March 2012
Wanna Know What Happens at VB Learn and Earn Workshops?
Virtual Backgrounds workshops can be a career changing experience unlike any other! We are so sure that you will agree that we guarantee it! VB Learn and Earn Workshops will show you how to grow your business by bringing Virtual Backgrounds into your studio operation so you can produce results others cannot begin to do. This workshop covers much more than just Virtual Backgrounds and how to make it work for you. It also covers developing quality professional lighting techniques, subject posing, props and most important, total integration to create a profitable result. The workshop also has an important section on marketing and presents a wide variety of ways to attract customers to be professionally photographed.
The three-day workshop involves considerable participation and hands-on experience. The workshops are taught by Montana Master Craftsman Photographer, Trevon Baker who shares his many years of experience with using VB to make his studio truly different. The workshop is coordinated by VB founder, Dr. Henry Oles, who also shares his marketing concepts with the group.
It is our goal that every attendee go home with a renewed spirit and know-how to transform their studio into one that is significantly more successful and more fun to operate.
To get more information on VB Workshops, contact us at 512-805-4844 or [email protected]. You won’t be sorry! We guarantee it!
Infinite Possibilities for Fundraising Partnerships
It is not just the professional photographer who is looking for ways to generate revenue. People everywhere are looking for ideas to raise money for various causes. At first, you think about charities but the possibilities go far beyond charities. Just think of all the different groups that need to raise money for a specific purpose.
For example, the high school band wants to take a band trip. The baseball team needs money for new uniforms. The Boy Scouts need money for a camping trip. The history class wants to do a special field trip to the capitol. The PTA wants to raise money for the school’s computers. The possibilities are endless.
Normally these groups will settle on selling candy, popcorn or other junk food on which they make almost nothing. By selling professional photography sessions, they can make a lot more money for their cause a whole lot easier. It brings business to the professional photographer who in turn generates quality photography.
As Daniel Gutier has shown, the possibilities are only limited to your imagination! Imagine big!
Are Slides Becoming Obsolete?
KODAK announced last week the discontinuation of selling E6 slide film. Does this spell the end of the Virtual Backgrounds? “Not at all,” says Virtual Backgrounds founder, Henry Oles. “The Kodak announcement has been expected for some time now.”
Kodak may be dropping slide film for the amateur and professional photographer, but Fuji continues to manufacture fine quality transparency materials. It is also important to note that Kodak will continue to manufacture movie film and basically movie film is transparency material. Movie film is not going away. Virtual Backgrounds is here to stay!
Virtual Backgrounds is a Tool that Generates Sittings!
As we all know, it’s a huge challenge these days to get people to come to the professional instead of doing it themselves. Most of us have this problem. However, we also know that once people come to a professional studio for a session, if it is well done, they buy images!
Getting them into your studio is the trick and is tricky! Use innovative marketing! Be different! Be unique! Focus on offering results the public cannot duplicate!
Virtual Backgrounds is powerful tool that is innovative, helps you be different and unique, and best of all, amateurs do not have this tool in their photography fun box! VB will enable you to create the WOW-effect with your customers! They will be driven to buy your unique products! That is the key!
Get Yours Today: New Simone Background Collections
Four new background collections created by Joseph a nd Louise Simone are available for immediate shipment. Click here to get more informaiton and to get your hands on these awesome background slides!
Backgrounds, Backgrounds, and More Backgrounds!
A lot of vendors including even some color labs are now showing and selling muslin and canvas backgrounds at trade shows. Many of them are made of up the same old stuff that hasn’t changed in years. There are only so many ways to create muslins and canvas. These standard typical backgrounds are just like those used by most every other photographer which so severely limits their opportunity to create new and different results. Conversely, with Virtual Backgrounds, you get infinite flexibility and variety!
The choice is simple: Be like everyone else with the same old backgrounds for the studio or soar to infinite heights and even customization with Virtual Backgrounds. In the end, VB cost less, provides unlimited backgrounds, has the important WOW-factor that can generate big profits!
Fundraising with Photography
A Win-Win-Win Opportunity!
Daniel Gutier is really hot on using fundraising to drive business to his Dallas studio. In fact, fundraising has quickly become the key way he and his partner Oscar get people in front of their camera. It’s a win-win-win situation: a win for the charities he works with, a win for the clients who get exceptional photography, and a win for Daniel’s studio providing him with a lot of sittings and notoriety. Fundraising can do this for you and your business as well!
When Daniel hooked up a fantasy calendar fund raising concept with Safe Kids of Dallas, a division of Children’s Hospital, to help them in fund raising, Safe Kids sold 195 sittings at $25 per sitting. Safe kids picked up nearly $15,000 and Daniel got 195 sittings. It didn’t end there! To select the 13 kids whose images would appear on the 2012 calendar, family and friends could vote for their favorite at $1 per vote payable through Pay Pal. This brought Safe Kids picked up thousands of additional dollars this way! Then the calendars were printed and sold for $15 per calendar. The printing cost was covered by advertisers in the calendar. Daniel Gutier was well represented in the advertising which further helped his studio grow and he got other kinds of PR as a result!
Click here to read the featured photographer article about Daniel.
While the charity received funds far beyond expectation, the parents got beautiful and unique photographs of their children that they never would have had otherwise. Virtual Backgrounds played a major role in making all of this happen. It is a process that helped Daniel close the deal with the charity, and it played a key factor in creating the fantasy backgrounds and making sales happen.
Daniel has prepared a complete guide to growing your business through charitable marketing programs. The guide includes not only general information but also everything the photographer needs to launch their own fundraising programs. It comes on two DVDs with a regular price of $399 but an introductory special of just $199 if you mention promotional code VB.
If you are looking for business, and who isn’t these days, then fundraising can be your key to letting others help you get people in front of your camera. Click here for details and to order your copy of Dan’s excellent marketing DVD package!
Studio in a Closet – Part II
You don’t need much space to produce an infinite variety of images when you use Virtual Backgrounds. This video shows just a few of the images we took in our booth at WPPI and at Imaging USA. The shooting areas were only 7 x 9 feet - about the size of a large closet. We used one main light, a Touch of Warmth reflector, and a separation light.
The simple set up proves that you can set up a portrait studio with Virtual Backgrounds just about anywhere and create an infinite variety of high quality images that will sell. Changing backgrounds in seconds added immeasurably to the variety produced, even in such a small space!
Watch the videos below to see sample images captured at WPPI and Imaging USA. Think of all that we did with our simple set up and how much more we could have done if we had a little more space.
WPPI 2012
Imaging USA 2012
Special Backgrounds and Promotional Materials for School Photography
VB has formed a special relationship with Champion Digital Design and Marathon Press especially for photographers who are doing school photography or considering adding school photography services. It’s a special combo package of backgrounds created by school photographer specialist, Bill Champion and preprinted promotional flyers from Marathon Press.
The six background transparencies that are used in the promotional flyer are just $149 and are designed for use in your Virtual Backgrounds projector. The flyers are available separately directly from Marathon Press. The images in the promotional flyer match the six transparencies. The combo makes it so simple to get going.
Watch Kentucky photographer, Cindy Cofer, demonstrate how to use the Studio Pro Monostand!
What is the price of the Backgrounder system? Thank you!