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VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight
Today's Guest: Jeff Dyer of Photo Expressions in Southington, Connecticut
Today's Host: John Bentley

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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Jeff Dyer co-owner with his wife, Ann, of Photo Expressions of Southington, CT. Welcome, Jeff, to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight.

JEFF: Thank you for having me.

JOHN: Let's talk about your photography business in Connecticut. Give me a little overlay here.

JEFF: Ok, Photo Expressions is a wedding and portrait photography business. We're centrally located in Southington, Connecticut, about 2 minutes off of Interstate 84.

JOHN: What kind of services are you providing for your clientele?

JEFF: Well, primarily we are a wedding and portrait photography studio. So we are specializing in weddings and that is a transition eventually into more portrait photography when they decide to have children and families and things like that.

JOHN: Ok, and what about some of the cities and the communities in the area that you service?

JEFF: We service all of Connecticut and sometimes Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. We try to stay within Connecticut, but if we do have availability we will go outside into the other states. When you combine all of those, it's still quite a small area.

JOHN: And what about banquet facilities, wedding halls, anything in that area that you use a lot, or that you like to use?

JEFF: We do have some favorite locations to shoot weddings at. We use the Aquaturf Club in Southington, Connecticut. The Farmington Club in Farmington, Connecticut. Another newer location is the Lily Lake Inn in Wolcutt, Connecticut. The Avon Farms Hotel in Avon, Connecticut, and the Simsbury Inn. These are all locations that we've developed a relationship with over the last 25 years. These locations are great because they have great grounds so it makes our job easier. They all have a reputation for excellence. The high quality staff and it's a good location so it's close to my studio so that even makes it all the better.

JOHN: Ok, Jeff, tell my why did you decide to become a photographer in the first place and how long has Photo Expressions been around?

JEFF: Well Photo Expressions with my wife and I together has been around for about 25 years, but I actually started photographing weddings a long time ago. My brother, who I wanted to hang around with when I was a little kid, started building a dark room, and I just in order to be with him, I kinda hung in there and watched him build this dark room and he let me develop my first picture when I was about 8 years old. I think it was when I was about 12, and he left for college and left the dark room to me. So I really started at a young age. I photographed as an assistant my first wedding probably when I was 14, and photographed my first wedding on my own when I was about 16 so I've been doing this a long time.

JOHN: Sure sounds like it. Now when you started, you were obviously doing film. Are you still doing film to this day, or do you just do all digital photography?

JEFF: We haven't used film for probably 8 - 10 years. We were one of the first photographers, photography studios in this area to really grab ahold of digital and once you start using digital you just find it hard to buy a roll of film, wait for the images, you know, send it off, have it processed. wait for it to come back. It's just not as good as digital as far as I'm concerned when it comes to that type of ability to see everything right away. But I should say we still use film, but that's just to hold up the antique cameras in our camera case.

JOHN: Good answer. Let's talk about your education. Both you and Ann are educated photographers, also you've received some awards. Let's talk a little bit about those subjects.

JEFF: Well, I'm a master photographer; PPA certified and photographic craftsman. My wife is PPA certified and a photographic craftsman and continues to work toward her masters, and that really quite a lot of work to get to that point, and probably with us, it's taken us about 20 years of learning to get to that point. We're also fortunate to have been recipients of many international awards including multiple Kodak Gallery awards, Fuji Masterpiece awards, Court of Honors, as well as being Photographers of the Year in different categories in Connecticut such as Portrait, Wedding, Digital, Art Tech. So we do have quite a bit of education.

JOHN: We are in the studio with Southington, Connecticut, Photographer and co-owner of Photo Expressions, Jeff Dyer. You're listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We’re going to step aside for a moment for these important messages. Do stay tuned.

ANNOUNCER: Looking for a bridal show in your area? Visit www.weddingdetails.com for a list of upcoming bridal shows in your area. Visit www.weddingdetails.com tonight. We now return you to the VTalk Radio Photographer Spotlight, with your host, John Bentley.

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ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution for professional photographers worldwide.

ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio's Photographer's Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: Welcome back to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. Today we are in the studio with Southington, Connecticut Photographer and co-owner of Photo Expressions, Mr. Jeff Dyer. Thanks for joining us today, Jeff.

JEFF: You're welcome; thank you.

JOHN: I also want to mention you are a co-owner with your wife, Ann. It's nice to have a husband and wife team working together. Now some of the other photography that you do are senior portraits. I imagine you're doing a lot of those right now?

