A customer of mine asked me to produce a set (3) of pictures of her
daughter. One of the shots was previously featured, of the girl on the
bench, on Zone-10. Anyway, she asked for something really special and asked
for the best possible thing that a couple hundred bucks could provide. As
she is a really good customer of mine and happens to cut my hair, I decided
to pull out the stops on this one and give her the deal of the year.
(archiac reference to pulling out all the knobs on a pipe organ).
It took me about an hour to prep the images in Lightroom, and do a tiny bit
of touch up in Picture Window Pro. Hair and zit removal, mostly. Other than
that, the original files only needed cropping and tonal/color adjustment.
Same general tone/color as is in the zone-10 picture. Then I placed my order
with Millers...
She had requested canvas on stretcher frames, but those would have far
exceeded the budget. Even my costs would have blown the budget. So, I looked
for some alternatives. Having had prints done with various mounting and
surface modifications, it finally dawned* on me. Millers offers a bonded
option. A print is bonded to canvas which is then mounted to a masonite
backing. My previous trials of this have been good, so I knew it would look
good. But then I also had the hand-painting surface modification done. This
is where a clear acrilic paint is applied by hand with a paint brush to the
image. They don't just slap it on, but actually conform to the the subject
as though they are actually painting the picture.
So, the three prints arrive. When I open the package up for inspection, I
knew ahead of time that they were going to look pretty good, but not to the
level that they were. Folks, we're talking pure art. MY jaw was bouncing on
the floor. Granted, the initial pictures were pretty good to begin with
(grin), but I don't think I've ever produced what I would consider
"heirloom" quality prints before. These are pictures that
great-great-grandchildren will probably still have displayed somewhere.
Simply incredible. Without a doubt, these are the finest prints I've ever
had done. You really don't know for sure if it's a photograph or a painting
or a painting of a photograph.
OK, so time for delivery. She is speechless and in tears. Reactions like
this are what we live for. The money is nice, but it's bringing smiles to
faces and providing them with something so special that makes it all worth
it.
My costs? Millers was running a 3-day special on the prints, so I saved a
little money there, but three 10x10 inch, color/density-corrected prints,
bonded to 10oz canvas, mounted to masonite and hand-painted surface
modification cost me $128. In a normal retail world, the set would have sold
for no less than $600, but as a friend, I sold them for $200. (she has a
hair-salon and the images are being displayed there and she gets me tons of
business, besides she's a friend). So, for $70 PROFIT, (I already made money
on the photoshoot itself and zillions of other reprints), we got to
experience seeing such expression of joy. Shoot, I would have PAID $70 to
see it.
So, the moral to this story is that even though I should have charged more
for the prints, we negotiated a final price and I promised to give her the
best possible outcome for that price. In the end, I always try to keystone
the prices (2X my costs) and could have if I restricted the print size to
8x8". The fact is, my profit margin was enough, considering the amount of
work I put into it, which wasn't much. I'm doing well enough on this shoot,
the loss of a few bucks is nothing to worry about.
The original images were taken with the E-1 and Zuiko 35-80. That alone
should tell you that the pictures are going to be special. :)
AG Schnozz
* And then I had breakfast.
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|