Sept 2005

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Newsie bits
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Welcome fall!! I love this time of the year. Days and nights are cooler, the forest and all the trees/plants seem to begin to take one long last deep breath before going to sleep for the winter. It's an amazing season, and a time to MAKE SOME MONEY. This is and always has been the busiest time of the year in our studio, with all the weddings from the summer, and still more to shoot throughout the fall, and all the demand for family portraits with the fall colors, AND, of course, all the children and baby shoots, that seem to know no season.

When school starts we often experience a "lull" for a short while, but this year it didn't happen. I kept busy. I also started a coaching program (one I am taking, not the one I am soon announcing), keeping fit & flexible at karate, working the NoBs Forum; which is so close to being ready I can almost taste it.We've been working very hard on putting together one-heck-of-a-resource-filled-forum. I mean this site will be loaded. No braggin'!!. The main reason why it has taken so long since the first date we planned to announce it back in May was because we kept on coming up with bigger and better ideas and content that we know you will be amazed at. And, not to mention, all the problems with servers, software and IT guys, who are about as hard to communicate with as it is with my two cats.Who mostly just ignore me.

ST-Lucia here we come. We just booked out our travel arrangements to attend the St Lucia workshop put on by Charles VanderSluys and his wife Jacqueline. They have been running this program for seven years now. We are booked in as guest speakers and plan to give a half day presentation. It will be fun being there sharing and learning from other photogs. And scuba diving, a newly acquired skill. If you plan to get away this winter why not join us in beautiful StLucia? Check it out here.

I mentioned last month that I hoped to announce my coaching program for portrait and wedding photographers this month.Weeeeellll, that ain't gonna happen.....yet. The technical issues, the content and getting it right and focusing almost exclusively on getting the No Bs Photo Success Inner Circle forum up and running, PLUS, running my studio, my family and everything else has put that project behind just a tad. Just so you know, I did buy a dedicated server, programs and have oodles and oodles of information ready to go, so this ain't all talk and hot air. It's-a-happening thing. Just not this month. So stay tuned.

I also mentioned last month about my new dream home and studio that we will be moving into the third week of October, and after settling our lives into it I will be starting on the contruction and renovation of the outbuilding that came with the house. Look at the second pic below, the smaller matching building behind the big one. I have had my eye on this place for years. Can't believe were moving into it. I will be videotaping segments of the actual design and construction and will be making that a part of the information available in my soon-to-be-announced coaching program. Kinda like one of those reality TV make over shows. Should be interesting.

Point & Shoot Project is another grand scheme that James and I have been brewing on for about a year now, since we bought the Canon A75 point and shoot cameras. These things are addictive!! I have never had so much fun. We been talking about doing a reality type progam where we go somewhere, anywhere, matters not, and look for cool things to photograph using nothing but these little babies. Our point is and always will be: IT AIN'T THE GEAR THAT MAKES THE PHOTOGRAPH. BUT THE PERSON BEHIND THE LENS. This reminds me of a quote I read years ago, that goes something like this:

"Photography is like a Unicycle. You stop peddling and you fall off"

How true. That's why these point and shoot cameras are sssssoooooooo cool. They keep you sharp and honed and in the game of looking for light and texture and angles and all that stuff that comes together when painting images with LIGHT. When you have one with you all the time you are in essence "peddling". Try this. Go somewhere with the only intention to explore and discover photographs using a point & shoot. You will have a hoot I guarantee it!

Here's a small selection of point and shoot images taken over the last while:






All these images taken by Robert Provencher & James Hodgins on a Canon Powershot A75 3.2MP.
Underwater image taken with the Canon A75 underwater housing.

We have thousands of images currently in our collection.

One of the features of the new No Bs Photo Success Inner Circle Members Forum (NoBs Photo Success , buy the way, in case you're wondering, is the other gig to do with digital photography that I run with my associate James Hodgins) is the All New Dangerous Downloads Category with Actions, Videos, Web Tutorials, Interviews....all tools to help you skyrocket and achieve your full photographic potential. This is one of the biggest features with the new forum and the first interview is already done. We have many, many more interviews already lined up, but here's a FREE sneak preview for you to enjoy. It's Mark Hamilton, our lighting moderator and photographer extraordinaire. Go get it while it's up! It's an Mp3 audio file. Listen to it off your computer or burn it to a CD as an audio file and play it in your car.....

Expired. Available as part of the downloads in the NoBs Inner Circle Forum

While we're on the topic of the No Bs Photo Success Inner Circle Members Forum, and many people have been wondering when this new forum will finally be available, here's the OFFICIAL UPDATE.......

