|
|
Viewing a single post: view all recent posts |
 |
|
|
Jul. 27, 2009 - Featured Members |
| Name: Chris + Allie Bartelski - The Reason
Location: The Dirty South, ATL or Hotlanta. Take your pick... Atlanta. Website Blog [ b ] School profile Follow Chris Follow Allie How long have you been in business? Allie had been shooting weddings for about 4 years under the name "Allie Marie Photo" and wasn't booking that many each year. After both of us read Dane Sanders' "Fast Track Photographer" and became members of the [b] school, we decided to rebrand. the reason was born 6 months ago. Since rebranding - taking everything we learned at the [b] school and from Dane - we've gone from 5-8 weddings a year to 26 for this year - and 10 bookings for 2010 already! How did you get into photography? Allie always had an interest. When a friend asked her if she could take a few pictures of their small beach wedding while on vacation, she fell in love. Chris joined forces because he wanted to spend more time with her. Little did he know, he too would fall in love with the art form. Tell us how networking with other photographers has affected your business. Being able to find photographers who are on the same path we are on is the best thing that happened to us. Finding out that there were others who were willing to teach us and not be smug about it was a huge step in our business going forward. We hope we're able to give back as much as we can! What is your favorite part about shooting weddings? You get to see people at their happiest! It's a huge honor to be part of their day - to get to work with the bride & groom as closely as we do... and even make new friends along the way. What's your favorite piece of equipment these days? The new Nikon 50mm f1.4G. This lens is so good that after using it at one wedding, we went out and bought a second. We kept fighting over who could use it! Now we each have one in our bag. Another piece of equipment we love are our Alien Bees setup - two strobes and their cybersync wireless triggers. This setup dominates what we do during receptions. What is your favorite iPhone App? Allie : Pandora Chris : TwitterFon and Tweetmic. How else would I communicate with the world? Please tell us something personal about you so we can get to know you better: Chris used to be in a band, and was the lead singer. When he met Allie, he totally pulled that card... It worked. :) She's a sucker for musicians. The song "the reason" on our website is Chris and some of his old bandmates. Chris also recently pocket dialed a potential client while driving, and proceeded to sing a 4 minute made up song about Allie on her voice mail. When we met her for our client meeting, first thing she said was "you have a great voice." Chris turned bright red, but she still booked us! Where do you see the industry heading in the next 5 years: Two answers. Even though Nikon doesn't really have a solution that can compete with 5D Mark2's video capabilities, it's coming soon. We'll jump on the bandwagon when it stops by the Nikon station. Second, we hope the west coast way of doing things becomes THE way of doing things... East to west. North to south. Who's your favorite vendor in the industry? How important is your blog? Our website has become more of a business card, but the blog is where the real magic happens. It's a great way to be on someone's radar almost daily. It shows our potential clients that we are a healthy, growing and creative business. Nothing is more important than being real. How has Facebook and/or Twitter impacted your business? The beauty of tagging gets our work on the pages of all the bride's friends the moment we upload a gallery to Facebook. We get SO much interest and business from Facebook and word of mouth. About Twitter - again - it's about being real. We follow any brides that are on Twitter and they follow us. By the time we get to their wedding day, we might as well be lifelong friends. Also, keeping a current and entertaining Twitter account naturally leads to build a core group of fans. There is a great book called "Tribes" by Seth Godin that talks about the power of Twitter and building a core group of fans. Favorite thing about [ b ] School? Besides the obvious referrals with like-minded photographers, the simple fact that we've made life long friends. It's awesome to have a few photographer friends you can bounce business ideas off of, but it's even better to have friends that are dealing with the same issues you are. Our little group of [b] schoolers often talk on iChat. It's good to know that we can talk about other things besides photography - of course photography DOES dominate the conversation. We're actually going on a quick vacation with Pat & Maya Laurent and Cailyn Huston at the end of this month! Are there any workshops or upcoming GTGs that you'd like to plug? At the moment there are no real workshops that we are involved with, although I would like to give ATL a shout out and plug Zack Arias' One Light Workshop and DVD. We're are also trying to get more Atlanta Metro based photographers together for GTGs and mini workshops, so if you are local to us send an email to info@thereasonilove.com. Tell us what you like about the attached favorite photographs: |
| We love this picture because it showcases the butter cream sauce that is the Nikon 50mm f1.4G.
|
| We love what Nik Software SilverEfx Pro enables us to do in the b&w conversion process.
|
| This location in the Bahamas was gorgeous. This photos brings back good memories of the cruise. You get hired to be the photographer, but by the end of the trip you're a close friend... and then you almost feel bad taking money from them... almost.
|
| Nicole was the first model we shot professionally. She's got the best attitude, and has become a dear friend.
|
| We're really happy with the way this shot turned out. Most sparkler shots tend to be very orange and flat. This is very colorful... and we love us some color.
|
|
 2010: January February March April May June July August 2009: January February March April May June July August September October November December 2008: January February March April May June July August September October November December |
RSS posts: 350, comments: 6,235 visits: 1,558,646, page views: 3,867,013 |
© 2010 the [b] school, all rights reserved. - blog by infinet design
