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VTalk Radio Spotlight
Today's Guest: Mel Englander of Englander Photography in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Today's Host: John Bentley
July 2007

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ANNOUNCER:  Welcome to the More Photos’ Photography Spotlight brought to you by Morephotos.com helping professional photographers with all their internet needs.  Now here’s your, John Bentley.  JOHN:  Welcome to the More Photos Photography Spotlight.  Today we have is it Davie, Florida, or Fort Lauderdale you are from, Mel? MEL:  It’s Fort Lauderdale. JOHN:  We have Fort Lauderdale photographer, Mel Englander, of Englander Photography joining us.  Welcome to the program, Mel. MEL:  Well, thank you very much, and I appreciate being on.

JOHN:  Now we have had you on the program before, and we talked about your award winning business.  I know and I am aware that this was a business that your father started back in the 1960’s.  And you picked up on it and kind of took it to the next level, haven’t you?

MEL:  Yes, well, it’s a passion of mine, and I love photography and that’s why I’ve been doing it for so many years.

JOHN:  Now your main focuses as a photographer are weddings and special events?

 

MEL:  Weddings, special events.  We also do commercial and a lot of executive portrait photography. 

JOHN:  Now Englander Photography is an award winning video production facility.  It also has full time graphic designers, an onsite lab.  Pretty much all in one there down in Fort Lauderdale, is that true?

MEL:  That’s correct.  We like to have very good quality control.  So by being able to design, print, and manufacture the albums right on site, we are able to maintain the highest quality at the best pricing available. 

JOHN:  Now I imagine the competition is pretty fierce down there in Florida.

MEL:  Yes, it’s very good.  We do have competition, but we hope that the quality of our work and the pricing that we have really brings a lot of business.  We don’t advertise or do bridal shows.  Our entire business is word of mouth.

JOHN:  No kidding.  Certainly that’s a big plus to be able to do everything in house.  You guys have it all going on there down at Englander Photography.  Now take me through maybe a brief idea of what a wedding or what a couple would go through if you were introducing your photography business to them.

MEL:  Well one of the things that we do with my photography is the beautiful pictures that we do, but it’s also the experience that a couple has with their wedding photographer.  Since they spend a majority of their day with the photographer, we want to make sure it’s a fun, enjoyable experience that they always remember every time they look at their photographs; and in that respect, we like to develop a relationship prior to the wedding.  So once we meet with them, and they decide they would like to use us for their services, we always schedule an engagement shoot prior to the wedding for a couple of reasons.  One we get them a beautiful photo that they can have at their wedding for their card table, but also so we develop a rapport and they get to enjoy the photography session so that the day of the wedding is not the first time they’re having this particular photographer, myself or one of my staff, photograph them.  So we like to develop that rapport beforehand so at the wedding they are very relaxed, they’re comfortable, and they understand that it’s going to be a fun experience.  It’s not going to just taking photographs.  And that’s very important to how we do everything here at our studio.  We want people to enjoy it and it’s the same thing when we design their albums.  We would like them to be a part of it, have a say on it so when they look at their albums throughout their life, they can always remember what an incredible experience they had with their photography.

JOHN:  Now, Mel, as you mentioned earlier, you manufacture photo albums right there in house so you can take your bride and groom through the whole process from beginning to end.  Is this something you do in the initial session?

MEL:  Yes, we like to show them everything we do.  We give them a tour of our studio.  Show them how we have some really incredible quality control.  The reason we print in house is because we make sure all the colors are perfect, exactly the way that it was intended to be and if there was something that we don’t like, we can reprint it right away.  The book binding we do in house, because we just really want to make sure we want to give them the best possible quality and also give them a pretty fast turn around.  Turn around time for our photography compared to other people is probably about 1/4, because we do everything in house and it’s done the right way.

JOHN:  So you can get your wedding photo album pretty quick after the wedding then, huh?

MEL:  Yes.  From the time they place the order it’s usually 30 – 45 days to finish a delivered album.

JOHN:  Very nice.  Now we are on the phone with Fort Lauderdale photographer, Mel Englander of Englander Photography.  Mel what is your website and contact information?

MEL: The website is www.englanderphotography.com.  We’re located at 8238 Griffin Road, Fort Lauderdale, very conveniently located on Griffin Road between University Blvd. and Pine Island Road.  With the additional office at Bonaventure Country Club in Weston, Florida.

JOHN:  And if someone wanted to contact you by phone? MEL:  It's (954) 434-1321

JOHN:  We are in the studio with Mel Englander of Englander Photography of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and you are listening to the More Photos’ Photography Spotlight.  We're going to step aside for these important messages, do stay tuned; we’ll be right back.  More with Mel.

ANNOUNCER:  More Photos Radio is powered by www.morephotos.com the online sales solution for professional photographers worldwide. 

ANNOUNCER:  VERTIOTALK RADIO.

