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VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight
Today's Guest: Don Farquhar of Associates Studio and Gallery
in Overland Park, Kansas
Today's Host: John Bentley
October 2007

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www.assoc-studioandgallery.com
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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley. Sponsored by Morephotos.com; the online photo sales solution for professional photographers worldwide.

JOHN: Today we are in the studio with Don Farquhar of Associates of Overland Park, KS . Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Don.

DON: Thank you very much.

JOHN: Now you have a photography business there in Kansas, tell us a little bit about that.

DON: Well we've been doing photography for the last three years. We specialize in family, children, special events, fundraisers for charitable organizations, and also weddings.

JOHN: What are some of the charitable organizations that you've done fundraisers for, Don.

DON: We do for several of the Christian schools. We do for several of the hospitals and different nature around that.

JOHN: Are you doing a lot of senior photography?

DON: We're not a contract senior photographer, however, we will do somewhere in the vicinity of 100 - 105 seniors a year.

JOHN: So family portraits and children are a big part of your business. What do you do to prepare somebody when they're coming in the studio for a photo shoot?

DON: First of all we find out exactly what they have in mind, where they want to do it. We can either do it in the studio, we can do it on location, depending upon the time of the year, we'll suggest certain colors, what might look good. If it's a winter season, we want it to be looking wintery. If it's the summer season, we want it to look summery. What type of settings, are they after the very formal or are they after the very casual pictures or exactly what did they have in mind since we want to make their portrait experience a good experience.

JOHN: What about making them comfortable? I know a lot of people are nervous when they get in front of a camera. What do you do to make your clients comfortable in the studio or when you're shooting them?

DON: Well, I try to work out of a box, so to speak, on making them feel comfortable. We like to joke around, tease around. We don't immediately go in to take pictures. We try to go ahead and become more of a friend to them. This way makes them feel comfortable. If they have any questions, we like to go ahead and answer that. We've done that working with children, teasing is a wonderful way of going ahead and making them relax. I have customers who will say, "Mamma are we going back to the crazy man again?" They absolutely love it, and we love the reaction of the kids that way too.

JOHN: Ok, what about, I'm assuming in this digital age, you're doing a lot of digital photography. Do you do standard film also?

DON: We used to. We still have our medium format cameras. I don't believe we've picked one up in about the last six years. Everything thing now has been moved into digital. Digital is a big, big influx that has caused more changes in the industry. The only thing I can come close to saying is that the change has been going from black and white to color film. That same change is occurring from going from color film into digital. It's just that different media. It is so much more labor intensive to work with, however, the results can be by far better than film can be.

JOHN: What about weddings? I would imagine this time of year you're quite busy with weddings.

DON: Wedding seasons seem to change. It used to be that June was your busiest season. Now Octobers are our busiest season. We're still doing, we try not to push ourselves too much. We like to do more than two, possibly up to three, weddings on a given month. This way here, we're able to go in and take care of the customers and get the proofs looked at and get them worked out in a proper way.

JOHN: Now, when you do a wedding photo shoot, is it just one photographer or do you bring in a crew with you? How do you manage that?

DON: I'm the lead photographer in all of our weddings. I'll also have an assistant that's going to be with me. She's there for an extra set of hands and extra set of eyes for me. Also we do have availability if someone does want a second shooter, then that is also available too, but we will bring myself and I'll go ahead and bring along a female photographer.

JOHN: Don, will you please tell our listeners your website address and contact information?

DON: Yes, my website address is www.assoc-studioandgallery.com. My contact information is (913) 897-5744.

JOHN: We're in the studio with Don Farquhar of Associates of Overland Park, KS. You are listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're gonna step away for these important messages. We will be right back.

ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Photographer's Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com. The online photo sales solution for professional photographers worldwide.

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

JOHN: Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photographer's Spotlight. Today we are in the studio with Don Farquhar of Associates of Overland Park, KS. Welcome back to the program, Don.

DON: Thank you.

JOHN: We've been talking about your photography business. I'd like to know some of the cities and communities in the area that you cover.

