Today's Guest: Elaine Harrison of
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Studio East Photography
Elaine Harrison Transcript Page
Elaine Harrison Expert PageJOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight we have Greenville, North Carolina, photographer, Elaine Gray Harrison of Studio East Photography. Welcome to VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight this morning or this afternoon, Elaine.
ELAINE: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
JOHN: I guess it's this morning isn't it, yes. Well we certainly appreciate you coming on. Tell us a little bit about your photography business down there in North Carolina.
ELAINE: Our business mainly focuses on wedding photography, but we do anything that anyone asks. We feel the weddings are what...it's just our trademark. We love them; we enjoy them; we don't limit what we do with them, and we just have the most fun with them.
JOHN: Well, let's talk about weddings a little bit. I'm sure that you have certain situations and problems that arise in a wedding that you have to kind of play it by ear don't you?
ELAINE: We do, but we are not easily stressed, and we've been around for a long time so we've experienced just about anything that can go wrong. We help test the equipment and with the energy that we all have and put into the business I think it works out great.
JOHN: It's definitely a special day that you want to capture on film. Now when you go into a wedding project, are you taking an assistant with you? Do you have couple photographers? How do you approach that?
ELAINE: We generally have an assistant at every wedding. There are three of us that primarily work in a group that have extensive classes and photography and knowledge, and then we also have four assistants that have worked with us a number of years that shoot our style, but know what we do, and they go with us to help us.
JOHN: Now are you doing kind of the photo journalism thing, or are you also doing formal photography with the bridal party?
ELAINE: We do shoot photo journalist. We actually have called our style fusion. I know that's not a word that's been used in photography at all. It's more related to, I think, the food industry, but we do call it fusion, because we fuse together the photo journalist with the traditional as well as the magazine style. A lot of girls now are looking for the style that they see in their bridal magazines for their portraits which is really unique to the industry, and we try to capture all of those styles at a wedding.
JOHN: Now you also do a number of other types of photography. I would imagine a lot of family portraits?
ELAINE: We do. Especially at Christmas. We just got through doing a lot it seems like, but we do a lot of family portraits. We do pets. We do anything anyone really wants or needs. As long as it's not totally obscene we will do it.
JOHN: And, of course, you do seniors throughout the year also?
ELAINE: We do. As a matter of fact, where we are located is directly across the street from one of the hight schools in our area. So we do get business from that, but we love doing seniors. We use the same approach with them that we do our weddings in that we try to think of what's unique, what captures their spirit, the way they feel about life, and just portray that and pull it into their photograph.
JOHN: Now I would imagine that you get an occasional corporate job down there?
ELAINE: We do. We have several industries in the area, and we also get called to do things from outside. I just did a big event for the March of Dimes, different things like that.
JOHN: Well let's talk about the communities around Greenville, North Carolina, that you cover.
ELAINE: We actually will cover any place. We don't particularly love to travel by air, but as long as we can get there by car. We have shot weddings all over North Carolina. We have shot weddings in South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentucky. Really a lot of the south east we cover, and we're willing to travel anywhere if somebody is willing to let us take the time it is to get there.
JOHN: Now are some of the cities around Greenville? I'm not familiar with that part of North Carolina.
ELAINE: There is Kentston, Winterville. Our studio is actually located in Winterville now. It was in Greenville, but they are combined. They are so close together that it doesn't count for any distance. But there's Williamston, Robertsonville, even Raleigh, the beach. We shoot a lot of weddings in coastal areas like Emerald Isle or Beaufort in those areas just because so many girls now want those outside beach weddings. We're happy to travel there. That's not an issue.
JOHN: Yeah, the beach weddings are really nice. You can get some great photographs there. What about facilities in the area that you might use? Banquet halls or wedding facilities? Anything like that in the Greenville area?
ELAINE: We do. The most popular areas that people use are White Springs and Yankee Hall which both are beautiful places for weddings. They both have gorgeous staircases and are really, really just beautiful places for weddings and to shoot bridal portraits at. We also have Tryon Palace which is over in Newborn which is not very far from us at all which is an old capital to North Carolina before Raleigh became the capital. So it's built like a plantation. It is gorgeous to do bridal portraits on their grounds. They have gardens and tulips and just so many things that make for a beautiful props and backgrounds. But in Greenville we have an art museum that's beautiful; it has a beautiful staircase in it to do portraits. There's just plenty of places to go that gives us access to beautiful props and backgrounds. And, of course, we do studio work. We have a studio in our home. We have several back drops or large selection really of black drops that the clients can chose from. We do a lot of studio work.
