Angela Vaught from Somerset, Kentucky

In Less Than One Year, Angela is Looking to Expand Her Studio!

Angela Vaught opened her studio in Somerset, Kentucky a short while ago and already she is looking for a larger facility to accommodate her growing needs. While Photography by Angela Vaught is Angela’s first studio, she is not new to professional photography. She was with Sears Portraits for 17 years doing everything from running the local Sears Portrait Studio to working as a training manager which took her all over the country.

Eventually, she grew frustrated with the limitations a major national studio chain has to impose on their photographers and decided to follow her dream of having her own studio. Although Angela does all kinds of photography, her specialty is children 5 and under.

Angela’s first major purchase after purchasing her Canon 10D camera and studio lights was a Virtual Backgrounds system. She first saw a system on display at a Kentucky trade show and immediately thought, “This is really cool!” She recognized that infinite background variety would give her a definite edge over other studios, including Sears and Wal-Mart. At Sears, she was always frustrated with using just a few simple backgrounds.

Now, a whole world of backgrounds could be at her fingertips. Initially, she purchased a copy of the book, Background Power!, to find out all she could about backgrounds. Then she ordered her Virtual Backgrounds system. She admits that at first she was a little intimidated, but then she came to Texas to attend a Virtual Backgrounds workshop and the rest is history.

“My customers love it. I often do 3 or 4 backgrounds on a single sitting. It’s a big deal for my customers to have multiple backgrounds and very different looks as part of their sitting. I see a trend for people to go to private studios that offer more unique and artistic products.” Angela does not see her former employer, Sears Portraits, or the nearby Wal-Mart Portrait Studio as competition because she can offer her clients so much more.

She emphasizes very different looks, made possible in part by background variety, so she can encourage customers to come back again and again - she gives them reasons to come back often. While backgrounds are important to Angela, she makes sure that her operating philosophy is that backgrounds must be secondary to the subject.

“Too many photographers make the mistake of making the backgrounds more important than the subject.”

Angela has just started creating some of her own background images which she finds especially fun to use. White House Custom Colour makes Angela’s prints 8 x 10 and smaller, but anything larger, she prints herself because she prefers to have total control.

She just recently took a class with Larry Peters and is excited about experimenting with some of his new looks that he is creating with Virtual Backgrounds.

Virtual Backgrounds is a fundamental tool for Angela - one that she wouldn’t want to do without. Her work can be viewed on her Web site at www.photographybyav.com.