Today's Guest: John Havard of GCPPA. in Mobile, Alabama
Today's Host: John Bentley
November 2007
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Gulf Coast Professional Photographers Association.
John Havard Transcript Page
John Havard 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 John Havard, president of Gulf Coast Professional Photographer's Association of Mobile, Alabama, and owner of J. Havard Photographer and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. I am your host, John Bentley. John Welcome to the program today.
JOHN: Great how are you?
JOHN: Just fine and dandy thanks. Appreciate you joining us. Now you have a Professional Photographer's Association down there in Alabama, tell us a little bit about it.
JOHN: Ok, we are a local guild or local chapter of the Professional Photographer's of America and we're an organization of local greater Mobile area licensed professional photographers.
JOHN: Now how many members are in this organization, John?
JOHN: We have about 50 individual members of 42 studios.
JOHN: When was your organization established?
JOHN: Late 70s. I don't have the exact date, because I didn't get in until 83. But it was established in 78 or 79 around in there.
JOHN: What exactly are you offering a professional photographer through your organization?
JOHN: Mainly education and fellowship and help if they need it. We've got a lot of people getting in the business now and to be frank, some of them don't really know what they're doing as far as running a business and that's what we're help people get started and be successful in the business and also educate them on how to deal with customers and work with the public to get a win - win situation.
JOHN: So you're telling me that you provide seminars and workshops for the members of your association?
JOHN: Exactly. We have monthly meetings and at every monthly meeting except for our Christmas party, of course, we have a speaker come in from usually around the south east. We have speakers come in from around Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, places like that come in every month and give us information on what their doing that may be unique to their area or a new product or a new trend or something. As a matter of fact, our meeting this month on the 22nd, we've got Lori Greg, and I think she's out of Orlando, Florida, I believe, now don't quote me on that, but I'm not sure where she's from. Our vice president, Jim Stokes, does the program function, but Lori's giving a short seminar, about a two hour program on digital makeup. Which is none of us are real familiar with it. I mean, we all know how to use Photoshop, but this is a technique of taking a bride or a client that they look sort of washed out or they just, their make up just doesn't really look right, and how to make them look like they were done by a professional make up artist without using make up. Doing it all on the computer.
JOHN: Wow, that's something.
JOHN: I'm looking forward to that.
JOHN: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I have not seen anything like that out there in all the photographers that I've spoke with so that sounds like an interesting idea.
JOHN: Yeah, I think this is going to be a very well attended meeting. We also, about once a year, sometimes twice a year, but at least once a year, we have a one or two day, usually a two day seminar with a speaker of a big name person, and in the past, we've had Bambi Cantrell, Jeff Lubin, Kirk Boclain, the guy that runs Pro Forum, Dave Newman. I mean, this guy, Dave, tours all over the world to Korea and China and Europe giving seminars. David Peters out of California, a real top notch photographer and Tony Hopman whose probably one of the best senior photographers I've ever seen for high school seniors. But we get people of that caliber in about once a year for a two day seminar that's very inexpensive for our members, and then we let outside non-members come in for 2 or 3 times that price.
JOHN: Well, it sounds like a lot of information can be available to the professional photographer through your association. What about photo competitions? Do you guys endorse anything like that?
JOHN: Well, we usually have monthly competitions where people just bring in prints at each monthly meeting, and we will usually judge those and pick one and that will be featured on our website during the month until the next meeting, but we have not been doing our local guild's competitions for a while, but we're getting back into that next spring. We'll have our first annual competition in about 4 years this coming spring.
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with John Havard. He is president of Gulf Coast Professional Photographer's Association of Mobile, Alabama, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. I'm your host, John Bentley. We're going to step aside for these important messages, we'll be right back.
ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio's Photographer 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 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 John Havard. He is president of Gulf Coast Professional Photographer's Association of Mobile, Alabama, and owner of J. Habbard Photographer. Welcome back, John.
JOHN: Ok, how are you?
JOHN: Just doing good. Glad you could stick around. Now we're talking about your professional photographer's association. Do you guys have a monthly newsletter or bi-monthly newsletter that comes out?
JOHN: Yep, monthly newsletter that we used to do snail mail on it, but it's all email now, and it's on our website. Our website is www.gcppa.net which is the initials of the organization. And it's got pages on there that tell about who we are and what we do and it's got tips for brides for making sure you get a real professional photographer. The questions to ask and things like that is very good for perspective brides when they're looking for a photographer. It's also got info for photographers that may want to join our group.
JOHN: And I imagine you can just apply right online?
JOHN: Well you can print out an application, but you have to mail it in because we're pretty stringent, I mean, there are several criteria. You have to have a business license for the city, state and county and you have to have an Alabama or Mississippi tax number and you have to have work that our board thinks is worthy of being in the group. Because whenever people join or apply, two of our board members go out to their place of business and look over their work and make sure they're doing the kind of quality that we would want to list them on our website.
JOHN: That sounds like you guys do a thorough job of investigating potential members. Now, let's talk a little bit about you, John. How long have you been the president of the organization?
JOHN: Well I was president once back in the 80s and this is the first year. We have our elections coming up this month. I was president this past year. The time before that was back in the 80s...late 80s.
JOHN: Now what about your photography business? Again, what is the name of your photography business and how long have you been in photography?
JOHN: J. Havard Photographer...I'm in Mobile. I started up in 1983. I opened the doors to my first studio in 1983.
JOHN: We've been in the studio with John Havard. He is president of the Gulf Coast Professional Photographer's Association of Mobile, Alabama, and owner of J. Havard Photographer. We certainly appreciate you joining us today on VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight, John.
JOHN: Glad to do it.
JOHN: I want to thank everybody for tuning in. My name is John Bentley with our recording engineer, Damien Allen. Thanks for joining us today. We'll catch you next time on VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. Good 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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