Today's Guest: Cindy Romano of C. Romano Photography in Woodstock, Illinois
Today's Host: John Bentley
November 2007
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Cindy Romano 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 Cindy Ramano of C. Ramano Photography of Woodstock, IL. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight,Cindy.
CINDY: Good morning; how are you guys doing?
JOHN: Just fine, we appreciate you joining us. Would you tell our audience a little bit about your photography business.
CINDY: I have a photography studio in Woodstock, Illinois, and it's where Dick Tracey Days were when Ground Hog Day was filmed. Our studio is out in the country. It's about on 5 acres, just down the road from an Antique Railroad Museum and a wild west town. So we have a lot of options here for photographing, and I started my studio in 1988, and we specialize in children and high school seniors and we like photographing them a lot.
JOHN: Now I see on your website you do a number of other photo shoots. Tell us about those.
CINDY: Yes, we also photograph families and we do weddings. Weddings...I take two weddings once a month and so we keep my sanity, but we do a lot of children and families on our 5 acre piece here.
JOHN: I see also maternity and newborns. Tell us about that.
CINDY: Yeah, we love to get the moms in here about on their 8th - 9th month and photograph them, because I think they're the most beautiful at that time. They might not think so, but I really think they're beautiful at that time. We photograph them in outfits we have at the studio and then once the baby is born, we like to photograph the baby about 4 - 5 weeks after the baby is born because they look brand new and they sleep a lot for another reason. We have the moms feed them in the studio and then let them sleep and we do some newborn pictures of the baby like on towels or in bassinets anything real cute even what the dad does for a business. I've had one baby come in and the dad's a truck driver, and we photographed the baby actually in a tire so that was kind of cute. And then the moms usually come back in for the first year plan 2. We do a first year plan that's called sweet kisses and we photograph at three, six, nine and one year plan, and at our one year plan we do a birthday theme where we have balloons and cake and we let the baby go at it on our big white floor so the moms don't have to worry about the baby making a mess and we let them go into the cake and photograph them eating the cake. So it's a lot of fun.
JOHN: Sounds like a lot of fun. What about some of the communities and cities in the area that you service, Cindy?
CINDY: Well we service a lot of McHenry County, Woodstock, Crystal Lake, Lake in the Hills. I have even people come in from Chicago to be photographed in our studio. I do have some out of town clients that come in from out of state, and when they're visiting family and friends here in Woodstock, they'll come into the studio and be photographed also.
JOHN: What about wedding facilities or banquet halls in the area that you like to use?
CINDY: Well, I'm kind of all over the place. I go up to Lake Geneva a lot. I do the banquet hall in Union. It's a Donnelly's Banquet Hall. I'm there a lot. Crystal Lake, I'm all over there. Woodstock. I've been to a lot of banquet halls. I've been downtown Chicago to the Sears Tower to the Blackstone Hotel, so wherever they want me to go, I will go. I've even gone out of state to do three different weddings. I've been to North Carolina, been to the state of Washington, and been to Texas to do a wedding. So that was a lot of fun. It gets me out of my realm and my comfort zone.
JOHN: Well being mobile it gives you a lot of extra opportunities to shoot people wherever they want a good photographer then, huh?
CINDY: Right. Correct.
JOHN: You mentioned you had been in business for a number of years, why did you decide to become a photographer in the first place?
CINDY: Well, I worked for a studio in Palatine. I grew up in Lake Zurich, and I worked for a studio in Palatine in high school, and not knowing that this was where it was going to take me. I started, you know, as counter girl and went into processing and then ended up in the dark room for a number of years until they asked me if I wanted to be a photographer in the portrait end of it. And I thought well, I couldn't live in the dark all my life so I tried being a portrait photographer and ended up really liking it a lot. I photographed in their studio about three or four years until I got pregnant myself and my husband and I moved out to Woodstock, and I started my own studio out of my home and it just grew from there. I worked 7 years out of my home, and after 7 years, I bought a small building in Woodstock right by the train station. I rented actually the building, and it was about 600 sq ft, and I thought it was the Taj Mahal when I went into it, and I was there for 3 years and then went into my other location on Calhoun Street, and I was there for 14 years. And then we bought the building and I had the building for about 2 years and ended up, unfortunately, getting cancer, and had to close my studio for a year and a half and deal with that, and then we re-opened my studio on my property. I took over my husband's 2,000 sq. ft polebarn which is absolutely great, and we built the inside to make a studio and now I have all this outside area to photograph on and it's really wonderful to do families now instead of driving to go do families at a park or something, I can do them right here on location.
JOHN: Cindy, would you tell our listeners your website and contact information if they'd like to get ahold of you?
CINDY: Sure our website is www.cromanophotography.com.
JOHN: And what about a phone number?
CINDY: And our phone number, I'm sorry, is (815) 568-1181.
JOHN: We are listening to Cindy Ramano of C. Ramano Photography of Woodstock, IL. This is John Bentley on the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. We're going to take a break, we'll be right back after these important messages.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
VTALK RADIO: VTalk Radio.
ANNOUNCER: We now return you to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley. JOHN: Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. We are in the studio today with Cindy Ramano of C. Ramano Photography of Woodstock, IL . Welcome back, Cindy.
CINDY: Yeah, thanks.
JOHN: We've been talking about your photography business there in Woodstock, IL. Can you tell us a little bit about your education?
CINDY: I belong to the Professional Photographers of America. It's a very great group of the photographers of the U.S. and beyond are members of. I received my Master and my Craftman in Photography in 2001 from the Professional Photographers of America, and I've been a member for many years, and I'm also on the counsel board for PPA, and I also belong to our Northern Illinois Professional Photographers which I'm also on the board of, and I strongly believe that education is really important especially for photographers keeping up with the digital age.
