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Member Spotlight - July 2010
Brenda Bunch - Bunch of Smiles Photography

www.abunchofsmiles.com

I am celebrating 11 years of wedded bliss with my husband, Chad.  We have 3 children - 2 boys and a girl, ages 9, 7, and 2.

Prior to my life as a photographer I graduated with honors from the University of Phoenix with a dual bachelors degree in Business Management and Business Administration.  My career was in office management and accounting.  Total left brain stuff!

I made the switch over to the right brain in October of 2002.  I was pregnant with my second son, Justin.  I knew how I wanted my pregnancy photos to look, but back then there weren't a lot of high contrast photographers out there doing maternity photography. In about a year I went from photographing my own belly with a tripod and camera timer, to having lights and backgrounds setup in my living room, to converting my garage into a full service studio.  I went from zero to full time with a waiting list in about 2 years.

Most of my training has been in the school of hard knocks.  In the early years I'd experiment with my lighting and posing with the clients.  This made every session a little different until I had built up the recipe for a successful session - what poses worked, what didn't, and then I could customize the posing to that client and their particular needs.  Oh yeah, and I always added in at least one experimental pose/lighting technique to keep it interesting (for me)!
I rarely looked at other photographers' work because I didn't want it to influence what I had inside of me trying to get out artistically.  I wanted the lighting and poses to be my  work, my ideas and I let my clients help me to decide what worked and what didn't.

I have been officially a professional photographer for about 7 years and I have photographed thousands of sessions.  I now have enough confidence and experience to know what to expect (mostly) from each session and what I have to do to exceed my client's expectations.

In August 2010 I am going to test for my CPP.  I didn't see the benefit of this certification at first, but now that there are so many up and coming photographers to compete with, I feel that this is just one more ace up my sleeve that will help me to rise above the masses and continue my education in the profession I love.   

I started off in maternity and infant portrait photography and although I have dabbled in various other areas, my true love is in the bellies and babies.  As my clientele ages (and my children too) I incorporate more and more older children/families.  I do believe the there is real truth to the adage that a jack of all trades is a master of none.  So with that philosophy I believe that if you  pick a couple of subjects that you love to shoot and become an expert in them, then your clientele will recognize you as an expert in that field and you can charge accordingly for your expertise.

My goals for my business this year are to stay stable and strong.  With the economy as it is, I have decided that I will be throwing most of my resources at the clients I already have instead of trying to grow larger.  I want my clients to know I love and appreciate their loyalty and that they will get the best service from me.
My 5 year plan is to stake out new markets that want high quality, specialized, artistic images to celebrate their family's milestones.  I am building in processes now that will step-up my efforts in the next few years to capture the market least affected by the economy.  I know the state of mind and finances will turn around eventually, and when it does I will be prepared to come out of the gate running.  Thank goodness for my ambidextrous brain!

My most successful marketing effort has always been in word-of-mouth referrals.  I have thrown money in all directions of advertising media.  Magazines, booklets, on-line ads, you name it, not one of those avenues has had a return on investment like referrals.  This year I have been really pushing (and rewarding) for referrals and my loyal clients are excited to do my marketing for me.

I joined AzPPA because after I established who I was and had a firm grasp on the direction I wanted to go I felt I might benefit from other photographer's insights, trials and tribulations as to how to get there.
I was so pleasantly surprised to see how open and friendly the group was when I joined.  Although you could consider many of the members in the group to be competition that fact is completely overshadowed by the group's need to educate each other and work as a team to keep the profession of photography a viable, profitable, rewarding and evolving profession.

To sum it up I fell into a profession I had no idea I could do and in the process of honing my craft I have found the path I was meant to travel down.  I just hope I can touch the lives of those around me as profoundly as mine has been touched by my clients and their families.

I do an Animoto slide-show every month of my favorite images for that month. 
Here are some of the the You-Tube links:
January 2010 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoapoG4yxsw
February 2010 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcAbvBz4fQg
March 2010 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2H4xnCGKug