Today's Guest: David Wiggins of
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David Wiggins Expert PageANNOUNCER : This VTalk Radio Spotlight is brought to you by www.morephotos.com the online photo sales solution for professional photographers world wide. Welcome to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight we have Ridgeland, Mississippi, photographer, David Wiggins, of Wiggins Photography joining us today. Welcome to the program David.
DAVID: Thank you.
JOHN: You have a thriving photography business down there in Ridgeland, Mississippi. Why don't you give us a little overview of what you're up to.
DAVID: Well we do primarily the wedding photography. We also take care of our children, as well as, family portraits in the area and the surrounding areas. We travel throughout the state for our wedding from Bilouxi up to Tupalo to Oxford.
JOHN: Now is weddings your primary drive right now and as a photographer?
DAVID: Yes they are.
JOHN: And when you do a wedding, what kind of preparation are you doing for a wedding.
DAVID: Well, obviously we double check all of our equipment before we head out to the wedding. We meet with our clients at least two times before the wedding to find out their personalities, so that whenever we photograph a wedding we can bring that personality into the wedding. Very much of a get to know them so that they're comfortable around us and really want them forget that we're there so that they are themselves at the wedding.
JOHN: Now you say we, are you taking an assistant with you or another photographer?
DAVID: Well a little bit of both. My wife, Jenny, and I, we run Wiggins Photography, and the wedding, Jenny is the one who is with the girls. She is the contact. She's has most of the contact prior to it and they feel very good with her being there as far as at the wedding.
JOHN: Now, what kind of--what kind of situations do you have to deal with in a wedding that you don't have to deal with in a standard portrait setting?
DAVID: Well, obviously time is a major factor. We're always under a time crunch. We have to be able to move smoothly from one situation to another, be ready for any type of change in the situation to come up. We can't always follow a schedule at the wedding even though we may have one mapped out. Things change, and you have to be ready to adapt to that quickly. Your equipment, there's always a chance of equipment is going to go out; which is why we always bring back-up. We have had that happen to us at weddings...a camera or even two cameras go out. We generally take five or six cameras with us and so it's just a matter of grabbing another camera and keep going.
JOHN: Now I would imagine that doing kind of a photo journalistic approach to the weddings?
DAVID: Exactly. Again we like to just stand back and let things happen in front of us. We'll coach a little bit. We'll guide a little bit, encourage a little bit, but for the most part when they look back at their images, we want our clients to see their wedding not simply the way we pose them. So it's a mix of posing with a lot of available light to just what happens we grab it.
JOHN: Now weddings aren't all you do. Senior portraiture I would imagine is a pretty good business for you.
DAVID: We do a lot of senior portraits, again our portraits for the seniors are more of who they are at this time. We like to take their likes, their hobbies, their activities, and weave that into the portrait sessions. We've got some that they may be swimmers. We'll go out to the pool and get some butterflies as they're going across the pool. If they're into biking or mountain biking we'll go out on the trails and do some shots with them there. Things that you would see in Sports Illustrated. Where it's got a lot of natural light, a lot of side lighting...that's what we try to implement on our seniors so that they have a very good series of images of who they are at this time of their life, not just well this is my 12th grade pictures.
JOHN: Now you do something also with your portraits called fine art portraiture. Tell us a little bit about that.
DAVID: Well, with the fine art portrait, instead of a traditional portrait looking at the camera, we like using very dramatic lighting images to turned the way from the camera...very introspective look as far as they may be thinking about something or doing something else. Again, a very dramatic look, they look great in black and white, great in color, but it's more of a fine art piece that once is printed on rag paper or a muslin then once it's displayed their home it becomes a fine art piece instead of just a traditional picture in a frame.
JOHN: Now you also do some other types of photography. Let's touch a little bit on those.
DAVID: Ok, We are looking at some of the high schools in the area. We do a little bit of sports with them as far as sports photography it's more of a marketing...keeping our name out there when they get ready for senior work, they come to us. We're looking to move into more pet photography as far as doing some pets, but again very much of a portrait type setting with the pets. We'll take the images once the client chooses the image they choose to go with, and then we will have printed on any watercolor paper and go back into it and repaint over that to where they have very much a painted image of their pet.
JOHN: Very interesting. Now what about commercial photography? Are you doing photographing, business people, that kind of thing?
DAVID: Well, we did a little bit of all of it. We have business portraits obviously, but we also like to going on location doing product photography, doing location work, maybe buildings. One of our clients is CNO Rail out of Canada. They make hollows, and say we need you to go to this part of state, or that part of the state and photograph this and that. Whether it's getting on the train, documenting the crews as they're working, or whether it's getting on an airplane and doing some aerial work. I like the different aspects of challenges that commercial work presents to us simply to keep myself fresh and out of rut as far as our portraits. We can always bring those skills that we learn in commercial photography and utilize those in our portraits and you just get a different look.
