Today's Guest: Ruth Harper of Happily Ever After Photography. in St.Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota
Today's Host: Damien Allen
September 2007
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Happily Ever After Photography 
Ruth Harper Transcript Page
Ruth Harper Expert PageANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, Damien Allen. Today's program is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
DAMIEN: Good afternoon and welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. My name is Damien Allen, and today in the Studio with us via phone we have St. Paul, Minneapolis, MN, photographer, Ruth Harper. The name of her business is Happily Ever After. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight, Ruth, how are you doing today?
RUTH: I'm doing good. Thanks for having me.
DAMIEN: You're very welcome. We're glad to have you here. I understand you've got a great big booming photography business out there in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Why don't you tell us a little bit about it.
RUTH: Well we've been in business now for about 12 years and basically we specialize in photographing some of the most unique and inspiring weddings in the twin cities. It is myself and I do have four associates so we combine photograph around 100 weddings every year, and we really strive to offer the best in non-traditional really fun, unique pictures with a little more of a flare for fashion and fun while we still mix in some of the posed group and family pictures.
DAMIEN: Is there any other kind of photography that you specialize in?
RUTH: We do a lot of pregnancy pictures, newborns, families, children, anything portrait related.
DAMIEN: Ok, so it's basically family from beginning to end then?
RUTH: Pretty much from the time they get married on, we are set.
DAMIEN: When you're doing a lot of maternity pictures, you're doing weddings, you're doing family and children shots, what kind of advice do you give to your clients when they're coming in looking for a session like that?
RUTH: When you're looking for a portrait session, you really want to look at the style of the pictures that the photographer does and make sure you're choosing the right photographer. If you're looking for something that's more studio based and traditional then you'll want to look for that versus if you're thinking of about having an outdoor session in the fall leaves. We do both, actually, about 50/50 family pictures inside and outside, and our traditional family shots inside are not necessarily overly posed. They tend to be more unique, black and white photos.
DAMIEN: Do you shoot those in your own studio, or do you go on location?
RUTH: No, we do have a studio here and then we go on location when it's nice outside.
DAMIEN: How long have you been in business?
RUTH: We've been doing this for about 12 years now as Happily Ever After. We have a great studio location right in St. Paul off of Highway 94 and 280, and we've been in this location for about 6 years.
DAMIEN: Now you had mentioned before that you're the primary photographer and that you had several associates; when you do a wedding or some type of family event where you're using multiple photographers, is it an equal ratio of male/female shooters...are you getting two kinds of perspective, are your associates taught to shoot in the same style as you, or is it pretty much a collage of different styles that we bring together?
RUTH: Well, we all have a similar working style or else we wouldn't be able to work together very well, and we all have kind of the same vision, but we all have strengths and weaknesses as well. So, what we'll do every wedding is photographed by a lead photographer and an assistant. So if they me, for example, they would get me along with one of my assistants. If they hired my lead associate, Kerri, they would get Kerri and one of her assistants, and we try to strike a good balance there so that we have somebody who is doing a lot of details and is really into the closeup moments and maybe the other person is really into the big picture and can get the overviews really well. So that the bride and groom don't have to worry; they have it completely covered from two perspectives.
DAMIEN: Well, we've been talking about the weddings and what are the wedding halls or facilities that you tend to use a lot there in the area?
RUTH: We work, you know, really all over the twin cities, but some of our favorite sites...we love to work at the Carlton Towers. We, of course, love the Great Hall which is downtown St. Paul. The Landmark Center another great St. Paul location. The St. Paul Hotel. Any of the area country clubs are all beautiful. The Mill City Museum is beautiful. The Walker Art Center is another really fun one. I mean, we're willing to go anywhere, and it's always fun for us to work at new venues. Places that maybe we haven't been to before.
DAMIEN: Now, in Minneapolis-St. Paul area, what are some of the other communities that you service?
RUTH: Well the entering suburbs. We have Bloomington and Edina and Golden Valley, Maple Grove, Woodbury, Inver Grove Heights, Minnetonka, Wayzata. I mean, really all the way out as far as Rogers, Hastings, and even Hudson, Wisconsin.
DAMIEN: So if you're going all the way to Wisconsin, are you willing to do the destination wedding thing let's say if somebody wants you to go down to Barbados to shoot a wedding?
RUTH: We would love to go to Barbados! Destination weddings is something I would love to get into more.
DAMIEN: Have camera, will travel.
RUTH: Exactly.
DAMIEN: You've been in the business for a long time now, have you made the conversion to straight digital now, or are you still shooting film?
RUTH: Oh no, we've been digital...we went digital pretty early, right around 2001 so digital is old hat for us.
