Today's Guest: Chris Montgomery of Long Island Image. in Plainview, Long Island, New York
Today's Host: John Bentley
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Chris Montgomery Expert PageANNOUNCER: This program is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide. Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight we have Long Island, New York, photographer, Chris Montgomery, of Long Island Image. You're actually out of Plainview, New York on Long Island. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Chris.
CHRIS: Thanks. It's great to be here.
JOHN: Now I've been checking out your website, and you've got quite an extensive photography business going on there out in Plainview on Long Island. Give us a little overview of what you do.
CHRIS: Well, Long Island Image is a full service photography company, but primarily we specialize in sports. Mostly action photography. We go out to all over Long Island, parts of New York City, Nassau, and Suffolk County, and we're photographing from pre-k soccer games to adult leagues, police athletic leagues, high school - varsity/jr. varsity leagues. Mostly action.
JOHN: Well let's talk a little bit about the sports then. Seeing that's a big part of your business. When you do a sports event, are you taking more than one photographer with you?
CHRIS: Well that really depends on the event. For football we have to take two. It's nice to have a person on each side of the line of scrimmage on opposite ends of the field. During large tournaments, we just shot a NARHs tournament which is North American Roller Hockey which was 80 games; I had 5 photographers there. I also had to have four people doing Photoshop editing, printing, but on a day to day basis; tonight I'm going to shoot a hockey game, that's just me.
JOHN: Ok, what about a big event. Let's say there's multiple games going on, you get a call to do an event like this. Are you bringing equipment to process the photographs there on site? How does that work?
CHRIS: Well we sell our photos two ways. Most of our photos will go on our website so that you can go home and browse the photos and purchase them there, but we also for large events, we bring down printers, photo editors. Last year we did a baseball tournament which had about 35 teams spread out over 5 fields, and we brought a van down and people were able to view the pictures on large screen tvs and buy them right there. And then if you would have missed them that day or didn't want to purchase them for some reason, you can go home and purchase them, view them on the internet where they stay for about 3 months. Plus we also sell on the internet, we sell a lot more photo products. Mounted canvas, photo books, photo mugs, canvas prints, mousepads, but at the games themselves, we're only selling the prints.
JOHN: Now when you're at a game, you must be, you've got to be a sports guy to do this, and I'm sure you love all aspects of sports, you've gotta know the game. You've gotta know what's going on, and you've got to kind of anticipate the shot, don't you?
CHRIS: You really do. I personally, I come from New York City, and moving out to Long Island, I never heard of LaCrosse so there was a very big learning curve to learn the game, but when you photograph a baseball game or a football game, having watched these sports your whole life, you know where the action is going to be. You know what the good shots are going to be. The ball coming off the bat or the first baseman catching the ball. But you really do...it's a very big learning curve even for all sports to learn where the play is going to be.
JOHN: Now you also do horse racing I see. There must be a lot of that going on in the New York area, huh?
CHRIS: There is. We have Equiduct and we have the Bellmont Stakes. I have one photo on my website which is printed of Newsday which is rags to riches. He won the Bellmont Stakes coming around turn 4. It was a nice shot. It was a lucky shot. I took about 30 shots of them coming around and there was only one really perfect one.
JOHN: Now are you on a horse yourself when you're taking these photos?
CHRIS: No, no, no. I'm crouched down under the rail hoping not to get hit by a horse.
JOHN: Sure you are. Now sports is not all you do. You do other events too. Let's touch on some of the other types of photography you do.
CHRIS: Well the event photography...last year we did a shoot for the American Heart Association. All the photos were donated. Also Long Island Image is a very proud sponsor of Smile for Scott which is a children's cancer charity. They raise money for kids with cancer. Besides from that, we do a lot of weddings, bar mitzvah's, communions, parties, a lot of holiday parties. You wouldn't even see me during the month of December. I'm booked about 6 months in advance. Long Island Image also does a lot of portrait work which we do not have a studio. We're not very big fans of putting someone in front of mat and taking their pictures. To us it seems very posed and very fake. We like to take people to the beach, out to the park. We like to let...when we photograph children, we let them run around the park and we have a photographer there that's just following them around taking a lot of natural photos. And then when we're done taking all the pictures, we do a lot of photo editing, skin tones, exposure, cropping. You know, we'll take a photo and turn it into a black and white, a sepia, a watercolor to give the customer as many options as we can. This way they'll be very happy with their product.
JOHN: Now we are in the studio today with Long Island, New York, photographer, Chris Montgomery, of Long Island Image, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to take a break here, but before we do that, Chris, would you give your website address and contact information please.
CHRIS: The website is www.longlslandimage.com and we can be reached at (516) 448-0301.
JOHN: On that note, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back after these important messages.
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JOHN: We are back in the studio with Long Island, New York, photographer, Chris Montgomery, of Long Island Image, and you're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Chris.
CHRIS: Thanks it's great to be back.