JOHN: Great. David we need to take a break here before we do that would you give your website address and contact information for listening audience.
DAVID: Well our website is www.wigginsphoto.com and contact information is, as far as phone number, ( 601) 853-3273, and we are located in Ridgeland, Mississippi.
JOHN: Wonderful, we are in the studio with Ridgeland, Mississippi, photographer, David Wiggins of Wiggins photography. And you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to step aside for these important messages, do stay tuned.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is sponsored by www.morephotos.com the online photo sales solution for professional photographers world wide.
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ANNOUNCER: Did you ever wonder why the Groom is suppose to carry the Bride over the thresh hold? What does the saying, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue mean? Visit www.weddingdetails.com and click on the lure and tradition section. We've got culture and tradition information from around the world. Visit www.weddingdetails.com tonight. We now return you to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: We're back in the studio with the Ridgeland, Mississippi, photographer, David Wiggins, of Wiggins Photography, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's photography spotlight. Welcome back to the program David.
DAVID: Thank you.
JOHN: Now we've been talking about your photography business in Mississippi. Let's talk a little bit about you. Why did you decide to become a photographer in the first place, David?
DAVID: Well, I received a camera for my 15th birthday and it was something that I enjoyed. Did the high school yearbook routine for 4 years. At the time my Dad actually felt I could not make a living as a photographer so he directed me in a direction of this new stuff called computers that were coming out. So, I studied Computer Science Engineering throughout college, and decided that I prefer photography, dropped back into it. Picked up along the way a lot of black and white dark room and color dark room expertise, and now with the digital application is all seems to come together. So the timing worked out pretty well.
JOHN: Now how long have you been in business, David?
DAVID: Well we've been in a studio for 8 years. My wife and I worked out of our home, for about 7 years prior to then.
JOHN: And what about photo organizations? Are you involved in anything like that?
DAVID: Well certainly the PPA I highly recommend. Also the DWF, the Digital Wedding Form, another great organization. We also have local photographers that have a group that we get together at the studio about once a month, and just swap ideas, and share ideas there.
JOHN: Let's talk a little bit about cities and communities around the area that you actually do your photography out of. I would imagine there you have a quite of wide range that you travel and do business out of?
DAVID: Right. We do travel throughout state for our wedding as well as some portraits. Ridgeland is located right in middle of Jackson being on the southern end and Madison being on the north end. So we pull from both cities for the portraits. Other cities close by Vicksburg to our west and Meridian to our east. So we are located very well as far as the center of the state to pull from different areas into the studio or close enough for us to drive.
JOHN: Now, what about banquet halls or any kind of facility that you do work out of?
DAVID: Well we have quite a few churches in this area as far as some of the banquet halls, the Ocapital Inn in Jackson is always one of our favorites. The Fair View Inn is a beautiful place to photograph, as far as the different weddings, different events, that we've done at both locations.
JOHN: And I would assume that you haven't been doing digital pretty much most of your career here, but have you...do you still get a request for standard film at all?
DAVID: No we don't. We first started, of course, using our Hasiblants and our RZ's, but whenever digital came out, the Nikon D1 camera when it was first introduced, I picked up one of those and started playing with it at that time and we have slowly moved completely film to total digital to the point where that last role of film I shot was probably 3 maybe 4 years ago.
JOHN: Yeah, it does seems to be going by the wayside. Certainly the ease and use of digital is where it's at. Before I let you go, David, what do you feel is your most important goal as a photographer when you go into a session.
DAVID: Well when I go into the session the most important is to get to know your clients. It's very important that their personality is evident in the portraits that we create. We want them to look at these images and not see necessarily how we wanted it to look solely, but also that they recognize themselves in the photograph, and I'm not saying recognize themselves simply as their faces, but we want their personality, their life style, any of those important aspects of who they are at this time in their life that they come out in their portraits.
JOHN: That is really important. I know that when I look back at my senior portraits, I go, I never looked like that, but on that one day. You know, it really didn't capture who I was at all. It was just a standard stand in front of a background and take a photo, and I would think it would be a lot nicer to have, you know, different aspects of my photography, or my personality in those photos. That's a good thing. Well we want to thank you for joining us today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, David.
DAVID: Thank you, I enjoyed it.
JOHN: Now before I let you go, let's give your website address and contact information one more time, please.
DAVID: Our website is www.wigginsphoto.com and our contact phone number is (601) 853-3273, and we are located in Ridgeland, Mississippi.
JOHN: There you go, folks, we've been talking to Ridgeland, Mississippi, photographer, David Wiggins, of Wiggins Photography, and you've been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Thanks for joining us today. Everyone have a great afternoon.
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