The forum is very much ready to launch. Other than a few more things to load onto it, the first and biggest issue right now is getting all that info from our shared host to our own server. (If you don't know what that even means, don't ask. I don't know either.) We didn't even know this was an issue until the forum got real slow and even hung up because shared hosting can't handle all that bandwidth. That's about as technical as I am gonna get. We have a tech guy and our host company working on it and it won't be long.

MEANWHILE.....go and read a part of the promotion letter that IS ready
to do the sales job on the new FORUM.....
Link to NoBsPromo Letter

Lawyer Bert Krags has written some fascinating stuff on photographers rights. I emailed him and asked if I could offer his free report. Just go to his site, click on photography and on that page click on photographers rights and finally you will see a link to the PDF file. Good reading.......
GO HERE: Photographers rights

I found this interesting because only a few weeks ago James and I were out at our local mall, in the parking lot, creating a portrait. Just as we ready to start shooting after setting up the portable lights along comes a security guard, oozing cop-wanna-be attitude, ready to shut us down. I quiclky told James to "take the dam shot, take one now! This ain't gonna last..". Well, I was right. We got one shot off before Mr. BigShot with a corporate crest on his blue suit had us packing up and hightailing it outta there. The nerve...(probably the only excitement he's had ALL YEAR)

The one and only shot we got off before our rights were hampered by the local ROBO-guard
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Attention Beauty and Glamour Photographers!
Make more money with your beauty and glamour photography. Learn the inside secrets kept locked up by high end magazines with this ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME
3 day intensive workshop with award winning Playboy photographer Kim Mizuno
Once in a lifetime workshop: Did you ever wonder how they managed to take such fantastic portraits for Playboy? I mean I only read :) the articles, but I heard the lighting is absolutely outstanding! Not counting the retouching and make-up of course, it is truly some of the best on this planet.

Up until now these techniques were closely guarded insider secrets, but somehow my friend Kerry Allan, seminar producer beyond all show producers, (he's the guy who brought Monte Zucker to Phoenix last spring) is putting together a once-in-a-lifetime workshop where long time and still earning his living shooting for Playboy Magazine photographer Kim Mizuno will be revealing everything FOR THREE FULL DAYS. This is not by any stretch the cheapest seminar on the block, but you heard the saying "you get what you pay for." This is a valuable event for those who want to learn his style from a true maste and is a bragian at twice the price.

For over 2 decades Kim Mizuno has set the standard that all other photographers strive for. His work has graced the pages of Playboy and numerous other publications including his famous East/West calendar series. Kim prides himself on creating images that blow the competition away, and distances him from the tawdry nudity generally found on the Internet.

• This is a hands-on workshop using awesome locations and live models right from the pages of Playboy.
• Learn to dress, design, and light the set.
• Learn about strobe, reflectors and Natural light.
• Learn correct exposure, color balance and using gels to enhance the skin tones and mood of the shot. Believe me when I say
  you've never seen this kind of photography done before.
• The entire seminar will be video taped and DVD's sent to each participant within three weeks of the seminar.

This seminar is very tightly controlled and only a limited number of participants are allowed.

This ensures each participant gets the maximum benefit from the workshop. Be sure to bring your camera and lenses so you can practice lens selection and camera position once the set is finished and the models are ready.

Get your glamour photography career on track today! This may be the single most important seminar you will ever attend!

The workshop will take place in Los Angeles Dec. 5,6 and 7, 2005. Price of the three day workshop is only $2795.00
A deposit of 50% is required to hold your spot with the balance 15 days before.
Use your Credit Card online to hold your spot or call Kerry at 480-314-2348 today!
Spots are very, very limited.
Download and listen to Kerry talk about this workshop in an interview

"Look, I really don't want to wax philosophic. But, I will say that if you're alive - you've got to flap your arms and legs,
you've got to jump around a lot, you've got make lots of noise, because life is the very opposite of death!"
Mel Brooks

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Photography Marketing Strategies
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Trying to get the best bang for your advertising buck is TOUGH! Very tough. That's why I like and use direct marketing strategies to build my business, along with affiliation marketing and newsletters and many other unusual techniques poopooed by designers and commission grabbing sales reps and ad agencies. One of the biggest mistakes studio owners make is the same mistake just about every other business out there in every type of business makes. They either think there is magic pill or a wizard with a powerful formula that will wave his wand and make customers appear out of nowhere.

Fact is there is no such thing. EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS, every single studio grew out of a steady, constant grinding growth and hard work. I met my goals when I applied this attitude with savvy marketing. Another HUGE mistake that happens within an industry, and photographers are just as guilty, is what I like to call marketing incest. They look at what every other photographer is doing and assume it must be working. So they copy it. Next thing you know the marketing generates into an even lower and more ineffective force. Its gets dumberer.....BUT

BY FAR THE MOST EFFECTIVE STRATEGY IS.......... PUBLICITY. Why? Besides being free and reaching thousands and thousands of poeple, it is about the only thing out there in this blob of a giant, loud, messy world of advertsing that actually is BELIEVED. It comes with oodles of instant credibility.

