We just got the natural light studio put back together and ready for shooting again. My Aunt Nita of “Two Girls and a Brush” has spent the last two weeks priming and painting the interior and has it looking fabulous. We’re staining the exterior of the natural light studio to match the house, garage and main studio. Next we plan to tackle the landscaping project between the workshop and the natural light studio. It seems never-ending, but we’ll get there.

Matthew Kessler, pictured a few posts back with his sisters, hauled out and spread two loads of river rock from Flora Ready Mix.  He did a great job spreading the gravel evenly and getting rock close to the natural light studio without getting stuck.  Thanks, Matthew!

I’m on two different senior photographer internet forums to keep an eye on the latest trends in senior photography across the country. One thing that I keep reading and resisting is that I need to send out direct mail to seniors, not just once, but at least three times, preferably more. I’m not opposed to spending money on advertising, but I hate junk mail on so many levels. So, I’ve come up with a plan to try to give my advertising budget back to clients rather than to some big postcard company and stamps.

First off, senior sessions are half price until August 1. Now for the give back part. Any senior who has a session before August 1 can choose between getting 16 free wallets of the same pose (my regular summer promotion) OR they can get 50 double-sided color business cards that have cash value. One side will have an image of the senior with their name. The other will have a second image of the senior along with www.brittbailey.com and that the card is worth 8 free wallets if it is brought back in by another client. Each card that comes back in generates $25 cash back to the senior pictured on the card.

So, a summer senior in my give back program chooses to get the 50 cash back cards. He or she gives them out to friends. Friends who schedule after that accumulate as many cards as they can from their friends and bring all they have to me. Say the friend finds five cards from seniors who came here this summer, then they bring those to me, I photocopy them, punch them and give them back. Then that person would get five free sets of wallets (8 each) of any pose they ordered as a print. Each person whose card shows up, gets a $25 cash credit or can qualify for products. December 1 of this year, I’ll add up all the credits and send out checks or products to those whose cash back cards showed up. If I got back 5 cards from one senior, then that senior will get a check for $125. Alternatively, with 5 credits, they can get a 10 image 4×6 album of poses they ordered prints from their session, a $250 value.

The cash back cards are good for any portrait session, not just seniors. However, they need to be back in by December 1 in order for the senior to get their cash back.

Second, there is no limit on how many cards a person can bring in or how many credits a senior can accumulate (other than 50 ) My only requirement is that the free wallets have to be of poses ordered in another print size.

I plan to print the give back program cards until August 1.

I think this will be fun!

Due to the great response I extended this promotion to August 15th, but I won’t be extending it any further than that.

My portrait and wedding website is not loading at the moment. I’m in the process of launching my new website for portraits and weddings, so hopefully I’ll have the new site up within the next couple of days.  Here is a screenshot until then.

Welcome to my new site!

Here are some progress pics of my new natural light studio located just outside my regular studio. Those who know me know I love natural light ,so the new studio is my favorite place to shoot. It is still a work in progress, but it is already chocked full of new backdrops.

One of the reasons I love natural light so much is that I’ve found people seem more relaxed in a natural light environment than in a studio environment, with strobes firing at them everytime the camera clicks. I still love to mix in studio work with natural light work, but I tend now to think of those images as the “artificial” ones and to push either a glamour edge or to generate what I think of as “traditional” studio images.