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Dennis Kirkpatrick Expert PageANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio's Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com bringing photographers to the web to sell, display, and proof images since 1998. Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Port Charlotte, Florida, photographer, Dennis Kirkpatrick, of Extreme Sports Photography . You are listening to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. I am your host, John Bentley. Thanks for joining us today, Dennis.
DENNIS: Thank you for having me.
JOHN: How are things down there in Florida with your photography business?
DENNIS: It's going pretty well. This is our busy time of the year. We have soccer right now. We've got 3 - 5 shoots every weekend coming up.
JOHN: Oh yeah. Now you guys focus just on sports photography, true?
DENNIS: That's true. We just shoot digitally sport photography.
JOHN: Now you're going to these events then. Are they bit events that you're going to, or do you go to small events too?
DENNIS: We'll do anything from small YMCAs to 1800 kids. That's our largest week right now.
JOHN: Now when you go to do a shoot, do you have a number of photographers shooting at the same time?
DENNIS: On most of the shoots we have one shooter and anywhere from three to twelve assistants. On some of the shoots, we'll have one shooter shooting just individuals and another one shooting the team pictures, but most of the time it's one person doing it all.
JOHN: Now when you're at an event, what kind of an entourage are you bringing with you?
DENNIS: Anywhere from 3 - 12 assistants, a shooter. We have a tent, couple of tents, a photo tent and a cashier's tent. They'll be greeters and cashiers at that tent to help the customers when they come up and fill out there envelopes like the packages. If there's a border involved, let them know what the choices are. Try to up sell them. Then the customer will come back; we'll get their order processed, and they'll come over to the photographer's tent and we'll shoot the individual and then that will be followed by the team picture.
JOHN: So you're a actually doing the production work, the graphic work and the printing right there on site?
DENNIS: We don't print anything or do anything on site other than shoot photographs. We use to shoot..well we used to shoot outdoors and print out everything an eight by eighteen foot trailer with dieset printers and we stopped doing that about 8 years ago, and we bought a Nurit Two paper processor. We do everything in house as far as the printing goes and the production. We put everything together and then we return it within 7 days most of the time.
JOHN: Well that's a good turn around then for the parents. It's nice for the parents to be able to see the actual image before they purchase it then, huh?
DENNIS: They don't see the image before they purchase it.
JOHN: They do not?
DENNIS: No, they do not. If they're persistent and they wanna come up and look behind the shooter and look at the image on the LCD screen, we will let them do it but if you have 1,000 people wanting do that, it will really will put you behind so we usually...the way we have it set up...the photographer is in a tent shooting out and the background would be whatever the natural setting is so the parents really don't get to come over there.
JOHN: Well let's talk about the specific products, the end result of what they get. Let's say you're doing soccer right now, how do you present this to a parent?
DENNIS: Before the shoot we'll ask for the lead coordinator for a list of the game times and the coaches' names and sponsor names if they're going to get sponsor or coaches plaques, and they'll fill out a league information sheet which is an Excel spreadsheet that we have created. They'll send that to us and from that we'll make the flyers up that will inform the parents what package is available and the date and the time the pictures are scheduled for their child. They'll come on the day of shoot and we'll have greeters that will pretty much not do anything with cash but they'll be buy our samples and show the parents and the families the samples that we offer and the different packages and the plaques and the mugs and the mousepads and what have you. From there, once the envelope is completed and is correct, they'll get by the greeters and go to the cashier who will process their payment check, credit card, or cash, give the envelope back to the parents after the payment has been processed and highlight it and make sure that the team and the division is on there, because if they don't have the right team and division, the child will get the wrong team picture on their package.
JOHN: Sure.
DENNIS: From there, they will come over to the photographer's tent, and we'll know by the highlighting, the colored highlighting, if there is a mistake which cashier made that mistake and just give them a little bit more coaching and we'll know that they've been through the cash table by the way the envelope is highlighted and initialed. We'll take the child's photograph, and then they'll go and wait in a little cube for their whole to be present. We'll have another team coordinator working with the coaches, letting them know how things go when the team is already to have their team picture taken when the coach doesn't want wait any longer or they have all their players lined up in height order. The team coordinator will get them posed, set them up. There will be another slash or strobe that's outside of the tent that we'll set up, call to photographer that's in the tent over. He'll take the picture or she'll take the picture and then we'll move on.
JOHN: Quite an efficient little system you've got going on there?