DON: Overland Park is located right in the general area of Kansas City. We have Kansas City, MO, we have Kansas City, KS. We do the Shawnee, KS, area, the Lenexa area, Olathe area, Stanley area, Stillwell area. Missouri side, we do Belton, Raymore, Grandview, the Kansas City, Missouri area, Moose Springs. So, even though Overland Park sounds like it might be a small marketing area, it's really a very, very large vast marketing area in the Kansas City region.

JOHN: So you're willing to travel a distance to do a photo shoot. Are you willing to travel to other states?

DON: Yes, we do quite often. With weddings we have gone to Maryland several times. We've gone to Michigan and we've gone to Colorado, we've gone to down to Arkansas and to Texas, Nebraska, Iowa. So we do quite a bit of traveling. With senior portraits we will go up to 100 miles from the Kansas City area without any additional charges. Anything over that we do charge, and we have probably, I would say, anywhere between 5 to 10 that we do go out of the area quite some distance to do senior pictures.

JOHN: Why did you decide to become a photographer in the first place, Don?

DON: That's a very funny story. I used to be a police officer for 15 years. I wanted to go down to New Orleans and ride our motorcycles down to New Orleans. I couldn't do it because we were having a tremendous rain at that time so I decided to pick up a 35mm camera. I started playing around, playing around, playing around with the assistance of a neighbor. She started showing me what I needed to do, here, there, and everything else, and we just started doing a little bit, and just really grew. It just blossomed. I can't say that it was a way of doing it that I wanted to do it; however, it was just something that came about.

JOHN: Now, I know that a lot of people out there have relatives or a neighbor that has a digital camera and they might think, why don't we just have Uncle Joe go shoot us. What do you see as a problem with something like that?

DON: First of all, it's knowing the camera. Your cameras anymore are so automatic, you don't need to know, or people don't think they need to know the complete functions of their cameras; going from manual, automatic, and things of this nature. It seems to be a very big problem which is occurring not only in the Kansas City area, but also surrounding areas that people with digital cameras are wanting to come in and you have somebody that never picked up a camera before. They go to a camera store, they buy one, they set their camera on automatic, and they get the picture and it's good enough for them. We have noticed over the last 5 years a decrease in the quality of images that are being printed because of the lack of the technical knowledge. It's kind of a joke that if you absolutely blow a photograph, no big deal, put it in Photoshop and make it a black and white print and then call it artistic.

JOHN: What about your website? I see you have a very nice designed website that people can go to. How can people order your photos?

DON: They can go on our website. We do offer online viewing. We do our online viewing through More Photos. We have for several years. They can go in, they can take a look at the images, they can order the images, they can zoom in on the images, anything and everything that needs to be done can be done online. We found out that the people in our area are very time-conscious and they don't have a lot of time to come back to the studio and view images. So we found out the best way for them, and everybody seems to be loving, is the idea where they can go in, bring them up at the home on their own computer, they can tell what they want, they can go ahead and order their pictures. Once they are ordered, I'm given an email that lets me go into my software and retrieve the order, send it to the lab, give the customer a call and they can pick up the pictures.

JOHN: Well that's pretty convenient, huh?

DON: Very. We try to make it as easy on the customer as we possibly can. We found out that that's probably the biggest way that we've ever been able to sell the photos. We used to use proofs just like old photographers use to do. Well now that theres scanners that are the quality they have out there, it's a very dangerous idea to go ahead and use the proofs anymore. People are out there scanning the images. To think my images are not going to get scanned, I must be naive in the business, because I know my pictures are going to get scanned however they have already bought the pictures and bought what they needed in the very beginning so it's just something that you're just going to have to accept anymore.

JOHN: What would be your most important goal when you're shooting a client, Don?

DON: That customer satisfaction and make sure that I achieved the goal of what they wanted to achieve with the photo shoot.

JOHN: One more time, can you give your website and contact information, Don.

DON: www.assoc-studioandgallery.com. My phone number is (913) 897-5744.

JOHN: We've been speaking with Don Farquhar of Associates of Overland Park, KS. Thank you for joining us on VTalk Radio?s Photographer's Spotlight today, Don.

DON: You're quite welcome. Thank you for having me.

JOHN: I am your host, John Bentley, thank you for joining this afternoon. Have a great day.

ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio Spotlight; only on www.vtalkradio.com. Radio for the 21st Century.

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