JOHN: Before we take a little break here, Elaine, could you kindly give your website address and contact information with our listening audience.
ELAINE: Sure, the website is www.studioeastphotography.com. You do have to type out the whole thing, Studio East Photography. Some one beat us to studio east, and the phone number is (252) 551-3299.
JOHN: We are in the studio with Greenville, North Carolina, photographer, Elaine Gray Harrison of Studio East Photography, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Stayed tuned, and 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 Greenville, North Carolina, photographer, Elaine Gray Harrison of Studio East Photography, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight . Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Elaine.
ELAINE: Thank you, Thank you, glad to be here.
JOHN: Now we've been talking about your business in North Carolina. Let's talk a little bit about the history of your business. How long has Studio East Photography be around?
ELAINE: I've been shooting weddings for about 14 years, but initially I started shooting weddings for friends and family and that sort of thing, but I have been shooting weddings as my primary job for over 8 years now, and I absolutely love it. It's the best thing I've ever done. I started taking photography classes when I was really young back in the 70s and from there I just went on forward with it wanting to do this, but never having the money to buy the equipment. It took me a while to be able to save up enough money to actually do the studio thing, but it was a dream of mine for my whole life since I was a little girl.
JOHN: Let's talk a little bit about some of the equipment that you're using. What's your primary camera?
ELAINE: Well, primarily we're using Canon equipment now. We use the 5D, the 20D, the 30D. We still have our old film cameras also, but we really don't use those very often. I love my Mamia. I had a Mamia that was just a work horse of a camera, but you just...nobody shoots with film anymore. So we've put that equipment aside and we use it for fun ourselves, but in the studio we primarily do all digital.
JOHN: What do you think is...what are you look for when you go into a photo session? What is your goal when you're shooting someone or taking someone's photograph?
ELAINE: My goal is to capture the spirit of the person that I'm shooting. I want to be able to capture what makes them the person that they are. I want those eyes to shine and be beautiful. I want to capture the beauty of the day of that bride or that child or that new born baby. I want the art to be there. When I was in college, I was an art major. I think that art is so important. I think you need to see things and look for the hidden things in people. I don't do this just as a shoot every person the same way. A lot of photographers take their people into the studio, and they do a routine of turn this way, turn that way. Do this. I don't do that. I look at the shape of their nose, of their features, and I look at what's in their eyes, and I try to do the best thing to capture that.
JOHN: Very good. Let's talk about marketing. What do you do to market your photography business, Elaine?
ELAINE: The main marketing tool that we use is bridal shows. We do up to four bridal shows a year. We get a lot of business off of that. We also have a lot of word of mouth. A lot of our business is because people are so satisfied with what they get from us, and it keeps us really busy just handling that.
JOHN: Now what do you think makes your business unique and what separates you from the competition?
ELAINE: I think one of the things that does is that all of the packages that we offer to our clients have unlimited time. Most photographers put their clients with 3 and 4 hour packages. I don't really understand that principal. It seems to me that you're giving them half of what they want. The average wedding takes 7 - 8 hours to shoot. We give all of our clients whatever it takes to get through that full day, and we love doing it that way. I don't want to give them half of a product. The other thing is that we use a company that handles our website that is just wonderful in that we can put as many pictures on the web as we want to. The fee for that is minimal. We do not require that we have a print done of every single photograph. So while other photographers might shoot 300 - 400 pictures, but only 100 - 120 comes in the package, they will only do that many on the web. So the client never gets to see those other photographs. If we shoot 500 photographs, 1200 photographs, we put all of them online, and we let the clients chose what they want. We do not chose what goes in their album for them. We allow them the input. We do offer professional guidance. We will tell them that I don't think that works there, but we allow them to have input in it.
JOHN: Good. Well it's certainly been a pleasure talking with you today, Elaine. Before I let you go, though, would you kindly give your website address and contact information for our listeners.
ELAINE: Sure it's Elaine Harrison at Studio East Photography, www.studioeastphotography.com, and the phone number is (252) 551-3299.
JOHN: Thanks for joining us today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Elaine.
ELAINE: Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it a lot.
JOHN: We've been in the studio with Greenville, North Carolina, photographer, Elaine Gray Harrison of Studio East Photography, and you are listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Thanks for tuning in.
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