Wanamaker Photography Blog

Behind The Scenes Of A Photography Studio

They often say that no matter how much you plan something out, you can never be fully prepared for what you are going to encounter … and after our first onsite printing expedition, I can believe that completely!

Loretta and I arrived at the Minisink High School just before 8AM yesterday with a ton of equipment from our new Schinko printer to a desktop computer to all of our lighting and camera gear. We setup everything across three tables and got ready to start shooting the matches and printing the images!

The rest of the crew arrived just prior to 9AM so we had a little time to brief them on any changes. Sean, my brother, headed up the computer while Jenny and Amanda setup their cameras and chose a mat. Jenny’s sister, Kim, came out to provide us an extra set of hands at the table and a runner for the memory cards as we shot the matches. We were set and ready for the wrestling to begin!

Since one of the teams dropped out of the tournament, all of the one-on-one matches had to be reconfigured and caused the event to start a bit later than everyone thought. Right around 10AM though, everything got under way and we began shooting away!

What I didn’t plan for was exactly how many shots we would all be taking! The majority of the matches were so good that neither Jenny, Amanda or myself could put down the camera as we’d wind up missing something! This is where our bottleneck started …

As Kim kept rotating the cards to keep up with the matches, Sean would download each of the cards to the PC so we could print contact sheets to display on the table. It was just about this time that Amanda’s camera (a Canon 20D) decided that it wanted to ignore the continuous numbering setting and would reset its numbering scheme back to img_001 each time we inserted a new card. This created problem for Sean as he needed to rename each image from Amanda’s camera each time a card came in. Thankfully, Sean is quick on his feet and created a simple way to avoid any duplicate image problems for us later in the day.

As the day went on, our proof sheet printer became tired and started running slower and slower … Our photo printer lost its color calibration somewhere along the way and a bunch of prints had to be thrown away as we readjusted everything … And the matches started getting longer and longer as the wrestlers were more evenly matched.

By the time the day finally came to an end, it was almost 9PM and we had a bunch of orders (including custom posters) and we were all a bit tired. We took the last little bit of energy that we had, cleaned up our equipment and called it a day!

After everything that happened during the day that made our first shot at OnSite Printing a bit of a crazy one, I do have to say that everyone did an absolutely amazing job. While we were dealing with the problems we encountered, not a single one of our customers knew anything was wrong or not going the way we had intended it to. So while things were a bit crazy, I have to say that it was a job well done. Now it’s time to make our adjustments and head out to the next event twice as strong!

Here are a couple shots from the day!

During wrestling season, no matter where you turn, tournaments are always going on somewhere. This past weekend was no different. With the half day Minisink Valley JV Tournament on Saturday and the full day Vernon Team Wrestling Classic on Sunday, it felt like we were completely enveloped in it!

The Minisink Valley Tournament on Saturday saw wrestlers in attendance from a bunch of the local area schools including Warwick, Port Jervis, Washingtonville and Goshen. Loretta provided full coverage of that tournament, getting a bunch of great action shots of the wrestlers doing what they do best!

The Vernon Team Wrestling Classic on Sunday saw even more teams, some local like the Sussex Wantage Wrestling Team and others from much farther away (Philly & South Jersey). I spent the majority of the day shooting the tournament myself and then Loretta joined up just prior to finals to provide some better coverage. I have to say that we saw some unbelievably good matches between the wrestlers! Most of the kids ranged in age between 7yrs and 13yrs and wrestled ten times better than most of the High School guys that we follow! Here are a couple shots from Sunday as well!

Now its time to get ready for the Minisink Valley Invitational next Saturday where we’ll debut our On-Site Printing and Custom Sports Posters! I can see it now … Its going to be a busy week!

Happy New Year!

I know … I know … I am a little late with that, but we have been really busy in the world of Wanamaker Photography. Last year was a great year for us and we are really looking to repeat everything again this year. So, needless to say, we’ve had a lot going on in just a few short weeks!

Earlier this month, Loretta and I escaped from the snow and headed south to Tampa for Imaging USA, a conference for photographers from around the world. We started each day at 5AM, sat in classes and seminars for hours and walked around the convention center, talking to our current vendors and meeting with new ones. We met with some great individuals and learned a few new ways to improve processes we had in place. We brought back a lot from Imaging and cannot wait to implement some of the new things we’ve learned!

The new year also brought us another photographer. Jenny VanBuren, a local to the Westtown area, will become our main Portrait photographer for anything from children to entire families. She is an upbeat and outgoing individual that will make a great addition to Wanamaker Photography!

Moving into 2008, we have a great lineup of new products and services that we will begin offering. Since the majority of our work involves local high school and youth sports teams, it was very easy for us to begin offering custom action posters. Each poster features custom background artwork and up to five action and portrait shots of the individual for an unbelievable looking image! The posters range in size from 12×18 all the way up to 32×48! Check’em out!

Another new service we’ll be introducing this year will be on-site printing for events. Using the latest in digital imaging and computer technology, we’ll be able to have action shots available for purchase almost as fast as it happens! We’ll debut this new service at the 2008 Minisink Wrestling Invitational on January 26th at the Minisink Valley High School!

And last but not least, we’re also going to begin offering a VIP Program to our customers. The program will feature a host of benefits including discounts off of our products and services, free prints and extra cash back. Membership is open to anyone who has purchased any of our products or services!

So as you can see, we have been very busy … and this is only the tip of the iceberg! We have another 11 months to offer more great products and services for our current and potential clients! We are looking forward to a great year for 2008 and we want to share it with everyone we work with!

Now it’s time for me to get back to work