I read a ton of books on marketing and advertising. It's like a sickness with me. I got em all. The classics right up to the modern experts. From Claude Hopkins right through to John Caples, David Ogilvie, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert and then some. They all have touched me deeply.

Truly, I am a sick man in need of dire help.

But one of the best books by far that I haven't even finished reading yet is the one in my upstairs bathroom called: "The fall of advertising and rise of PR" by Al Ries and Laura Ries. These guys have written many books before, none of which really interested me that much, but this book is absolutely amazing. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it's just me and this weird obsession I have. Anyhoo, YOU DECIDE.....here's a few tidbits from the book. OR better yet, get a copy.

Tell me this isn't powerful stuff....from "The fall of advertising and rise of PR" by Al Ries and Laura Ries

• The weakest link in any advertising program is its credibility. An advertising message has little believability with the average person. Advertising is taken for what it is- a biased message paid for by a company with a selfish interest in what the consumer consumes.
• The years that followed Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre's invention of the daguerrotype might have been called "the fall of painting and the rise of photography". In the same sense, advertising has lost it's function (italics mine) as a brand building tool and lives on as art. This doesn't mean that adversting has no value. The value of art is in the eye of the beholder. It only means that when a functional discipline becomes art, it loses function and therefor its ability to be objectively measured. (image ads and ads created for the sole purpose of winning awards and stroking egos)
• History offers an explanation. When a communication technique loses its functional purpose, it turns into an art form.
• The average advertising agency spends more of its money on award entries than on independent consumer research.
• The goal of traditional advertising is to not make the product famous. The goal is to make the advertising famous. Instead of creating sales value, traditional advertising attempts to create talk value.

On and on and on this book is loaded with scathing look at the whole advertising industry and it's total ineffectiveness. But the bottom line is this: The best form of media attention is by far publicity. Second to that and important for us'ems small guys is to follow the golden rule: Never Be Boring. And always use good copy, good offers, good targeting, real, honest to goodness communication with real honest to goodness prospects and clients.

Since we're on the topic of publicity, I have had my fair share over the years. And I did create what I believe to be the definitive guide for photographers who want to use publicity as a powerful marketing strategy. I've included it as a free report when anyone gets there hands on one of my photography marketing systems. Shameless plug that was, so here's another feebie for you. Larry asked me comment on his ads for him.

(Larry, if you did not receive this yet, sorry. I may have inadvertantly lost your email. My apologies.)
You can watch the consultation I gave Larry here: Print ad analysis (expired)
P.S. I don't advocate the use of print ads as a primary marketing strategy. Especially when starting out. There are exceptions but for the most part I urge and promote the proper use of direct mail, newsletters, affiliation marketing, direct response etc etc....

"What day is it? - 'It's today' - squeaked Piglet. 'My favourite day' - said Pooh."
A.A. Milne

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Success Corner
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Been packing and getting ready to move our house. Amidst it all I found my notes from The Yevant seminar I attended last August.
Here's a few highlights for you:

