The Front Porch Sessions – Photographers Get Creative in the Wake of COVID-19

Photographers by nature, are “people” people, and when sheltering in place and social distancing guidelines went into effect in March, they were among the many who were temporarily out of business. It was no different for Elise Wicklund, and her husband Tracy, of Wicklund Photography in Parrish, Fla. “It virtually stopped our business,” Wicklund says. “In an instant, we had to clear our calendars.”

With so many cancellations – and they were cancellations and not reschedules – the Wicklunds had to get creative and come up with something different to capture this historic moment of the worldwide pandemic. “We considered education, but we know we aren’t teachers,” she says. “We are photographers, so our reaction was to come up with different types of sessions.”

That’s when Wicklund got the idea for the “Front Porch Sessions”. She reached out to neighbors and clients to see if they were interested in doing family portraits on their porches. The popularity of the sessions exploded, and they booked all the sessions they had available. “We decided to let families document this part of their lives, just like they would any other – birthday parties, graduations, pandemics – if we don’t take photographs of these times, we won’t have anything but memories, and memories fade with time,” Wicklund says. “That’s why we photograph, so we figured this is just another memory to photograph.”

The sessions proved to be a great outlet for many of the families and some of them proved it with their sessions. While some families took a serious approach, Wicklund says others had fun with it. “Everyone had been cooped up inside their homes,” she says. “The sessions were whatever the families needed – some took them very seriously; others had a ton of fun.  We didn’t care or direct that part.  We were there to document and serve our families.”

While they enjoyed chronicling the pandemic through these sessions, the Wicklunds did not charge their clients for these sittings. “We still weren’t officially allowed to operate, so in lieu of session fees, we took donations for the food bank,” she says. “Our brand is all about servicing our clients and we believe if we have a servant’s heart, our brand will succeed.” Photographers who are doing charitable work, like Elise and Tracy, may consider printing on LexJet 8 Mil Production Satin Photo Paper, an economic solution that offers a wide color gamut and gives photos a natural look with minimal glare.

As the state of Florida has slowly begun reopening, Wicklund says they are starting to see more interest in regular sessions. They’ve also reached out to past clients, especially wedding clients, about design services for albums or videos that were not purchased at the time of the event. “We’ve reached out to see if people want to pre-book their sessions once isolation orders are lifted,” she says.

Looking at the future, Wicklund says she’s not opposed to scheduling more porch sessions, even after things return to normal, but it comes down to helping their clients get the most out of the sessions. “If this hits again, we will probably offer them again,” she says. “There’s no real reason to only offer those sessions, but it might be fun to see how things have changed in a year.”

As with most “people” people, photographers will certainly be happy to get back to weddings, graduation, and newborn sessions, but in the meantime, they are looking to get creative like Elise and Tracy Wicklund. However, as we approach the second half of the year, Wicklund is cautious about what’s on the horizon. “Based on how 2020 has gone so far, there’s no telling what we will be photographing this time next year!”

Prints That Win: The Colonel in Twilight

With his portrait photography work, Shelby, N.C., photographer Randy McNeilly is no stranger to delivering images with deep storytelling. Case in point: “The Colonel in Twilight,” above, a stunning portrait of a Vietnamese military man that won not only the Sunset Print Award and Best of Show at the PPA Southeast District print competition with a perfect 100 score, but was also awarded third place in the National Sunset Print Award last month.

A Transitioning Neighborhood Captured in Portraits

Photographer Jack Alterman is a native of Charleston, S.C., and has certainly seen his city evolve over the years. Today, one particular neighborhood on the east side of Charleston is undergoing a dramatic shift in response to extensive development.

“It’s a 200-plus-year-old neighborhood, that’s predominately African American,” Alterman says. “In walking through the streets and talking to long-term residents … these are very wonderful people with a past worth talking about. The area is being looked at by developers who are interested in making money. It was very obvious to me that these people were not being seen, and history was going to get buried along with all the building.”

The Satin-Finish Paper for the Long Run

When print production managers need a paper that delivers rich, consistent photo and image quality and can go the distance for high production runs, they turn to LexJet Sunset Production eSatin 250g.

With a high-end, traditional satin finish and an economical price point, Sunset Production eSatin is an ideal choice for print shops, fine art reproduction companies, professional photographers and other imaging specialists looking for a lightweight, high-volume alternative.