DENNIS: It works pretty well. It's been 21 years of mistakes and learning from those mistakes, and then coming to what we have today.
JOHN: Sure. Now you mentioned some of the products that you offer mugs, mouse pads. Give me a list of the items that someone could purchase with their child's photograph on it.
DENNIS: We have digital memory mate, sports pages we call them, which have the team picture on the bottom and the individual on top and a graphic design and the league name and a logo. They can choose any type of or size prints, some mini wallets to poster prints, mouse pads, woven blankets, tote bags, creative cards, of course, images that will be put on an actual football or soccer ball. We have a photo ball machine that we can imprint the child or team pictures onto a small football or large football, same thing with, you know, basketballs or soccer balls, baseballs, are all the same size. You can even put then on Christmas ornaments.
JOHN: Now would you give our listeners your website and contact information?
DENNIS: We have two websites.
JOHN: Oh, you do?
DENNIS: I own, Extreme Plus Photography which is a franchise opportunity and we have seven of those and that is extreme with the www.xtremesportsphoto.com and my personal website is www.dkphotography.com;
JOHN: What about contact information like a phone number or something.
DENNIS: Our studio number is (941) 876-6697 that's for DK Photography and Xtreme Sports Photography is (941)876-6701.
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Port Charlotte, Florida, photographer, Dennis Kirkpatrick with Xtreme Sports Photography. You're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to step aside for these important messages, we'll be right back.
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ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: We are speaking with Port Charlotte, Florida, photographer, Dennis Kirkpatrick with Xtreme Sports Photography. We are on VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight program today. Welcome back to the program, Dennis.
DENNIS: Thanks.
JOHN: Now we've been talking about sports photography. Obviously, like you said you are very busy this year with soccer programs probably football programs and all that. Tell us a little bit about the cities and communities in the area that you are covering down there in Port Charlotte.
DENNIS: In Florida, we shoot pretty much the whole state. I have one franchise that covers seven territories for me. I oversee the seven territories in Southwest Florida, the middle of the state. My wife runs the space coast which is the East Coast of Florida over by the Valucia County which is Daytona Beach and Melbourne. Then we have the seven other franchises that are in Colorado, mid Tennessee, Hawaii, and then we have seven other franchises that cover various states.
JOHN: Ok, Tell me why, how did you become a photographer in the first place. Where did all this start? This is your own business, and tell us how you got in to all this.
DENNIS: We both started pretty much by accident. In 1984, I became a New York City cop and in 85, got into an altercation and broke my wrist. It had to be fused back together, and I was getting out on a disability pension. At the time I had a couple of daughters and I was signing 6 year old was up for baseball. I just had a camera that I was taking pictures of my kids that I thought were good pictures, but looking back they were just a dad thinking that the pictures of the kids were pretty good and they weren't. I asked the league director if anybody ever took pictures of the kids, and he said it would be a great idea could you do it for me, and that's how the little league photography business started for me. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what to do. So I joined the Professional Photographers of America; took a bunch of classes out in Minona, which was in Chicago at the time and learned from reading and taking classes.
JOHN: Tell us, you also offer this kind of education for photographers I notice you have a seminar page on your website tell us a little bit about that aspect of your business.
DENNIS: In the last 10 years I've been speaking for different organizations, the Digital Advanced Technology Committee, the Professional Photographers of America, SEP which is Society of Sports and Events Photographers. Different state conventions. This coming year we're working on putting on a ten city seminar tour where we're going to take ten cities out. We have an RV and we have four Siberian huskies that are pretty much our kids now, and we travel with them. So hit the road with our RV, and we're going to hit ten different cities to teach other photographers what we consider as the easy and correct way to do sports photography.
JOHN: Which ten cities are you going to be hitting.
DENNIS: We're going to hit the east coast any where from Oklahoma all the way up to New England area. We haven't picked up the ten cities as if yet, but if anybody wanted to get more information or make a suggestion they could probably hit my email address at dennis@dkphotography.com
JOHN: GGreat. Now you for the organizations that you're involved in. Can you name some of the other ones? I know that you're involved in more than just 1 or 2.
