Bonnie St. Pierre
Definitely Not Your Average Studio
Bonnie
St. Pierre is right on course, following her chosen path in high
quality commercial and fine portrait photography. For more than
twenty years, Bonnie has been a do it all - whatever comes in the door photographer in the Manchester, New Hampshire area. Her studio is a separate building attached to her home.
Five
years ago, Bonnie made a choice. She decided to redefine her
entire studio operation, moving away from weddings and generalized
portraiture, and referring her sports and teams to other studios while
preferring to place her emphasis on growing the custom portraiture side
of the business and high quality commercial photography.
She
has no interest in vying for high school senior contracts or any other
production work. At the same time, she completely changed her
pricing, getting a substantial fee up front and having an expectation
for a significant order. By raising her prices, she was now able
to spend more time creating in the camera room and in post shoot work
to produce end products which were clearly superior.
Bonnie
states, “People come to me because they have made a choice to get true
high quality professional portraiture. Everything I do is
custom. I am not interested in assembly line sessions.
Clients know they are not going to an Olan Mills or mall drop-in
studio.”
Bonnie’s
creation fee is $200, and she is even considering raising it. Her
minimal expectation is $450, however, her average sale for custom
portraits of babies, families, children, and high school seniors is in
excess of $1000.
Executive
sessions are $245 including art work, and they get the disk. She
doesn’t get every person needing a portrait or business image in her
area, but she gets the ones who matter - the customers who know the
difference. She generates enough business to prove her
belief that there are clients who want what a dedicated professional
photographer can offer. Because she gets what she needs in
upfront fees, Bonnie doesn’t worry too much about customers copying her
work.
Bonnie
first learned of the Scene Machine Virtual Backgrounds system years ago
but held off acquiring a system until she went digital. She
viewed it as a natural progression because she was already building
backgrounds and was getting overwhelmed with the clutter and storage.
In addition, after she went to the trouble of building a background she
tended to use it for a long period of time.
Her
backgrounds also required that she carefully light them before she even
began lighting the subject. With Virtual Backgrounds, she could
have an infinite variety of backgrounds at her fingertips without the
clutter. Furthermore, she could customize her work by changing
backgrounds in seconds, never having to be stuck with any one
background.
With
Virtual Backgrounds, Bonnie did not have to separately light the
background as the brightness, focus, position, color and even the
proportional size of the background was now all under her
control.
She
also chose to acquire a Virtual Backgrounds system because she
recognized that her customers were more and more often expressing their
satisfaction with their own digital snapshots taken in the outdoor
environment which they viewed as good enough. “I wanted to focus
on doing things my customers could not do,” states Bonnie.
“My lab rep, Peggy Hatfield of LenzArt gave me a copy of the book, The Professional Photographers’ Perfect Storm and everything began to fall into place. I realized how I could
continue to exist in spite of all the amateurs and pro-ams. Peggy
has always been a source of great support in paying attention to the
business end of my studio, and handed me the book to read. This
really got me going. Virtual Backgrounds has been a
blessing. It has enabled me to be so much more creatively without
leaving my camera room. Though clients sometimes still ask to go
outside to use our beautiful grounds, they are coming to realize that I
now can bring those outside backgrounds right into the studio,
assembling a total environment that supports the image I wish to
create. I now do nearly everything in the studio with Virtual
Backgrounds. I am very pleased with it. It was a great
investment, and I have no regrets. I see even more
potential developing niche-work that makes the photographer to go
to. It’s unlimited!”
Bonnie
has been surprised by the response she has gotten from her colleagues
in professional photography in terms of her use of Virtual
Backgrounds. At first, she wanted to stay quiet about her
purchase of a Virtual Backgrounds system so she had time to develop her
skills. Her state competition prints were images with projected
backgrounds, judged without any knowledge of the method of creation,
and she walked away with two blues! That gave her the confidence
to continue to reach down deeper for even more creative ideas.
She began to share her excitement with her peers, but when she let
other photographers know about her new adventure with Virtual
Backgrounds, they were interested in the technology but saw it almost
as a gimmick. They didn’t seem to get it as a powerful
photography tool.
Bonnie
states, “In my opinion, it takes a special kind of person to use a
Virtual Backgrounds system - one who is willing to invest in their
business beyond the latest and greatest new camera. One who is
able to improve upon style and make business grow. Most
photographers have passion but they don’t place enough emphasis on
business. They may have dozens of canvas and muslin backgrounds
and continue producing the same old things they have done for years and
years, because that’s what they have available and it’s easier than
making a change. Customers today demand variety. In
addition, they are learning that going outside and pointing and
shooting with a digital SLR is not the answer any more. The
amateurs have claimed the outside world. We, as professional
photographers, have to do what the amateurs can’t do.”
“Virtual Backgrounds inspires me! It helps me be so much more
creative. I customize my work for each customer. Many of my
competitors probably won’t get Virtual Backgrounds. They won’t
make the investment. They just don’t understand. But that’s
ok with me because it helps to make me more special,” writes Bonnie.
Bonnie
feels that the Perfect Storm and the bad economy are going to force
more photographers to look into using Virtual Backgrounds because of
its many unique advantages. Bonnie writes, “This is a time when
the more serious photographers are going to have to make changes so
they can survive. They really don’t have any other options.”
Virtual
Backgrounds is proud of the work that Bonnie St. Pierre is producing
with her Virtual Backgrounds system. We expect to hear and see
much more from Bonnie in the near future!