• Yervant will do fashion shoots of his previous brides with their designer weddings dresses on. He uses these images as submissions to magazines. Great PUBLICITY IDEA!!
• Yervant admits he's not a business man. What I took that to mean was that he preferred, like me, not to have to deal with the money transaction part of business. He, like me, lets his wife do that part, which, like my wife, she takes on with enthusiasm and pleasure. That way he gets to play artist and bring awesome images and his outgoing personality to each session. This, by the way, doesn't mean you shouldn't be relieved of the responsibilities involved in creating prices, packages and pricing your work so that your are getting what you are worth instead of obsessing over what you think "people will pay"....(buyers are liars....)
• Yervant talked about the importance of bonding with and creating good friendships with the parents of the bride and groom. Especially the brides mother. This, he feels, is vital. I have to admit I never heard this bit of wisdom before and you can bet I came back ready to apply it in my dealings with the parents of the bride and groom.
• Yervant also went on about the $70,000.00 greek wedding he photographed. These stories I have to admit can lead us astray since they are so much the exception to the day-to-day bread & butter stories that reflect reality. Admittedly it was an interesting story, but not terribly instructive. I mention that here because I want those that are prone to being "star-struck" and mislead to realize that they are entertaining stories and often once-in-a-lifetime events. Take it for what it is.
• Yervant talked about how we tend to underestimate ourselves. He likely meant with pricing but could very have meant all things including our self opinions, our abilities, our visions, and this is not an affliction within the photography industry, but is universal amongst all business owners, especially those starting out and struggling. You could say it applies to most people in general when you stop and look what what of the masses do day-to-day with their lives.
• Wedding organizers-Who needs em! Yervant talked about how he doesn't like working with wedding organizers, and what exactly he does about it may vary. My guess is he either convinces the couple they don't need one or he somehow manages to get his way in spite of the planners. I've worked with a few planners when I've shot in Phoenix but in our city they are non existent. I never had a problem but have heard stories where the planners somehow manage to give the photographer way too little time for the photography after the ceremony. You need to be strong, bold and confident when you influence the powers that be that you need, that you insist on having X amount of time. I get the impression that he does this and gets his way. Why? Simple. He's good and people respect him. He doesn't get pushy or arrogant. Plainly put he's a nice guy who loves his craft and his enthusiasm and professionalism opens up the way.
• Branding our name. Yervant believes you should try and "brand" your name. Obviously this means at the local and regional level. But it is a valid idea and he's applies it with success in his area. Every knows who he is...Yervant.
• Double your prices. I love this idea. When you double your prices Yervant says you clean up your clients. I doubled mine years ago and it works! No more agonizing through hours and hours of sales presentations and selling.
• In his area there are Greeks, Jewish and Anglo weddings. SO, he's has a sample album of each type. When the Greek bride shows up for a consultation he shows them the album that reflect exactly the type of wedding she's going to have. What he did at first to get this going was real bold, and, I can't believe his wife let him do it, but I LIKE IT!! Here's what he did. He decided he didn't like the fact that most weddings were late in the afternoon and the amount of time for photographs after the ceremony was very very short. He had a vision. The next bride that came in, he told her FREE. Her entire wedding FREE, and a complete wedding album. The only catch???? She had to have her ceremony at 1:00PM in the afternoon. She balked and complained, but did it anyhow. Here's what he did after that. He created an outstanding album BY THE NEXT FRIDAY. One for her, and ONE FOR HIM. (Guys like that can't sit around WAITING, gotta get it done NOW!!!) SO, the next prospective bride walks in, he shows her this amazing album. SHE LOVES IT. He says, I can do the same fo you, but, YOU HAVE TO GET MARRIED AT 1:00PM, otherwise, ain't gonna happen. Cool, or what. To sell it, you gotta SHOW IT. He did this FOR EVERY NATIONALITY....Jewish, Anglo and Greek. And he singlehandedly changed the "norm", where everyone got marreid at 4:00PM, now it's 1:00PM.....
• Yervant presents all his proofs in an 11"x14" image catalogue with extra large proofs.

The one thing that I also got was the posing style. I picked up many tips and started to apply them right away and got immediate results. I have many notes that I refer to over and over. I'm like that. When I get some good information I want to squeeze every value out of it that I can. Most of the information got while attending seminars and with DVD's and such is totally wasted because we either don't watch the stuff or we only remember a measly 10% of what the seminar was about.

Yervant is an old darkroom guy like me. He has many years working away with enlargers and chemicals. This, I firmly believe, is the foundation for his photography. I, like him, have embraced digital and used the medium the same way we would have in the darkroom...only lighting fast and a bazillion time more versatile and innovative.

"Traveller, there are no paths. Paths are made by walking."
Australian Aboriginal saying

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Testimonials
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Here's an email I received from Shawn Von Ins from Michigan. He and his wife Julie attented last month's Image Exploration workshop in St-Catherines. His reference to being shocked at his little guide-book is true. We were amazed and thought it was a GREAT IDEA. What's he's done is taken some of the images and ideas from my wedding marketing system and created a "field guide" of sorts....read on and watch the video:

"Rob, We had an INCREDIBLE time in St. Catharines with you and James. I did learn a lot in your class, but even more just talking with the both of you. You're just the coolest guys and we would like nothing more than to keep in touch! Sure, we've got a lot to learn about this business, but it's more than that. It's the fact that you are loving life and who doesn't want to be close to that?......
I was a little shocked at the response James had to my little guide book. I thought it was cool, but didn't know that anyone else would! No problem if you want a copy of it, Rob.......I've put a couple of close ups of my book with this email. After I printed them, I had Julie laminate them. Next, I cut them and brought them down to Kinko's to have them bound with the spiral wire. Cost about $4. Let me know if you need more info/photos!.......Thank you so much for everything, Rob, I've learned sooo much from you personally, that I'll be in debt to you for a long time! Bless you for your eagerness to teach and for your enthusiasm. It really rubs off on those you touch!" --Shawn

SEE THE VIDEO HERE
(offer expired)