JOHN: Now we've been talking about your fine photography business out there in New York. Sports being the big thing you do, but you do a number of other things. Let's talk a little bit more about the portrait photography, because like you said earlier, you don't have a studio so you like to take portraits of people in natural environments. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
CHRIS: Well we like to take people down to the beach. We like to take people to the parks. Especially kids. Kids are great, and we just let them run around and we get a lot of natural shots. There not forced smiles. When a child's not looking at you, and you can kind of get that shot by surprise. Those, to us, seem to be the best shot. We've all seen the pose shots that you've bought, we've all bought of our children playing sports, the portraits. Nobody is really hanging those pictures in their homes. That's why we like action photography, because they're pictures you can be proud of. Our portraits reflect a natural state. When someone is looking at that photo, they're almost in awe. We put a lot of hard work into trying to capture those shots, and we pretty much stick around til we get the shots that we want, we need.
JOHN: Now, I understand that you have a family member that's actually an award winning photographer?
CHRIS: I do. Both of my children, my daughter at a young age, I taught her Photoshop so I'll shoot a game, and I'll let her mess around and do cropping and editing, but my son when he was 7 took a picture of my daughter and it was just a phenomenal picture just of her face. And there was a photo contest in Newsday and I sent the picture in and he won. And it's just funny, I'm a professional photographer, I'm licensed and I'm insured and incorporated, but my son was printed in Long Island's largest newspaper before I ever was. So he likes rub that in on me and to make it even funnier, the photo was so clear you could actually see my son taking the picture in my daughter's eyes.
JOHN: Wow! Impressive. Now how old is your son now?
CHRIS: My son's nine and my daughter's eight.
JOHN: Yeah, great. Now let's talk a little bit about your staff. How big is your staff over there at Long Island Image?
CHRIS: Not counting my children, we have a staff of ten which my wife really runs the business. If it wasn't for her, I would be completely lost with all the paperwork and legalese that you have to go through being licensed and insured.
JOHN: Sure.
CHRIS: She pays all the bills. We have six freelance photographers that will go out to events all over Long Island. They'll pretty much recruit the events themselves and bring the pictures back to me and I'll post them on the site. We also have two people that do Photoshop, just strictly editing pictures, skin tones, making something black and white, color, sepia, but on a full time basis there's only four.
JOHN: Now you guys also do photo restoration. Is that not true?
CHRIS: We do. It's one of the things we love to do the most is taking an old picture, your grandparents' wedding photo which has been through the ringer and it's all faded, ripped and cracked and generally we can bring that picture back to life completely. Short of it having been in a fire, you'd be amazed at what we can do. We colorize the picture, we can restore it and remove the rips, the cracks. We just don't only do that for old photos. A lot of people will bring us pictures, recent photos that they've taken that has a really bad distraction in the background, a person, a lamp post, a car, and we'll remove that for them.
JOHN: It's amazing what they can do with digital technology anymore.
CHRIS: Couldn't do it with film, but these days at the rate they're making progress with digital photography, with digital programs, it's amazing what you can do.
JOHN: Now, you have some very interesting photo products. Of course, you know, most photographers have the basic photo products like the mugs and t-shirts and that kind of stuff, but you've got some rather unique things and a couple of them being puzzles. I thought that was kind of a neat idea. What a great gift to give somebody. Playing cards; I don't see that a lot. But I think the most unique thing I see on your site is ceramic tile. Tell us a little bit about ceramic tile and let's talk a little bit about photo floats.
CHRIS: We love the ceramic tiles. In my own home, I have about a dozen of them hanging up on the wall that we had put a frame around. There are two types of photo tiles that we do. We have a single 6 x 6 photo tile where we'll take your image and it gets cropped into a square and gets put on the little frame, or you can glue it right to the wall. We also sell a 6 photo tile mosaic. Where we'll take one photo and make it into an 8 x 12. It frames, you can put together there's grout in the middle and it's just so unique that it stands out. You know, we sell a lot of other...we sell the stretched canvas which we absolutely love. We sell the photo floats, the playing cards, but the tiles are pretty much the big seller by us. The photo floats, it's a picture that actually would seem to float on your wall. There's no frames, it's just mounted on a matte and protective covering, and the way it hangs from behind, it would actually seem that the photo was floating an inch off the wall. It's unique. It's different. Those are the products that we like to sell. Those are the poses we like to get; the shots we like to get; unique shots; things that are different.
JOHN: Well you've definitely got a unique photography business out there on Long Island, Chris. We certainly appreciate you joining us here on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight today.
CHRIS: I'm glad to be here. I had a great time.
JOHN: Now before I let you go, why don't you give your website address and contact information one more time for our listeners.
CHRIS: The website is www.longlslandimage.com and we can be reached at (516) 448-0301.
JOHN: Today we've been in the studio with Plainview, New York, on Long Island, photographer, Chris Montgomery, of Long Island Image, and you've been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. Thanks for tuning in everyone. Have a great afternoon.
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