Today's Guest: Adam Berry of
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Adam Berry Expert PageANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is brought to you by morephotos.combring photographers to the web to sell, display, and proof images since 1998. Welcome to the VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Adam Berry of Pret-a-Portrait, Ltd., of Bunning Ford Hertz, England. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Adam.
ADAM: Thank you for having me.
JOHN: It's wonderful to talk to somebody on the other side of the planet. Now you're primary focus is school children; is that correct?
ADAM: Yes. We're a photography company that specializes in family portrait photography and school photography where we photograph thousands and thousands of children.
JOHN: How long have you been involved in this line of work?
ADAM: I set the company with a friend of mine about 4 years ago. Prior to that we both did completely different things. Nick, my colleague, worked in advertising. I worked in banking selling computers, but photography was always in the background my hobby and passion, and 4 years ago we were lucky enough to be able to start a company doing just that. So I guess the real answer to your question is about 4 years.
JOHN: Now photographing children, that can be kind of tricky at times, can't it?
ADAM: Absolutely. We always tell our photographers that the small part of the job is handling the camera and the lights, and the big part of the job is getting on well with a large number of small children. If you can entertain them and make them smile at you, then it doesn't really matter what kit you use, you're going to be successful.
JOHN: Now when you go into a session, are you shooting multiple children, or are you doing single settings? Do they come to your studio or do you go to them?
ADAM: Well it's a bit of a mixture. On the school photography side, in particular, in England, there's a tradition that schools organize photographers to come to schools normally once in the autumn to photograph the children one at a time and separately in the summer time to photograph the children in their class groups or in their sports teams so on the school photography side of our work, we take our studio to lots of schools around the UK in two seasons, an autumn season and a summer season, and we photograph all the children in the autumn time one at a time and in the summer time in groups. On the family portrait side of our business, we tend to take kits to where we can find communities of customers. So sometimes that might be weekend events at schools where families book a 30 minute slot and we set up our studio in the school hall. It might be when families are on holiday. We set up our studios two or three times a week in several holiday centers around the UK, or it might be in somebody's house. If they have a room big enough, we'll come and set up the kit there, and they can invite their friends around, and we'll photograph them that way. It's a mixture.
JOHN: Now when you have a session set up, are you using multiple photographers?
ADAM: Well across the UK, we can be in about ten or eleven places on any particular day. We've got a pool of about 25 photographers around the UK and we work those photographers in pairs so on any one day and any one studio there will be two of us. Usually they're both photographers and one will do the first setting and then the next photographer will take over. When the photographer is not taking the pictures. He'll be resting and be talking to customers or getting files sorted on computers or whatever. Twenty-five photographers around the country, but working in pairs.
JOHN: Now when you're shooting a family setting, what is it you're looking for. What do you want to capture in a family setting?
ADAM: What we really want to do, and I'm speaking commercially, because we want to produce a wide range of pictures that the family will want to buy, and in our experience that means we want to produce a wide range of pictures in which the people in the family are looking like they're enjoying themselves, happy and relaxed. We tend not to be formal. We have lots of different things that we get families to do that tend to produce pictures that are fun. So that's what we're after.
JOHN: And you said that you will travel to locations. What are some of the areas that you cover?
ADAM: Well we bid ourselves in the UK as being nationwide. That's a bit of a struggle at times. We've got pockets of photographers around the UK, and we have traveled to schools in Scotland and Wales, and we've been invited to Northern Ireland. It hasn't happened yet. I guess the longest journey would be 300 - 400 miles from base which is just north of London, and you know, we'll tend to send whoever lives nearest to the job, but occasionally we've flown photographers around the country or we've had them driving for a few hundred miles and put them up in hotels. But if anyone asks, we say yes. It's never happened yet that we've been invited to the states, although, I have a friend who lives in Los Angelos who has said if ever I'm in his neck of the woods with a set of kits, he's got a bunch of mates that would like to be photographed so you never know.
JOHN: That's right. Wonderful. Now we're in the studio with Adam Berry. He is with Pret-a-Portrait, Ltd., of Bunning Ford Hertz, England, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We'll be right back after these important messages.
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ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: We are in the studio with Adam Berry of Pret-a-Portrait, Ltd., of Bunning Ford Hertz, England, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Welcome back to the program, Adam.
ADAM: Thank you very much.
JOHN: Now we've been talking about your photography business over there in England. Let's talk a little bit about some of the products that you offer to your customers.
