared to offer them.
JOHN: So you do primarily digital, or are you still doing some film?
BILL: No, we're primarily digital. We've sold all of our film equipment and so we're...I guess I should say, we're 100% digital.
JOHN: Would you tell us some of the cities and communities in the area that you're servicing, Bill.
BILL: Well, sure. As I had mentioned earlier, because we're in Shawnee, that's the part of the metropolitan Kansas City area, so we serve all of the Kansas City suburb. We serve Lawrence, KS, which is about 30 miles west of us. Basically, we will go wherever our clients, you know, want to pay for us to come.
JOHN: Now, you have a studio. Are you doing a lot of outdoor shots?
BILL: in the summertime we probably do 95% of all of our portrait sessions outdoors, because there's a lot of good locations around Kansas City for outdoor portraits. When we do our high school seniors, we do offer a studio session and an outdoor session. We also offer a combo and that combo is both studio and outdoors.
JOHN: What are some of the locations around Kansas City that you're doing these outdoor shots?
BILL: Appleton Art Gallery, the Koffman Memorial Gardens, the Luce Park Rose Garden area, Union Station, the Verona Columns in Mission Hills. Those are all really, really good locations for outdoor portraits.
JOHN: When a client comes to you to do an event, to have their photo taken. Do you have some advice for them?
BILL: Oh, absolutely. First of all we want our clients to relax and to have fun, and we also recommend smiles. When we're photographing young children and especially high school seniors, you know, moms really like smiles. Also as far as clothing goes, a lot of our clients don't realize how important the clothing is to make a good portrait so we recommend solid colors instead of plaids and stripes, prints or florals, because when you look at the portrait, you want the viewer's eye to go right to the people's faces, and if you wear solid colors that will happen. If you wear prints or stripes or florals, the clothing calls attention to itself. So clothing is really, really important.
JOHN: What are some of the things you do to make your clients feel comfortable?
BILL: Well we really try to give them the highest level of client service. When people call us on the phone, we just spend as much time as we need to. A lot of times people when they call back, after they've talked to us the first time, they'll tell us, you know, one of the reasons why we're calling you back is because you spent so much time on the phone with us initially answering all of our questions and explaining things to us. Then when they actually come for the portrait session, we have refreshments to make them feel more at ease and more comfortable. We joke around during the session to, again, make people feel at ease and then also as an added bonus, and our clients really, really love this, every time our clients come to the studio when they leave they get a box of Otis Spunkmeyer Chocolate Chip Cookies, and that is really, really a favorite with everyone.
JOHN: Well that will put a smile on their faces.
BILL: That's for sure, it does.
JOHN: Please tell our listeners your website address and contact information, Bill.
BILL: Sure, it's www.artmanphoto.com and they can reach us by email at bill@artmanphoto.com and then our telephone number is (913) 631-4725. When they go on to our website, they can click on the about us menu and drop down to where it says contact us and they can also send us an email directly through our website.
JOHN: We are in the studio with Bill Artman of Bill Artman Photography of Shawnee, KS You are listening to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. We're going to break away for these messages, we'll be right back.
VTALK RADIO: VTalk Radio.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Photographer's Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
ANNOUNCER: We now return you to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley. JOHN: Today we are in the studio with award winning photographer, Bill Artman of Bill Artman Photography of Shawnee, KS. Welcome back to the program, Bill.
BILL: Thank you; glad to be here.
JOHN: Now, Bill, you're a member of a number of organizations and, of course, you're a Stern Award winning photographer. Tell us about these organizations you're involved in.
BILL: Ok, thank you. I'm a member of the Professional Photographers of America, Kansas Professional Photographers Association, and then our local group here in Kansas City which is the Professional Photographers of Greater Kansas City, and it's really a good idea for a photographer to be a member of these professional organizations because we have online training and fellowship through conventions and meetings and it's just really a good way to stay current with the industry and, you know, talk to other photographers.
JOHN: Tell us about the Stern Award that you received.
BILL: Well the Stern Award is the highest award that the Kansas City Professional Photographers can bestow on a member and the Sterns were photographers back in Kansas City many, many years ago, and they exemplified the highest degree of knowledge and professionalism and the Stern Award emulates that to the photographers that receive it.
JOHN: Now, you've been a photographer for a number of years now. Why did you decide to become a photographer in the first place, Bill?
BILL: Well, I just really, really was interested in photography. You know as a young child as I was growing up, and I just wanted to create images to make people happy. Photography is an emotion business and people come to us because they want to and not because they have to, and it just gives me a really great feeling when I'm showing a young mother portraits of her baby or a mother of a high school senior for that matter, and they're just struck with the images that it brings them to tears. So it's just really a good career to be a part of.
JOHN: So what's your most important goal when you sit down with a client?
BILL: My most important goal is to make them happy. We have a very, very high level of satisfaction with all of our clients. We get a lot of business from referrals and the only way that that will happen is if the photographer, you know, goes an extra mile to ensure client satisfaction.
JOHN: What separates Bill Artman Photography from the competition?
? I would say my intense desire to satisfy the client and to give them just the best imaging available with a real high level of creativity.
JOHN: Bill what's the most important goal you have when shooting a client.
BILL: I would say it would be ensuring the client's total satisfaction and giving them a creative image with the highest quality. It's really important to me as a business man that I do this in today's consumer world, you might say. I think a lot of companies don't really pay attention to really giving the highest level of service and the highest level of quality.
JOHN: And what does the future hold for Bill Artman Photography?
BILL: I think the future is bright. You know, there's always going to be high school seniors that need images. With the current affairs in the world, you know, family ties are even more important now than what they were in the past and so families are always going to want to be photographed. We're always going to you know have young moms with young children that they want images taken also, so I think that the future is bright for us.
JOHN: And would you tell our listeners a little bit about the commercial and special events that you shoot.
BILL: Well, sure. The definition of commercial photography is we're taking photographs of pieces of equipment, for instance, buildings instead of people. And we're also working for companies instead of consumers so that's a good differentiation between commercial photography and I guess what you could call consumer photography. We do commercial photography and corporate photography for a lot of the companies here in Kansas City and also national companies. We're also doing special event photography for organizations that are having award banquets, this type of thing.
JOHN: Once again, Bill, will you give your website and contact information to our listeners.
BILL: Sure our web address is www.artmanphoto.com and you can reach us by email at bill@artmanphoto.com and then our telephone number is (913) 631-4725.
JOHN: You are listening to Bill Artman of Bill Artman Photography of Shawnee, KS. Thanks for joining us on VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight today, Bill.
BILL: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
JOHN: This is John Bentley signing off. VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. Have a great afternoon.
ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio Spotlight; only on www.vtalkradio.com. Radio for the 21st Century.
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