DENNIS: I'm the member of the Florida's organization which is the Florida Professional Photographer's Organization and they are affiliated with SEPO which is the South East Professional Photographers Organization. I am also a member of NAPP National Association of Photoshop Professionals, and in my opinion, I think they give the best conference that I've ever been to. Non-stop Photoshop training for three days and it's educational and it's also humorous too. The instructors are top notch there. Being a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professional for $99 a year, you get you get a magazine which has been instrumental in teaching me how to use Photoshop and keeping techniques up and comes out I think 8-10 times a year. If a new version of Photoshop comes around, you'll get a version pretty much the same time the program hits the streets with all the new tips and tricks of associated with that version.
JOHN: Now, these parents can also order plaques and trophies from you guys. You guys are involved in that aspect of this line of work. Tell me about the trophies and plaques that you offer.
DENNIS: We are--most of our leagues down here it's extremely competitive down here in Florida. You have to pretty much give them cash back, plaques, sponsors, and coaches, fund raisers various other give aways. The league wants mostly the least amount of work that they can do and get the most amount of money back from it. So it's very competitive down here. If I wasn't doing my own processing it would be very tough to make a good living at it. The trophies and the plaques. Most of them are giveaways except for the ones where the parents will buy for their children. The trophies we try to supplement our income by selling trophies. Our feeling is we go into a league before they'll even talk to somebody that' selling trophies. In my experience almost all the leagues that we deal with they buy a trophy at the end of the season for the kids. Some leagues will buy a presentation trophy or a participation trophy, excuse me, and then they'll also give out place trophies depending on what place that team came in. So sometimes you can get them for two trophies on some of the teams. Being that were are the photographers and they're talking to us before the season starts and won't talk to the trophy companies, we've got a foot in the door already. They're already like us and they're letting us do their photography. We do the photo shoot, they like what we did. We'll mention to them that we sell trophy as well, and we're willing to give them a discount. We can give them a little bit more of the discount then a trophy manufacturer can do, in my opinion, because it's not our bread and butter...we're making our money up to photographs. We're trying to supplement our income from the trophy sales. So a discount we could probably give would be ridiculous to a trophy company because they would probably be thinking they're giving it away. If we can make a dollar or two on a trophy sale, and we shot a thousand kids league, we're doing pretty good, because we just made an extra couple grand for just putting some trophies together.
JOHN: Now, what is your most important goal when you're photographing these children performing or the standard shot. What are you looking for?
DENNIS: What we try to do different than the next guy is everybody it seems now is a soccer mom that has a camera, and they wanna go out, and you know take the lead away. So they don't care. They think making a few hundred bucks on a Saturday is good so they'll do it for less. So we're competing against people who don't even know what color space or an ICC profile is let alone what good photography is. So what we try to do when we're shooting the photographs is try to be different. I learned a lot of my background through the Professional Photographers of America, and learned it from very good photographers. Well from Monty Zucker who was not a sport photographer. He was a portrait and wedding photographer and very good in his craft. I've taken what I've learned from them and applied it to my sports. Will pose better than the next guy. We'll make sure our background and our photographs are properly balanced. The exposures are dead on. We'll do everything right in the camera, and if you get a good exposure and a good expression from that child, we'll take the job back if we lost it to a soccer mom or somebody that's an amateur that's just doing this part time. We even have a sheet that we dare to compare. We send out in stead of...we don't believe in trash talking competition. I mean the competition is there, it's going to make us better. What we've come up with is a form that we want to dare them to compare our work to anybody else's our there, and we'll explain to them what to look for, and we'll make sure that that list is pretty detailed where an amateur photographer probably won't even know what most of the questions on it are. And we'll explain that to the league so they can dare to compare our photographs. What does the background look like? What does the expression look like? What are the colors of the shirts look like? All of our cameras and our monitors and our color printer are all color profile. So our color is pretty much on, and our exposures are definitely on. So we'll this to try and lure the league back to us and let them know that they're getting a professional, and they're not just getting somebody doing this part time.
JOHN: Well, Dennis, before I let you go, will you kindly give our listening audience your website information and contact number.
DENNIS: Our website addresses are www.xtremesportsphoto.com and www.dkphotography.com and the phone numbers here are (941) 876-6697 for DK Photography and Xtreme Sports Photography franchise information we're at (941)876-6701.
JOHN: Well thank you for joining us today the Photography Spotlight here on VTalk Radio, Dennis.
DENNIS: Thanks for having us.
JOHN: in the studio with Port Charlotte, Florida, photographer and owner of Xtreme Sports Photography, Dennis Kirkpatrick. You've been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Thanks for joining us today. Have a great afternoon everyone.
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