It’s comparable to other photo papers on the market, but at a much lower price. For mounting or framing, it’s an ideal lightweight alternate to the award-winning Sunset Photo eSatin Paper 300g, with the identical satin finish. Sunset Production eSatin gives you the same wet-lab look, making it the go-to choice for high-quality posters, photo albums and other photo output needs.

It’s available in rolls from 17- to 60-inches, making it an optimal option for long runs on any aqueous inkjet Canon, Epson or HP printers. Plus, the Production eSatin uses the same printer profiles as the 300g, so you can transition easily between media without any issues.

It dries instantly and resists scratches, making it perfect for schools, corporate displays, retail graphics, décor and other applications where image quality at an economical price is crucial.

To learn more about LexJet Sunset Production eSatin 250g, call a LexJet print specialist at 800-453-9538.

How Award-Winning Photographer Gordon Kreplin Makes Inkjet Printing Pay

Printing and mounting photos
Black-and-white gallery mount printed on Sunset Photo eSatin Paper by Ascencion Photography.

The last time we spoke with Gordon Kreplin, award-winning PPA photographer and owner of Ascencion Photography in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, he told us how important being able to print his own work was to his advertising and promotion.

As noted in that blog post, the ability to produce large, eye-catching banners that draw in traffic from the busy thoroughfare nearby is a big plus. The bigger plus, according to Kreplin, is in his daily photography work. A high-quality inkjet print produced in-house is incredibly effective word-of-mouth advertising.

“We’ve had the experience where someone who’s seen one of our prints somewhere and calls because they have seen their neighbor’s prints. The word of mouth from the quality of the print hanging up is very strong advertising. “You can’t get that quality and ability to control the process any other way; it’s less time, energy and money for me to do it myself,” says Kreplin. “The only way the photography business as a whole can survive is if we offer high-end imaging and printing, and that’s what’s separated our business. We tell our clients that they’ll get a classical portrait printed in a very refined manner using the same care with which I print my own competition prints and competition prints for other photographers.”

Printing canvas gallery wraps
Gallery wrap by Ascencion Photography printed on Sunset Select Matte Canvas.

Kreplin reports that one of Ascencion Photography’s best sellers this past year has been Sunset Fibre Elite, which has been a nice complement to his other standard photo print media: Sunset Photo eSatin Paper, Sunset Select Matte Canvas and Sunset Photo Gloss Paper.

“Printing on any of the Sunset Fibre-based papers is a great seller because the Dmax is so much greater: your darks are richer, your lights are more detailed and you get the sense of more of a three-dimensional image when it’s displayed,” says Kreplin. “Sunset Photo eSatin Paper is the paper I use the most. When someone gets a regular 8×10 on that, it’s beautiful. Plus, we use gallery mounts we get from Pacific Mount, apply the eSatin and coat it with Hahnemuhle Protective Spray. The eSatin is great for that application because it’s a nice, thick paper that holds up well. Those gallery mounts fly out the door.”

The power and importance of print will be part of a workshop Kreplin will teach at the Virginia Professional Photographers Association annual conference in February. The pre-conference workshop is planned for Feb. 22 (the event in Roanoke is scheduled to run Feb. 22-26), the proceeds of which will help raise money for scholarships. Be sure to check back here for more information about the event and Kreplin’s workshop.

Printing photo albums
Ascencion Photography offers albums printed on Sunset Fibre Elite. The albums are sent to a botique album company for assembly.

Entitled Walk into the Light, the focus is on making environmental lighting work in your favor, from capture to print, or, as Kreplin puts it, “It’s about how to make lemons into lemonade if you don’t have the perfect lighting on location.”

“We’ll also talk a lot about image capture and how using the information from the capture will help you understand what can be produced: how you look at your dynamic range and how that will relate to a print,” adds Kreplin. “If you keep printing in mind throughout the process, you’ll know how to present a great image electronically as well.”

From the Basement to the Catbird Seat at Woodard Photographic

Large format inkjet printed products for photographyWoodard Photographic, based in Bellevue, Ohio with seven locations in north-central Ohio, is a senior high school portrait powerhouse that began in George and Karen Woodard’s basement in 1965. Now co-owned and operated by their son, Marc, and an outside family member, Roger Wilburn, Woodard Photographic has maintained its primary focus – high-end senior portraits – while steadily growing its business to encompass much of the region surrounding northeast Ohio.

Woodard Photographic is an extremely savvy business-minded company that hasn’t lost sight of the art of photography in the process. The company quickly branched out from its Bellevue roots, touring high schools in north central Ohio and into Michigan in a mobile studio.

