Today's Guest: Steve Stewart of The Art Department in Shelby, Michigan"
Today's Host: John Bentley
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Steve Stewart Expert PageANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight is brought to you by morephotos.com helping professional photographers with all their internet needs. Welcome to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Steve Stewart, Marketing Director for the Art Department of Shelby Township, Michigan, and we're here to talk about a product he offers called The Book. Welcome to the program today, Steve to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. How are you doing today?
STEVE: Good to be here, John. Thanks!
JOHN: Well let's talk about The Book, because that's really why we're here. Give me a little overview of The Book, and then we'll talk about your company the Art Department also.
STEVE: Sure. The Book started with our studio owner, Dan Hansen, years ago back in about 95 - 96. He started realizing that there was going to be a change in what was going on with these photograph albums that we provide to a bride and groom. The traditional album we had been using had been around for 30 years or so and everybody had it, and he had an idea for like more of a flush mounted album, and there were flush mounted albums back then, but they were very rudimentary. They were just 8 x 10 prints flushed into an album and so the picture was the page, but he had an idea more for like a panoramic with like a mix and collage of images that he could put let's say two or three images on a page, six images on a page, that sort of thing, and he was just looking for a way to get that done and back about 1997 -98 a company came out with a product they called The Coffee Table Book and it was exactly what he had been looking for, and he had actually had found a company that would do it, but they were kind of the innovators in it, and he was the innovator in terms of this whole rage that is The Coffee Table Book. Dan has been in this computer design with Photoshop since 2.0 which if anybody can think back, it's when Photoshop first came out and was a very basic program which has grown into now something so phenomenal that it's just amazing the work that this design team can do under his direction. And basically it's just a phenomenal book that we tell people until you have it in your hands, you can't understand it, and they all say the same thing when they come in and see it, and that is wow you're right. To look at this on a website or in a catalog is not the same as holding the book, because there is so many covers as far as suede leather, glove leather. There's the regular cowhide leather type of thing and there's just so much you can do with this thing. It's just amazing.
JOHN: Well I was looking at your website, and you have 3 basic ideas of designs for the book. Could you expound on each one of those?
STEVE: Certainly. Basically what it is is we find that there's about two...there's two trains of thought when it comes to a bride taking the time to look through these books and decide on what she likes. And they'll be some that like the pastels and the soft pastel type of a book is not going to like the other one and vice-versa. The one that really likes the traditional, you know, art-deco type is not going to like the pastels and the softness of that one, and basically again, I can't stress enough that people really have to sit down and look at these within their hands, because to get a glimce of them on a website, you just don't understand the true nature and the depth of what it is these books do when you're holding them. We've got probably about 80% - 90% rate of referral in terms of when that book goes out the door with a bride, within a week or two we have somebody calling us saying you did my friends book, I saw it at her work or it's my relative I saw their book. I want that. I want it just exactly like she's got it or what are my options. That type of thing.
JOHN: Well I took a look at a couple of books, and the traditional is really nice. I really like the idea of having photographs set up by a background photograph. It's like a little bit lighter than what your...it really just makes everything stand out on the page. I thought that was a really great design. So I kind of like the traditional design. I usually think a little bit outside of the box anyways, but...
STEVE: Oh certainly, and everyone is going to choose what it is that they prefer and the backgrounds are determined by location. Wherever we're at, there's different types of backgrounds either environmental, you know, outdoors, or some of the character of the wonderful banquet facilities that we go to. We do a lot of the hotels and that that have back drops that are just really conducive to making a beautiful image in that coffee table book.
JOHN: We are in the studio with Steve Stewart, Marketing Director for the Art Department of Shelby Township, Michigan, and we're talking about The Book, and you're listening to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to take these commercial breaks and we'll be right back.
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ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN: Welcome back everyone. We are back in the studio with Steve Stewart, he's the Marketing Director Art Department of Shelby Township, Michigan, and we've been talking about The Book which is a wedding photo album book that the Art Department supplies for brides and grooms as well as a service to professional photographers. Steve, welcome back to the program.
STEVE: Good to be with you, John.
JOHN: Now tell us a little bit about the Art Department and then let's talk about what exactly are you offering the professional photographer here?