ANNOUNCER: Did you ever wonder why the groom is supposed to carry the bride over the threshold?  What does the saying something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue mean?  Visit www.weddingdetails.com and click on the lore and tradition section.  We've got culture and tradition information from around the world.  Visit www.weddingdetails.com tonight.

ANNOUNCER:  We now return you to More Photos Radio Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.

JOHN:  Welcome back to the More Photos’ Photographer's Spotlight.  We're in the studio today with Mel Englander of Englander Photography of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  Welcome back to the program, Mel.  MEL:  Thank you again.

JOHN:  Now, Mel has an award winning photography business down there in Fort Lauderdale, and he does a lot of, boy you’re spread all over the spectrum of different things that you can do for your clients and you have a neat service that you just started doing recently; a photo booth.  Tell us a little about that.

MEL:  Well it’s not that we’re spread over the spectrum.  What we do is we like to specialize in everything that’s related to photography for the event so we can have a complete service and the people can come to one place to get all their photography and video needs.  In that respect, we started offering last year photo booths.  The old fashion photo booth for people to sit in the booth with whomever and out would come a strip of four images with their name and date on the bottom.  What we do with that is we bring the booth to the event; either a wedding; it could be corporate; it could be a bar mitzvah, and the people always have fun.  It goes across all age spectrums.  We have young people, we have older people.  Everyone loves having their photos taken and we allow them to have it for unlimited usage for the period of time that we’re there, and usually what we do is we print two strips and one we put in a scrap book where the people sign their good luck wishes next to it and they get to keep one strip also and people just have a blast with it.  We rent these for parties; we’re also the manufacturer of the photo booth so we sell them as well.

JOHN:  Sounds like a lot of fun.  I recall doing that a mall at some point in my past.  Does the photograph that comes out, is it a standard photograph or…

MEL:  It’s a regular photograph that will last a lifetime.  It won’t fade or anything.  It comes out usually within 10 seconds as soon as they’re finished and the next set of people go in there and it’s just every party we’ve ever done with it has been an absolute total hit.  People just love it.  I had an event recently where we were doing a 50th wedding anniversary and the client saw it and loved it, but wasn’t sure that the friends of her parents would really go for the photo booth, and I said, I’ll tell you what.  I’ll bring the photo booth and if it’s not the biggest hit of the party it’s complimentary on me.  There will be no charge.  Well after about 20 minutes of the photo booth going, she came over and brought me a check and goes this is amazing.  This is unbelievable.  This absolutely made our party.  And that’s the kind of comments I get from everybody that rents a photo booth.

JOHN:  It sounds like a lot of fun.  Those are kind of big, aren’t they?  How do you haul something like that around?

MEL:  We have our own truck with a lift case and we have three of these photo booths.  We rent them every weekend.  And I have a crew that does nothing but the photo booth.  We always have an attendant that stays with the booth the whole time.  So the attendant also makes sure everything goes ok and we’ll put the one photo in the scrapbook for the people to sign.  It’s a lot of fun and once again, my whole concept of photography is for it to be an enjoyable experience.

JOHN:  Well that sounds like a unique service.  I’ve never heard of a photographer offering photo booths to be honest with you, and I’ve spoke to a lot of photographers over the few years that I’ve been doing this.  Now I want to move on back to weddings a little bit with you, Mel.  I know that destination weddings are something that you’re company does.  Tell us a little bit about doing destination weddings.

MEL:  Well our entire business is word of mouth from clients.  We have clients that have been doing photography with us over the span of years and it doesn’t matter wherever they are they want me to be there to be at their event.  We just had one recently who’s people are here from south Florida and the wedding was in Colorado, and we flew out there with our crew and photographed their wedding, had the most spectacular pictures during the winter there and we’ve done weddings all over the globe.  South America, Central America, Caribbean; I always tell people, have camera-will travel.  Regardless of where they’re at it’s really not that much more expensive just to add a plane ticket and hotels to be able to do a wedding and be able to have it captured in a way that you always want to, because after all the photographs all one has after the wedding.

JOHN:  So true.  So true.  Now, Mel, you’ve got a couple different websites.  We want to get in your regular website and then you have a website for the photo booth rentals too, don’t you?

MEL:  Yes, the photo booth is called www.photoboothfun.com.

JOHN:  And you’re regular website address again?

MEL:  It's www.englanderphotography.com. 

JOHN:  Well, Mel, thank you for joining us again on the More Photos’ Photography Spotlight. MEL:  Thank you very much for having me. JOHN:  We are speaking with Mel Englander of Englander Photography of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and you've been listening to the More Photos’ Photography Spotlight.   I am your host, John Bentley, thanks for tuning in, everyone have a great afternoon. 

ANNOUNCER:  This Spotlight is powered by www.vertio.net.  Vertio Talk Radio; radio for the 21st Century.

 



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