JEFF: Actually we don't do that many seniors, because we are so busy with our other areas that we specialize in, but we will do senior portraits especially if we've photographed the family. If we've photographed their wedding, then photographed their maternity portraits, their children's portraits, and then their family portraits. It's just a natural thing when someone calls us up and says, you know, can you do my son or daughter's senior portrait, if we've worked with them over the years, then we really make an exception to continue to service them.

JOHN: You have some very beautiful, I would call artwork with your photography business. There is some maternity shots here; very beautiful. You're family shots seem to be very natural. I see you do a lot of outdoor as well as studio shooting. I was noticing that on your toddler site, you have a way of taking a photograph and making it look like a painting. It's very beautiful. Tell us a little bit about that aspect of your business.

JEFF: This is an area that my wife, Ann specializes in. She uses a program called Painter which allows her to digitally paint, using an electronic pallet, photographs. This actually gives her a choice of a billion colors and many different tools. She can electronically change the tool in her hand to a brush, to an airbrush, to a brush with one brisel, to a brush with acrylic paint, or paint with a mixture of water to give it a grainy affect. It really is a unique new art form, and it's very popular to some of the professional photographers now, so she's actually teaching these techniques to other professional photographers.

JOHN: Now do you do seminars on other aspects of photography too?

JEFF: We do. We have seminars in our studio. We also speak to other state organizations in the area. We have spoken to different groups in Las Vegas. My wife gives programs on digital painting as well as photoshop, and I give seminars and presentations on marketing archival printing album designing and digital slide shows.

JOHN: Now I notice that on our portfolio you also have landscape photography and you also do some corporate work, but let's talk about weddings a little bit here. That seems to be your main focus as a photographer. When you go to shoot a wedding, do both of you go with cameras and shoot? How do you work that?

JEFF: For the most part, every wedding that I shoot, I am the main photographer and then I have a second photographer. When I first started shooting weddings, it was just myself shooting. Then I had my wife coming in as an assistant. Now I have my children as assistants. I have three children, and they're all involved in our business, and they work as the second photographers. So it is really a family business in that respect.

JOHN: Ok, what's your most important goal when you're shooting a client or a wedding? What is it that you're looking for as a photographer to capture?

JEFF: I want to be able to capture the even in an unobtrusive way. I don't want them to feel like we were right in front of them all day, and for the most part, when they come in to view they're images a few weeks after the wedding, they say to us stuff like, "How did you get these images?" "We didn't even know you were there." And that to us is a real nice feeling to know that what we're trying to accomplish is actually happening, and we do that and still get very, very high quality photographs. So, that I think is the big accomplishment.

JOHN: And what do you think separates you from the competition? And what makes your services unique over other photographers?

JEFF: First of all, I've photographed over 1,000 weddings. All of our business is referral based and this is because of our reputation for excellence and quality and service. We use absolutely the highest quality products. We not only use those products, but we hand print using archival materials every image that comes out of our studio, and we do this because we want the best color, and we want to make sure the images have the most longevity. We also use hand made albums which are custom designed albums from Australia. These albums can be either leather, metal, wood, or glass. The pages are either traditional beveled cut matte mixed with contemporary flush pages and the albums can be any size and shape with few limitations. So that is a very important feature of our business. We've been busy every single day for the last 25 years since we've opened. So, I think based on that, it gives you a good idea of the reputation that we have.

JOHN: I'm sure you must be doing something right, huh.

JEFF: We also have flexibility in our packages and prices so when a client comes in they're not given a specific set of packages. We work with them an their budget to try to find the best package for them. We also do state of the art digital slide shows, and I think that is another thing that sets us apart.

JOHN: Now, let's talk about your website. What is your website address and what about contact number that clients or potential clients can reach you by.

J: Our website address for weddings is www.pixography.com and for portraits its www.photoexpressions.net. Now you can reach us each site from the other and our telephone number to reach us is (860) 628-2169.

JOHN: We are in the studio with Southington, CT, photographer and co-owner of Photo Expressions, Jeff Dyer. You are listening to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. I want to thank you for joining us today, Jeff.

J: You're welcome and thank you for having me.

JOHN: And I want to thank everybody for listening in on the program today. I'm your host, John Bentley. Have a great afternoon.

VTALK RADIO: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio Spotlight. Only on vtalkradio.com. Radio for the 21st century.

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