DAMIEN: It seems to be more people have started to put away the film for easy format cameras.
RUTH: Yes, and it's an advantage to the client too when we're shooting digital. The client really has more options and more control at that point. We do photograph everything in color and then we can convert. So we can always save that color file and go back to it if we need to so....Really most of our clients do want about 50% black and white.
DAMIEN: Do you do all your editing in-house?
RUTH: We do, yes. I actually do it myself. I edit my weddings as well as all of my associates weddings. And then we have a professional lab that takes it from there and does all of our printing.
DAMIEN: We are speaking with Ruth Harper of Happily Ever After, a photography business out there in St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN. Ruth, could you kindly give our listeners your website and contact information?
RUTH: Sure they can contact me at Happily Ever After. Our address is 2500 University Avenue. That's in St. Paul, MN 55114. Our phone number is (651) 335-8198 and the website is www.happilyeverafterphoto.com.
DAMIEN: You are listening to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. We're going to take a short break for these commercial messages, we'll be right back after this.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
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ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio Photographer's Spotlight with your host, Damien Allen.
DAMIEN: Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. We are in the studio via telephone with Ruth Harper of Happily Ever After. Ruth is a Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, photographer specializing in weddings, children, family, maternity and all issues and aspects of photography dealing with the family from beginning to end. Welcome back to the program, Ruth.
RUTH: Hi. Nice to be back.
DAMIEN: We've been talking about your business, and we've been talking about the type of photography you do. What other products do you offer to your clients other than the standard photo package or in studio or destination type package?
RUTH: We are actually a full service studio. So we offer everything from shooting to framing, we do custom frames and enlargements. One of the really popular products right now is called a gallery wrap and that is a canvas with the photo printed on to a canvas and then it's stretched and wrapped around the stretcher frame and it comes ready to hang. So it doesn't need to be framed, it's just ready to hang. It's very modern and clean looking. Our clients are loving that both portrait and wedding clients. We also offer a full range of albums and story books from coffee table style books back to the very traditional, classic photo on the page kind of albums and those have been popular for years.
DAMIEN: And I was looking at your website, and I must recommend that if you'd like to see some very, very lovely photo demonstration, to go up to the website, we just mentioned the website address just before the break and we'll mention it again here in a minute, but the portfolio is wonderful and the storybooks look very cool. It's a very nice product.
RUTH: Yeah, it's been really, really popular. Clients love those.
DAMIEN: Now we talked about the products and the services that you offer, you do all your editing in-house. Do you offer online proofing and online ordering as well?
RUTH: We do. So basically the way it works after a wedding is the wedding is online...uploaded and fully viewable by Thursday following the wedding, and then the bride and groom actually get printed proofs as well. They get a complete set of 4 x 6 originals and those are available the next week. So within two weeks, the bride and groom have everything.
DAMIEN: What's you're most important goal when you're shooting for the clients?
RUTH: It's really important to me that we capture, this sounds really artsy, but that we can capture the essence of of their personalities. We want their pictures to look like them, not to look like us trying to fit them into a mold that a wedding should be. So we just really try to follow the fun and just capture what's going on and the personalities so that we can work at the same location over and over and over, but never shoot the same pictures.
DAMIEN: What makes your services unique and what separates you from the competition?
RUTH: We really do share a passion for photography and beauty here. I mean, it's not only me, it's everyone that I work with. It is our driving force and our life is to make beauty and wherever we can find that whether it's at a wedding in little details of a flower or grandmother's hand holding the bride's hand looking at the ring, you know, all of those little things really come together and we're very detail oriented and it's very important to us to get everything to be able to tell the story, and I think that's what sets us apart from the competition.
DAMIEN: If you were to have one specific dream photo shoot, what would it be?
RUTH: Well, being landlocked in the Midwest, it would have to be something on a beach I think. I think it would have to be a bride and groom on a beach at sunset. That would be a lot of fun to shoot.
DAMIEN: So all the brides and grooms out there, or brides and grooms to be actually who want a sunset beach wedding or just a pre-wedding photograph, please call Ruth Harper.
RUTH: Pre or post.
DAMIEN: And speaking of which, Ruth, could you give us the website and contact information one more time.
RUTH: Yep it is Happily Ever After. We're in St. Paul at 2500 University Avenue. The phone number is (651) 335-8198 and the website is www.happilyeverafterphoto.com.
DAMIEN: We have been speaking via phone with Ruth Harper, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, photographer. The name of her business is Happily Ever After. Thank you very much for joining us on the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight, Ruth.
RUTH: Thank you it was fun.
DAMIEN: And thank you listeners for listening to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. I am Damien Allen. 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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