The Scene Machine Virtual Backgrounds system is rapidly becoming one of John Dingo’s most important tools to increase his creativity and build new business.  After several years of thinking about getting into Virtual Backgrounds, John finally made the plunge in January of this year.  John recently attended the May Virtual Backgrounds workshop in Texas and once we saw his samples, we knew he was doing great work.

Like most professional photographers, John did not start off as a professional photographer.  He was a Graphic Designer for a lithography company and then worked for Givson Greeting Cards for 14 years. After that he worked with International Paper for 7 years as a Graphics and Imaging Research Scientist.  During his stint with International Paper, John became interested in sports photography.  For 8 years he had a dual career with the last three being a full time professional photographer.  He has a new 5,300 square foot studio on Main Street in Batavia, Ohio.

John has no senior contracts which so far are locked in by his competitors.  So John goes all out to capture seniors in a unique way to set his studio apart from his competition.  This is where his Scene Machine plays a very important role because the competitors don't have Virtual Backgrounds.  Seniors see his mall advertising and get his direct mail and respond by scheduling.  This year he had 300 seniors!

It took John a few years before he truly realized that a Virtual Backgrounds system was for him.  He liked all the sample photographs he saw but wasn’t completely sold until he understood that he could use the Scene Machine to develop his own style.  John says, “I have my style.  That’s important to me.  I just couldn’t see how the Scene Machine would fit at first, and I was concerned about it working with my lighting.  Then I finally realized that I could do this.”

Since January, John has used the Scene Machine on 45 last minute seniors with 60% of the sessions being created with the Scene Machine coupled with foreground props.  “My seniors love it! They absolutely love it!  They don’t seem to care about the technical part, they just love the end results. Scene Machine makes me different.”

John came to the May 2007 double header workshop at Virtual Backgrounds.  This was the regular VB workshop coupled with three days of an outstanding Larry Peters presentation of his senior photography.  John says, “The workshops were great and will significantly help me grow my business.”

Business-wise, John says he knows for a fact that his use of the Scene Machine is sparking a lot of talk among seniors and their friends.  Many of his seniors don’t yet know that he has a Scene Machine but they are saying, “Those backgrounds are absolutely awesome.”   Several customers have mentioned that their son or daughter had so much fun with his “new toy.”

John paints many of his own backgrounds, photographs them and then turns them into slides.  No one else in the world has these backgrounds.  It’s obvious that the Scene Machine Virtual Backgrounds system will continue to be an important component of Dingo Photography.