Marketing Mini Studio Session

[melissa_sievers]

<p>A local community invited me to participate in their first annual trade show. There will be a variety of vendors including people with Pampered Chef, Scentsy, a Purse person, Mary Kay, and other similar companies. The idea is that there will be one representative of each type of product - though there may be another photographer. </p>

<p>I'm looking for ideas to make the most of the opportunity.</p>

<p>My plan was to at minimum have a display of my photos to try and make contact with people possibly looking for senior or family portraits, or weddings. Every vendor is supposed to have something to raffle off. I will likely offer a photo session of some sort.</p>

<p>What I'd like to do is set up a mobile station to do 15 minute child portrait sessions. </p>

<p>Here's my blog post with the details:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sieversmaphotos.blogspot.com/">http://www.sieversmaphotos.blogspot.com/</a></p>

<p>I'm considering having live chickies there. But, I think that it could be a logistical headache. We have chickies available at our farm, but they get cold easily and may not enjoy their experience. My mom is going to come down to help run the table, take money and have people fill out their information while I'm (hopefully) taking photos. I don't know that I want to ask her to wrangle chickies too. We'll see how it goes. I may figure something out.</p>

<p>The show organizers are putting an ad in the newspaper with a list of vendors, so there will be a line directing people to my website to find information. <a href="http://www.sieversmaphotography.com">www.sieversmaphotography.com</a> I've been working on spreading the word too.</p>

<p>Worst case scenario I go through the effort of setting up a photo space, nobody is interested in photos at that time, but I have an elaborate conversation piece.</p>

<p>But, I would love to make a connection with a couple people and take a few photos.</p>

<p>I'm going to work on more variations of my set up and dial it in. I need to recruit a couple more children to be models.</p>

<p>If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Thanks for taking the time to read this post.</p>

[Mattman944]

<p>Be sure to verify the amount of space you can use. Some trade shows only allow one table.</p>

<p>The children images on your blog aren't nearly the quality of your main website.</p>

<p>Business breeds business. Try to avoid an empty studio. Bring some children with you if possible to fill in the empty times.</p>

[melissa_sievers]

<p>Thank you for the response. The event will be held in the community auditorium. I've visited with the organizer. They are open to the idea of portraits. There is a stage where I can set up.</p>

<p>I'm rounding up a couple more kids to do test photos prior to the event and will invite a few local families/friends to the event too. </p>

<p>I like the sample photos, but there is something about them that I'm not digging about them too. But, it's been difficult to put my finger on it. I was trying to explain it to my husband. I think that I need to reposition the lights so that there is a more obvious catch light in the eyes. Rookie mistake that I shouldn't have made. </p>

[acedigital]

<p>A puppy or kitten would be easier to manage that chicks!</p>

[melissa_sievers]

<p>Kittens would be fun... if one had a 2-3 month old. We have cats on the farm that I'm sure will be contributing kittens to the place in a month or so. Last year we had a litter born the week of Mother's Day. Not early enough for this occasion, I'm afraid.</p>

[david_r_lewis]

<p>Melissa,<br>

I can only envision problems with your proposal. If the event is well attended, I personally would not want to try to photograph children with a large number of " self-appointed helpers." I do not know your locale, but the US Dept. of Agriculture does have a number of restrictions using live animals for promotional purposes and the permits required are a nightmare of paperwork. The fines are quite large also, no to mention any liability. My personal view is that an attractive display staffed with friendly folks who do not try to sell me anything on the spot and send me on my way with some kind of short dated incentive will probably get my business.<br>

Warmest regards,<br>

David R. Lewis </p>

[melissa_sievers]

<p>The show was yesterday and while it wasn't the success that I dreamed of, I don't feel dissapointed either. </p>

<p>I did invite my cousin's wife and their son down. Her bestfriend has an 18 month old. She had expressed interest in having me do some family portraits, so I invited her down for a complimentary session as well. The 18 month old had a bit of a cold, so she wasn't as perky as one would hope. Still, we had a nice time.<br>

<br /><a href="http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/?action=view&current=IMG_5605-Edit.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/IMG_5605-Edit.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a><br /><a href="http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/?action=view&current=IMG_5675.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/IMG_5675.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a><br>

(I used the sRGB color profile, but the samples above have more blue in them than they showed while editing. How can I fix that?)</p>

<p>I had another staged family that fell through which is too bad, but it happens.</p>

<p>I was able to mostly set up my table the night before, so I opted to bring chickies with on Saturday. They worked as a spectacle. Lots of people and children stopped by, though not to take photos. A lady at the event saw me photographing the staged children, so she had her dad bring her three kids down. I photographed them for 15 minutes and got a few different poses of the group, including one of them holding the chickies. Their mom will wait to see the photos online and then decide if she wants to order prints or the disc.<br>

In all, there were a few moms starting to look for a photographer for the senior student in their home. A couple others asked about photo sessions for their family. One or two people had said that they'd heard good things about me. So, I think that I may get a call or two in the future that I may not have otherwise. I didn't use my mini studio set up much for photographs, but I was able to show people that I could bring the studio to their home if needed too. I've done that before, and it works out.<br>

<a title="TradeShow2 by Sieversma, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5185/5585758180_5855a7d36f_t.jpg" alt="TradeShow2" width="100" height="75" /></a> <a title="Trade Show1 by Sieversma, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/5585164645_5809b350d9_t.jpg" alt="Trade Show1" width="100" height="75" /></a></p>

 

[melissa_sievers]

<p>I reopened and 'converted to profile' on my sample pics again. So the links above are broken. Here are a couple pics. <br>

<a href="http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/?action=view&current=IMG_5605-Edit-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/IMG_5605-Edit-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a> <br /><a href="http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/?action=view&current=IMG_5675-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm203/Sieversma_Photo/Babies%20and%20Children/IMG_5675-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a></p>