ADAM: Yeah, sure. There are plenty of them is the first thing. Because we've been going relatively a short enough time, pretty much all the work we do and ever have done has been using digital technology. We find that increasingly you can print images on a wide range of items. So although most of what we sell I guess is conventional photographic prints, either un-framed or framed, we find we can print images on fabric, on hand bags, on Christmas cards, on canvases to put on the wall, beach bags. There's a whole range of things we can print images on, and our prominent range is quite ride because of it. I guess another feature of our product range is that we're always trying to say yes, so when customers ask us can they have small, unframed prints, we say yes. Another of our competitors seem only to offer larger prints in frames, expensive, and we just hope that for our friends what they want the customers to spend the money and it all works in the end. I guess another thing that customers tell is is that because we tend to take lots of pictures in every sitting, customers are always asking how can they get all these different pictures and one thing we do a lot of, we call a 9 up and it's basically where we have 9 separate images propped square arranged as a 3x3 grid so a family can have a picture of all them together, the kids together, the kids one at a time, everyone jumping in there, everyone looking great and produce one image that is an overall snapshot of who they want to be, and that is very popular.
JOHN: I would imagine it would be. Now I notice on your site that you have something called sound art speaker systems. Can you explain that?
ADAM: Well this is probably our latest product. We were approached by a UK company who said we have a marvelous thing we can produce high quality hi-fi speakers that look like pictures. They're flat, they're covered in canvas, they come in an a range of sizes and basically you connect them to a sub-amp, I don't know the electronics of it, but you can use them as hi-fi speakers. They look fantastic; I'm looking at two right now. You wouldn't know they produce a sound until you turn them on, and they sound magnificent. We've had various, I guess, customers come to us at the time they are reconfiguring their houses and spending lots of money, and they've bought them, and they love them.
JOHN: Now has that got a canvas front to it?
ADAM: Yes, so when the customer orders from us, we prepare the images. They get printed on canvas. The canvas is wrapped around so it looks like a normal stretcher, you know, normal canvas stretcher, but actually inside is a flat panel speaker. The wiring all gets put into the wall so that when you look at the wall, you see a big picture, but when you turn on your hi-fi, that big picture produces fantastic sound.
JOHN: That's an incredible idea.
ADAM: Yeah. We were pleased and the guys that do the electronics seem to be doing very well with it too. They're quite excited about that.
JOHN: Great. Now how do your customers select their pictures from you? Do they have to come into your studio, or is their a way they can do that online?
ADAM: No absolutely they don't come into the studio. Our model of doing portrait photography is well I guess it's not unique, but it's certainly quite new and uses all this digital age. Once we photograph the customers, we give them some paperwork that describes how they find our website and we give them a password. So they're instructed to visit our website, enter their password, and at that point they see all the pictures we've taken for them. It's an individual password. They don't see anybody else's pictures, and even with schools, if we photograph 1,000 children, we produce 1,000 different pieces of paper with 1,000 different passwords on it, and every parent gets to see just their pictures. And once they're at that point, they can browse til their hearts content at home, narrow the selection down, choose what they want and order it online or ring us up. At no point in the process do we get them back in the studio. At no point in the process do we twist their arms. There are lots of stories about photographers requiring customers to come back. They play them lovely music; they make them beautiful coffee; they show them the pictures huge on the wall, and they offer them finance and they don't let them leave until they've spent a fortune. Our model is very different. So far, it seems to work. Customers tell us they like it, and the word is spreading, and most customers of ours tend to be advocates of our business, and we haven't advertised; the word just spreads by that route.
JOHN: Great, Adam. Now before I let you go why don't you share with our listening audience your website so people can come and see what you have to offer.
ADAM: Absolutely. They should. Well you can find us on www.pret-a-portrait.com.uk. You'll see a description of who we are, what we offer, examples of our work, and various ways in which we disclose how we can come and be involved and I guess we'd love to hear from people in America. I can't promise that we'll be around, in fact, there is an event near me, but if you'd like to be informed about when we're next in your area. If we've got a few events near me, requests from America as a result of this, we'd be delighted. I can't promise exactly when we'll be around, but we'll certainly try.
JOHN: Well certainly VTalk Radio on the internet is worldwide so anybody here in this interview will be able to order work from you. Speaking of ordering, how about your phone number there in the UK.
ADAM: Absolutely. Great. Once you're in the UK our number is 0-84-545-63494.
JOHN: Well thank you so much for joining us today, Adam, on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight.
ADAM: It was a great pleasure. Thanks very much for having us.
JOHN: We've been in the studio with Adam Berry of Pret-a-Portrait, Ltd., of Bunning Ford Hertz, England, and you've been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. I am your host, John Bentley. Thanks for joining us. Signing off for me and Damien here in the studio. Have a great afternoon.
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