Today's Guest: Michelle Phillips of Trademan Photography in St. Charles, Illinois
Today's Host: John Bentley
December 2007
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Michelle Phillips
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Michelle Phillips Expert PageANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley, sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.
JOHN: Today we are in the Studio with Michelle Phillips of Trademan Photography of beautiful St. Charles, IL. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight, Michelle.
MICHELLE: Thank you. Glad to be here.
JOHN: I understand you have a business there in St. Charles with a business partner, can you tell us a little bit about what your doing there?
MICHELLE: My husband and I have been photography together for about 13 years. He's been doing it for a lot longer than that, and we have built a wonderful events, people photography lifestyle kind of program just documenting people's lives, and we're also starting to grow into the corporate event arena where we're printing on location and the guests are being able to take their photographs home with them. We're offering a lot of new and exciting options where the newest technology is really doing things that other studios aren't doing. So we're really excited about that. Putting a little creative flair on some of that too.
JOHN: I've been looking at your website and definitely some very nice creative photography going on there. You have a number of things that you specialize in. It looks like weddings are a big part of your business. Can you tell us about your wedding photography.
MICHELLE: We're actually a two man team; actually a three man team. Two photographers and an assistant. We're a husband and wife team so we kind of get the man's perspective and the woman's perspective. It's a real nice combination of the traditional, romantic portraits and the photo journalism that's very trendy and exciting these days. So with the combination of the two styles it really tells an awesome story of that person's wedding day, that couple's wedding day. We just like to go out and get the feature that photographs the couples are hoping to have. Their expectations, but then be able to salt and pepper it with all the other little touches that they may not have thought about that really have a lot of extra meaning when they finally see them it kind of gets them choked up with tears. Good tears and good choking up. It brings back great memories of the day and it creates a lot of excitement and it's really exciting, because down the road when they celebrate their first, their tenth, their twentieth anniversaries, they've got something to pass down. So it's not just about photographing that one day. It's about starting an exciting chapter in their lives to pass down through the next generation.
JOHN: It looks like you have some great ideas there, and great perspective when photographing weddings. You do other photography portraits, children, can you expound on all the different types of photography that you do?
MICHELLE: Well I am just recently starting to get into baby photography. A lot of our brides have really enjoyed their experience with us, and now they're asking for baby photography so I am branching out to that. We're also really building our corporate and event area where we're going out and photographing events, printing on location and really customizing backgrounds, customizing borders, and really doing some awesome exciting stuff with special events. Anything from golf tournaments to awards banquets. I guess that's a start so if we could pick up from there.
JOHN: What other corporate type of photography are you doing?
MICHELLE: We're doing a lot of executive portraits, and we're also have some other photographers that work with us that specialize in food and product so if anybody is looking for annual reports or menus or things like that, we can pretty much handle a lot of different facets. We're not a small photographer trying to do it all, we're a photographer that represents several other photographers as well that want to do what they do best, and that's photograph, but we're strong in the marketing and the business area so they'll shoot for us if the need like food photography and product where we may not so much specialize in. So, that and the corporate especially the special events and annual reports and those kinds of things, the product and food photography, we can handle all of that for our clients and get them a quality product.
JOHN: I see on your portfolio section of your website that you also do pet photography, engagements, tell us about that.
MICHELLE: Engagements is just the first part of the chapter that leads into the wedding lifestyle photography. There's always an awesome story every couple has to tell about how they met and how they got together and how they connected and that's just the story prior to the wedding. So we go out on location for a couple of hours and just really connect and get the couple something really fun and special. Pet photography as far as that's concerned, Orin actually started off...he was an accountant and started off just shooting photographs at dog shows when he used to show his Great Dane, and so that's actually how he got started 100 years ago when he started photography. So we have a passion for animals and everything we do is on location. We don't have a traditional studio so catching dogs or kids or couples or families, everything is done on location. We're just out there to capture everybody's spirit personality and really have it come through in their portraits.
JOHN: Ok, we would like to hear your website and contact information for our listeners.
MICHELLE: You can reach us at www.trademanphoto.com. That's T-R-A-D-E-M-A-N-P-H-O-T-O.com trademanphoto.com.
JOHN: And is there a phone number people can reach you by?
MICHELLE: (630) 377-8001.
JOHN: We are in the studio today with Michelle Phillips of Trademan Photography of beautiful St. Charles, IL. This is 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. Today we are in the studio today with Michelle Phillips of Trademan Photography of beautiful St. Charles, IL. Welcome back to the program, Michelle.
MICHELLE: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
JOHN: Now can you tell our audience why did you decide to become a photographer in the first place?
MICHELLE: My husband inherited a camera and started photographing dog shows and it kind of blossomed from there and he just found out he had a real passion and flair for it, and when I met him, I was actually on the catering side of weddings for about 20 years, and found out that I really loved marketing. Started marketing him and standing around at the weddings, I just was kind of bored and picked up a camera and started shooting and found out I kind of had an eye for it too, and it all just kind of bloomed from there. So we kind of both just kind of stumbled into it, found out that we really had a passion for it, because I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up so I was lucky in that regard. We've been really blessed to have built a business around something we love to do and get excited about every day.
JOHN: Michelle what are some of the cities and communities in the area that you service?
MICHELLE: Well we've gone as far as DC, but we're very...we're primarily in the Chicagoland area. We're very strong in the St. Charles, Fox Alley area, obviously because we have a lot of people around this area know about us. But we do cover Chicagoland, go downtown, Indiana, Wisconsin, Washington DC. We'll go pretty much any where that we need to be to get the job done and get it done right.
JOHN: Are there any wedding halls or banquet facilities do you tend to use a lot?
MICHELLE: We love photographing at the Hotel Baker, Pleasant Run, Prairie Landing. Those are all local areas that we've done a lot of with Eagle Brook and also McDonald's Lodge is beautiful area out there for ceremonies and the reception area. There's a lot of great areas around, but there's so many beautiful areas around the Chicagoland area. I'd be here for all day naming them all.
JOHN: When you have a client that you are shooting, what's the most important goal you have as a photographer?
MICHELLE: Our most important goal for our wedding clients would be to capture the day, capture their spirit, capture their emotion, and be able to put it in a story that will just make them so happy that they want to share it with everybody and it will take them back to that special day when there's bumpy roads down the way. And for our corporate clients, we want to be able to give them something that they've not gotten before. Some photographers have a reputation for going out and just taking mediocre photographs and trying to pass it off as professional photography and for our corporate clients we want to show them professionalism, gorgeous quality work, and the kind of customer service that they're worthy of.
JOHN: You mentioned that you have a male/female perspective to your photography. That obviously makes your services unique. What other aspects of photography separates you from the competition?
? I believe a lot of it has to do with our onsite printing. Just the technology that's out there that other studios aren't using, and we're utilizing that and really creating product and all sorts of things that companies can use in a different way.
JOHN: Could you tell our listeners your website and contact information again.
MICHELLE: Yes. Come check out award winning photography at www.trademanphoto.com and we can be reached at (630) 377-8001.
JOHN: We have been in the studio with Michelle Phillips of Trademan Photography of beautiful St. Charles, IL . Thank you for joining us today, Michelle.
MICHELLE: Thank you very much for your time and we're looking forward to talking to you again soon sometime.
JOHN: Great. This is VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. Thank you for joining us this 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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