Inkjet printed photographic productsThe mobile studio became the basis for the addition of one location after another. Woodard Photographic’s Ohio locations now include the company headquarters in Bellevue and another location in town, along with locations in Akron, Brunswick, Columbus, Perrysburg and Westlake.

“In 1990 we opened our first branch office and have since done away with our mobile studios and gone to seven locations across Ohio whereby we provide a high-quality, on-location look. We provide mainly senior photography and the rest of what we do draws from that work in the schools and the community,” says Marc Woodard. “We are vertically integrated; we’re one of the few large scale photographers that maintain their own lab.”

Inkjet printing photo products and promotionsWoodard Photographic’s lab is now 100 percent digital. The company began integrating digital technology in 2000, converted all the studios over to digital in 2001 and added large-format inkjet production about five years ago. All of Woodard Photographic’s printing is centralized at the Bellevue headquarters. “We pride ourselves on the quality of our photography and we centralize to maintain that quality and convenience for our clients. We have drivers that go to our locations with supply drop-offs and to pick up work, and orders are direct-shipped to our clients,” says Woodard.

When Woodard Photographic first added large-format inkjet printing, the company used it mainly to print posters and other promotional displays. “It was basically a support printer,” says Woodard.

Printing wallpaper borders with an inkjet printer
This is a great school spirit product: Wallpaper borders printed on Photo Tex.

“Now we print posters, banners, table runners, wall murals and borders. This past summer we took a real hard look and decided to integrate re-sellable product lines to our mix as well. From a sublimation standpoint, we’re printing license plates and dog tags, plastic license plate frames, can cozies, yard signs and other promotional add-ons. We have so many different products going it’s not even funny, but it opens up whole new avenues of printing. We’re geared toward doing intricate design work, mass producing it and adding personalization to the image,” adds Woodard.

The challenge in the Facebook age is to maintain the connection with the client and provide products that evoke the original emotion of the photo session. “We’re trying to create an in-studio experience that they can’t produce on their own at home. As we embrace inkjet it opens up a whole new level of product line. You can now offer a high-end leather coffee table book or wall murals and borders. You have to think differently and be smart enough to do it to make money as a professional. You have to give a reason for the client to come in, and that comes down to experience and emotion,” explains Woodard.

The addition of a Canon iPF8300 in July and another one from LexJet in October helped Woodard Photographic begin to fulfill that goal of providing unique large-format products to its client base. Woodard is especially impressed by Photo Tex, a repositionable adhesive fabric that can be re-used.

Printing photo products with a Canon printer“A lot of our ideas have come through talking to LexJet, watching the videos and reading the blog, and Photo Tex is the coolest thing I’ve seen in awhile. Because of our large client base we don’t put any product out there until it’s fully tested, so I printed a 16×20 sample of Photo Tex, cut it in half, put half in my office and the other half on a westerly facing side of our building on brown metal where the sun would bake it in the summer,” says Woodard. “I put it up on July 8 and brought it back inside after eight weeks or so and held it up against the print we kept indoors there was maybe a 10 percent change in the quality in terms of fading. Then I scrunched it into a ball, pulled it back apart, applied it to the wall and smoothed it out, and you couldn’t see any wrinkling. This is what excites me. We ended up creating some wallpaper products for our schools where we can affordably print self-adhered wallpaper for doorways, school spirit banners for seniors and created a whole new market for us.  It has less to do with our photography and more our connection with satisfying our clients’ needs, the schools we service. This allows us to sell some other cool things to them.”

Ultimately, says Woodard, it’s about creating differentiators as the photography market continues to evolve. As digital was the big wave earlier in the century, inkjet has the same potential, coupled with advancements in social media and all the doo-dads – iPads and whatnot – that go along with them.

“The big thing our industry has to deal with is creating value for the client so they want to own our printed products. The Jake and Emilies, as we call them, are sophisticated and increasingly dependent on electronic images on their phone and not necessarily interested in prints,” says Woodard. “So how do we make money as an industry if they’re simply putting their electronic images in their phones and we’re not getting paid for printed images? It’s a struggle, but it’s also an opportunity for those who have a vision of what’s possible. I really think it’s an exciting time in the industry as the transformation takes place. We went through a huge transformation with digital and we’re going through a similar one now.”

For more information about Woodard Photographic go to woodardphoto.com and liveyouryear.com.