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No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk
Today's Guest: Steve Harrington of Steve Harrington Photography in Garland, Utah
Today's Host: John Bentley

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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk brought to you by NO BS Photo Success Photography Forum. Dedicated to the portrait and wedding photographer who has the passion and desire to grow. Now here's your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: Today on the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk, we have Garland, Utah, photographer, Steve Harrington, of Steve Harrington Photography joining us today.  Welcome to the program, Steve.

STEVE: Thank you very much, John.

JOHN: Well you have a thriving photography business out there in Garland, Utah; why don’t you tell us a little about it, Steve.

STEVE: Yes, we tend to mainly stick to seniors. We shoot a lot of seniors; a lot of families. Not so many weddings, but yeah, we’ve kind of come into our own very, very rural area. We’re probably the biggest photographer in the local area that actually has a studio and most of our competition if you want to call it that is a lot of part time photographers. So we tend to stick out a little bit anyway.

STEVE: Actually, I’ve been in photography part time so to speak for about 6 years. We opened our doors six years ago. We did it part time. I had a full time job as most of my colleagues know as a steel worker and just about a year/year and a half ago I left the corporate world to take on photography full time.

STEVE: Yes. As a matter of fact, we just completed a brand new 1600 sq. ft. studio back in August so the paint is still drying. Yeah, we’re anxious to be in it and hopefully it affords us a lot of new opportunities to continue growing.

JOHN: Well what is your take? What is your slant on shooting seniors that kind of stands out from the competition?

STEVE: As far as competition wise, I think the biggest thing is we tend to have a more open approach, a little more fashion type style shooting where most of the people in our area, anyway, tend to stick to the more traditional stuff and even kids in rural towns are reading fashion magazines, and they watch MTV and they still want that same flair, so compared to what other people are delivering in our area, we’re kind of leading in that area as far as that look I guess. We’re starting to pull kids from further away which is great. Usually you tend to stick to our local kids, but we’re starting to pull kids from 2 – 3 hours away too. We’ve actually made somewhat of an impact it feels like. 

JOHN: Now you have a very unique style and flair. I was taking a look at some of your images online, and there was one in particular of a kid flying through the air on his skateboard. I thought it was kind of stunning. As well as just some photos of maybe seniors with their favorite instrument or another prop. Is a prop a big thing that you’re looking for when you bring a senior into the studio?

STEVE: We look for some. We tell the kids in their phone consultation that we’re trying to tell their story. So anything that they’re involved in whether it be school related or not, we ask them, you know, if you want to bring it, you’re more than welcome to. Most do; some don’t. It’s not required by any means. We just tell them that it kind of helps complete their story. It definitely adds to the energy and it helps sell actually more composites, because we can kind of put story boards together with their different activities and kind of tell their high school story, you know, their career through images.

JOHN: Now you have a lot of very nice family portraiture on your site too. Is that a big part of what you do?

STEVE: It is. We pretty much go from seniors, late fall, and just wind right into families and it’s actually kind of a beautiful thing, because what it is is we tend to pull those families right off the seniors that we have already shot, you know, that summer or that fall, and they it just kind of falls into our lap actually. It’s a pretty nice thing.

STEVE: We…I don’t know…it depends on if you live here or not, I guess. We do have the mountains and what not, but we’re kind of stuck right between some of the steepest mountain ranges in the country and then on the other side of us is the Great Salt Lake which is very baron and there’s not much there. We kind of advertise to our clients anyway that we don’t have a lot of pretty and so we shoot a lot of urban rustic abandoned buildings, kind of, atmosphere, but the mountains do tend to stand out, and I think it’s because a lot of people don’t see those on a regular basis like we do.

JOHN: Well maybe not, but I did see some family portraits with some very nice outdoor scenes, and like you said, you have kind of that urban look in some of your senior portraits. You know you have to use the environment that you have as a photographer, don’t you?

STEVE: Oh definitely. We kind of advertise that to photographers that ask us about stuff like that is. Basically this is the cards we were given, and I think it goes no matter where you live is you just kind of have to work with what you have. I mean, we obviously can’t drive to Salt Lake which is about 80 miles away to do all of our shoots so we pretty much have to work with what we have.

JOHN: Now, Steve, I’ve been talking a little bit about your website, why don’t you give your website address and contact information please.

STEVE: Sure. It’s www.steveharrington.net and all of our contact information can also be found on our website. There’s a contact us page, numbers and emails are all there.

JOHN: We’ll be right back with Steve Harrington of Steve Harrington Photography. He’s a Garland, Utah, photographer, and you’re listening to the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk. We'll be right back.

ANNOUNCER: This program is sponsored by NO BS Photo Success Photography Forum. Visit them on the web at www.nobsphotosuccess.com. NO BS Photo Success dedicated to the portrait and wedding photographer who has the passion and desire to grow.

