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.