JOHN: Ok, you have a website that has a lot of content on it. Can you tell us a little bit about your website also.
CINDY: I try and keep the website simple and easy for people to view. More Photos gives me that freedom to play with my website, and they also offer me features as saving your favorite images to giving a reply on our website. We display a lot of our wedding images online for customers to go on and look at, and they can also place their order at that time. My website also offers children's programs, and we love photographing pregnant moms, newborns and children. So we have a lot of different things there. High school seniors have their own page. We just had child session in here the other day with our property, they just got done bailing the hay and it was great because we took the kids out on the big round hay bales and photographed them on top of the hay bales which was kind of neat especially when I have people coming in from Chicago, and they don't have that kind of thing. So that's kind of nice to have.
JOHN: When you have a client that comes to you for a photo shoot, what kind of advice do you give somebody that's looking for an event shot?
CINDY: Well depending on what they're looking for, you know, when a client calls me first of all, I ask them what they're looking for. What will we be photographing, will there be family, children, high school senior, or something other, and then I find out from them what they want. I mean, what are they envisioning in their mind as to what they want in their picture, and then we discuss clothing; solids are better than stripes or plaids. We like to keep, especially a family, color coordinated. I will tell them to pick two theme colors and stick with that; otherwise, if somebody has a bright color outfit on and everybody else is in neutral colors that person is going to stand out in the portrait. So we discuss a lot of those things, and then we go into where they would like their portrait taken. Do they want it taken in their home; do they want a studio atmosphere; would they like an outdoor atmosphere. So there's a lot of discussion on the phone before we actually book a session so we know where they're coming from and we give them a couple ideas on how we think we could help them photograph and make their portraits look better.
JOHN: What's your most important goal when you're shooting a client, Cindy?
CINDY: Oh, to make them happy. My biggest one is to have it look natural. I want it to look like them. Especially when I'm photographing high school seniors. You know, I want them to bring in outfits that are them, but we do take ones for the mom and ones for the kids, and a lot of my clients always tell me that they like my portraits because it is natural and it looks like them and it's not posed. I hear that a lot.
JOHN: I recall my senior photo. Every time I look at it, I think, you know, I never once looked like that except for that day for that photo.
CINDY: Right, right, and you want it to look like you, because when you get married and have kids you want to look back and go that was my favorite shirt, or something like that, you know. And that's why I like to see kids bring in is things that belong to them whether it's their cars that they love or they do any kind of sports or skate boarding or whatever. They can bring it in, because that's them at that moment in time.
JOHN: That's a good idea. I like that idea.
CINDY: Yeah, yeah, and even children too. I've had a mom come in with a toy that the son had, and we weren't photographing him and the toy at first because she made another session with him, and I said make sure you bring that teddy bear in. I mean it was the raggiest looking teddy bear, but he carries it all the time. And she said, really, and I said yeah, I need that teddy bear for the next session. So she brought it in, and we did the session outside with blue jeans and a t-shirt, and he had his baseball cap on backwards, and he was holding his teddy bear, and it was just him. And that's something he'll look back on going oh I remember that bear, you know. So it's important to bring to a studio something that does belong to you that's important in your life.
JOHN: That's definitely a unique perspective. What else do you do that makes your service unique and what separates you from the competition?
? I don't go for saying other photographers are my competition. I mean, we all do the same thing. We all have different styles and I think my style is unique in the way that I like try to keep it natural and fun for everybody whether it be children, family or seniors, is to have fun going to a photographer and it shouldn't be a job or hassle, you know, because I've had some people come in and they're like oh, yeah we're here for a picture and I don't want to be here type thing and then after they leave the studio they had so much fun that they're like this wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. So I think that's my edge is I try to make it fun for everybody and competition wise, I don't think there is any, because all the photographers are my friends and we need to work together and share ideas which is like our professional photography group does, and it's a lot of fun.
JOHN: If you had to pick a dream photo shoot, what would that be, Cindy?
CINDY: Oh, I always wanted to photograph the swimsuit edition for Sports Illustrated. That would be my goal, because I just don't think they photograph those girls right. That's what I would like to do.
JOHN: Now, you spoke earlier of your start in the industry, you were dealing with film. Do you still deal with film or are you just primarily digital?
CINDY: Film? What's that? No, I'm only kidding. No I haven't dealt with film for about 6 years now, I've been digital. I do really miss my hasiblant, and I have it in my case and I take it out every once in a while and click it, but I really like the digital end of it, even though it has created a lot more work for me compared to film, because film you'd go to photograph and you'd send the rolls of film to the lab and they did everything, you know, they color corrected and they would retouch and all this and now I do that particularly in my studio. I'll take the digital images and put them into my computer and actually work on blemishes, or I can even make people look lighter than what they are, or I can switch heads, and do all sorts of things on photographs I never did before which causes me more time in the studio, but I really love doing it. So if I didn't love my job, I wouldn't be doing this.
JOHN: Cindy could you tell our listeners your website and contact information again.
CINDY: Sure it's www.cromanophotography.com and our contact information is (815) 568-1181, and we'd love to hear from you.
JOHN: We have been in the studio with Cindy Ramano of C. Ramano Photography of Woodstock, IL. Thank you for joining us on VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight today, Cindy.
CINDY: Oh it was fun. I appreciate you guys having me.
JOHN: And we appreciate you all tuning in and listening to us on VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. Have a great afternoon.
ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight; only on www.vtalkradio.com. Radio for the 21st Century.
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