ANNOUNCER: VTalk Radio.

ANNOUNCER: www.morephotos.com helps professional photographers manage their digital images online in over 20 countries. They can help you with domain names, websites, shopping carts, and online proofing solutions. Please visit them at www.morephotos.com. Mmorephotos.com the online sales solution for professional photographers worldwide. We now return you to the NO BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk show with your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: Welcome back to in the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk. We are in the studio with Garland, Utah, photographer, Steve Harrington, of Steve Harrington Photography.  Welcome back to the program, Steve.

STEVE: Hey, thanks.

JOHN: Now I wanted to talk to you about the fact that you’re an award winning photographer, but before we do that, you have a partner in your photography business, don’t you?

STEVE: I do. And that’s probably actually, she’s probably more of the business than I am. My wife, Shelly, she’s the magic behind it all pretty much. She’s the Photoshop editor guru. She’s the one that adds most of the flair to what we get out of the camera.

JOHN: I bet you do. Now you’re an award winning photographer. Tell us a little bit about that.

STEVE: Yes, we compete mainly right now at WPPI’s print competitions, and we’ve done very, very well I think. In about the last 20 months or so we’ve earned a couple first place awards overall and a couple third place awards overall, and we’ve accumulated enough points to achieve our WPPI Athlete of Photography Photographic Mastery. So we’re pretty proud of that.

STEVE: Our fist awards came back in about last July 07 and the first place award there was a senior. Third place award that year was also a senior so they actually competed against each other. And then this year we had a first place in the groups which was a group shot of a high school girl’s softball team. Twenty-five girls I think it was, and then we had a third place award this year in seniors which was shot from the series of the young gentlemen on the skateboard. We had another image of his and it ended up taking third place.

JOHN: Wonderful. Now the photograph of the softball team. Was that the one that had the danger electric. 

STEVE: Yes, we took it in front of a sub station…just a little power station around here.

STEVE: They were dominant in the sport in the state so we kind of went with an overall power theme so it ended up well.

JOHN: Excellent. Now you also do some other photography. Why don’t you touch a little bit on some of the other types of photography that you do.

STEVE: Like I said earlier, we do quite a bit of families. Utah is obviously known for large families so we do get a lot of large families. The new studio is proving a benefit for that now. We've been shooting large groups, groups of 20 and 20 to 30 people in the new studio which is great, because obviously once the weather gets chilly no one likes to shoot outside and little kids get cold and so it’s proven quite beneficial to us that no one else around has the capability to do that. We are starting to shoot more little kids, children. We want to get into that more. We just haven’t had the time to pursue it like we can now. So we’re going to open up to that, and we shoot a few weddings. Not a lot. On average maybe 8 – 10 a year which is fine. We’d much rather shoot seniors. Our philosophy, our thinking is seniors want to be here. They’re anxious about it. It’s a milestone in their life so weddings seem to be some stress involved so both on the photographer’s part and the client’s part so we’re just getting to the point where we can make just about as much on two or three seniors as we can a wedding so we just prefer to stick to the seniors.

JOHN: Sure. Now a couple of photographs that jumped out to me when I was looking at your site. One was a beautiful shot of a newborn infant laying in, I believe the father’s hands, I’m not real sure, but absolutely adorable. I love that kind of stuff. Everybody is wearing black so the infant really stands out. That’s a great shot as well as you have a really nice shot of a little bull dog on a skateboard. That’s pretty cute too.

STEVE: That was just recently done this past summer. A newlywed family. We actually shot their wedding about a year ago and she called and said that they had a new baby so we were kind of expecting to shoot a little kid and in come…his name is Murphy…and so that’s where it went from there. And apparently he skateboards.

STEVE: Well it starts out it’s kind of my wife’s fault. Shelly found them years ago before they were actually kind of a paid forum and she joined up and bugged me and bugged me to join and probably after two or three months of her being on, I finally joined and we learned a lot early on and got the opportunity to meet James and Rob and a few members at a small gathering at WPPI one year, and Rob and James kind of sat us down, and we kind of wondered where we sat in the whole scheme of things and true to their nature the whole No BS theme, they kind of laid it out to us that we kind of had something and really boosted our confidence and what not, and because of that, they have pretty much stuck with us forever now.

JOHN: That’s a nice connection to have. Both Rob and James are great guys and they have a great website and obviously they’ve made a good connection with another wonderful photographer, because your work is exceptional. Yours and your wife’s work is very exceptional stuff. We certainly appreciate you joining us today on the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shoptalk, Steve.

JOHN: Once again, we’ve been in the studio with Steve Harrington of Steve Harrington Photography. He is a photographer out of Garland, Utah, and you’ve been listening to the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk. I am your host, John Bentley. Thank you for joining us today. Until next time.

ANNOUNCER: No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk is powered by www.vtalkradio.com. Radio for the 21st Century.

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