STEVE: Well what we're doing, John, is we are providing the professional photographer some much needed rest from the putting together of albums. The assembly time, the shipping, all the stuff and professional photographers know what I'm talking about and that is from the time that order gets dropped off, everything that they have to do in terms of getting the images ready, sorting everything. I mean, heck, even opening up the box from the album company is ten minutes worth of fun. What we do here, our lead designer, Dan Hansen, is a guy who understands that. He has been a photographer for years and actually started this whole thing for his clients. Then when he realized other photographers were saying hey, you know, will you do that for me, he realized hey wait a minute this is a way for me to retire here, you know, and that is to now go from the physical aspects of photographing weddings to just sitting down and designing other people's weddings for them, and he's so talented. I've gotta be honest with you. There's times that I go in and look at that design team and what they're doing, and I just kind of sit and watch in awe of the creativity and, of course, I'm picking their brains and trying to get ideas so that I can learn new things, but basically what's going to happen is a photographer is going to make about 70% - 90% of his album assembly time and just get that back so he can hit the golf course or go boating, or whatever it is that he loves to do and it's really just phenomenal. What happens is the photographer whether they are shooting film, or they're using the digital rehlm, they get their images to the Art Department. If they're film, we sill scan them. There is a slight charge for that, because of the time involved. Obviously, everyone is looking for time, and what's going to end up happening is he's going to go through and make designs and he's going to do them in a way that the bride and groom do not realize that it's not that photographer's studio. In other words, you could take Smith Photography Studio and they photograph a wedding. Well they send it to our design team to do the work. They have a separate website that they can go to and it looks and appears to the bride and groom as though that Smith's Studio's design team is working on it while all the while they don't have to worry about paying a design team what it is the cost that goes into hiring a full time designer and pretty much they're going to be able to expect a design and bind meaning we do everything for them, or if they just want the designs, and they want to do their own album assembly. We do all the color correction and re-touching if they desire, and we can work with any album company that they desire. We prefer Zookbinder out of Chicago. They're just a phenomenal company. The service and the service department is great. The product is great. Any time we've have had any minor little issue, they've corrected it just immediately without even questioning and the cool thing is the rate is by the image so that photographer does not have to any longer be bound by what we've known over the years well you can't have that many pictures in that album it won't fit. Now if they want 42, 83, 70, 65, it doesn't matter. They are able to do that, and we're able to accommodate them very readily, and like I say, it's just amazing to be able to just hand over and talk to these guys. They just hand over their images, you know, whether it's on a disc or film and just walk away and weeks later, they get a call. You're album is all done, here you go. It's just phenomenal, because over the years and I've been in wedding photography for 18 years myself it's just phenomenal to be able to have that extra time that somebody else is going to do something. The photographer just bills the cost of the service into their package and they can upgrade it in terms of making more money off it. I find that most guys just really put the exact cost of the imaging and everything and the design in there so that they can still provide an affordable product and it's not too over priced, and we have a few people that really just, I mean, they tack another $300 or $400 on top of it and to think that's a giggle to me to be able to turn all of that over, not have to do a darn thing and then make an extra $300 - $400. But that's up to them, and like I say, we've got plenty of photographers that if somebody is interested they can talk with with that use the service that they'll just swear by it. It's one of those things that are just a no-brainer that once you talk to somebody and seen it done and we do provide some kind of extra incentives for that first book that they do to kind of get them onboard and we make sure that they are going to be very happy.
JOHN: Ok, now you mentioned something about a few weeks. What is the turn around time or the average turn around time for a project like this?
STEVE: Well it actually depends on the time of year, John. Because of the wedding season being what it is, there are certain times of year that we are just inundated, you know, May and June type of thing. There are more weddings in May and June than there are all the way up to May. So generally what we do is guaranty people about 10 weeks, you know, and sometimes we tell them it's going to be twelve weeks because of the time of year.
JOHN: Right. Right, sure. Now you also offer an opportunity for photographers to speak to each other or you have some kind of a feature photographer on your sight too. Tell us about that.
STEVE: Yeah, we have something called Featured Photographers and what that is is it's and Art Department website where they can go and show their wares, basically. They can be part of a group of other photographers who are doing these book designs and any leads that come in, now as I said before, Dan Hansen, the studio owner, he's looking more to do the design work, you know, and have his weekends free. Then, you know, out photographing weddings, because goodness sakes, he's been doing it 25 years so now he's ready to do his work throughout the week and go out on the boat on the weekend. So what he does is he has feature photographers, and they're going to get the leads that come into him after 25 years of service. You can imagine the amount of referrals we get and just the phon calls that come in, and he does not really want to go and photograph those weddings, he would rather just design the book and have someone else do it. So there's that added aspect of the benefit of dealing with the Art Department in terms of that feature photographer section.
JOHN: Now, Steve, before I let you go, would you kindly give our listening audience your website address and contact information out there again.
STEVE: Certainly. The Art Department is (586) 254-1799 for a phone number. Again, (586) 254-1799 and the website is www.artdep.net. That's for the photographers, and then if they would like to further search out some of the options that we're offering, they can go to www.mybookdesign.com. That's www.mybookdesign.com.
JOHN: Great. Well I want to thank you so much, Steve, for joining us today on the Photography Spotlight.
STEVE: Thank you, John.
JOHN: We have been speaking with Steve Stewart, Marketing Director for the Art Department of Shelby Township, Michigan, and this is VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. I am your host, John Bentley. Thanks for joining us today. Have a great afternoon everyone.
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