Your Client Experience
Information Gathering:
When you’ve decided to have photos taken by a professional photographer, we understand that you need information before making this important decision. We welcome your phone calls, emails, and Face Book requests for information. We will answer questions, provide you with information, and respond to availability. We ALWAYS offer a free consultation. We’d love to meet with you in person, and if that isn’t possible, then we can meet over a phone call, Facetime, Skype, etc. We have discovered over the years, that we will answer questions that you didn’t even know you have. Be sure when you are checking around that you ask if your photographer is licensed and insured. This could be very important.
Scheduling:
Once you’ve made the decision that we are the right photographer for you, we will work with you to find the right time and location for your photo session. For Portrait Photography (Family, Seniors, Children & Newborn, Engagement, and Maternity), we will ask for some general information from you. For Weddings, we will probably talk/email several times before the event. At the time of booking, we will ask that you complete and sign a simple contract form and secure 1/3 of the cost of the Wedding Collection that you select. And again, we ALWAYS offer a free consultation prior to the event. We will continue to communicate with you up until the time of the event.
Photo Session:
We are a husband and wife photography team. Steve is the lead photographer and Cindy will be along to assist (she will also be the second shooter at weddings). We can provide you with suggestions for clothing choices, tips on what to do and what not to do, and ideas for having a fun and exciting photo shoot (sometimes we get a little silly).
Portrait photography - Photos By Gum is one of the few professional photographers in the lake area that has an indoor studio and an outdoor portrait park, so many of our engagement, family, children, seniors, maternity photography sessions are done at our studio. However, we also go on location around the lake area – Ha Ha Tonka, Willmore Lodge, lake homes, grandpa’s farm, etc. We offer a variety of times and locations to fill a variety of needs. Sessions will range from ½ hour to 2 hours.
Event Photography - Reunions, celebrations, banquets, etc. are on location and can take several hours.
Wedding Photography - We will go on location anywhere around the lake and to places far beyond. We offer a variety of Wedding Collections.
Commercial/Headshots – Usually done in our studio, however, for larger groups we do many of our headshot sessions at your location.
Real Estate Photography – On location. Steve’s 20+ years of experience in the real estate business gives him a definite advantage in knowing what photos are needed to make the sale. These images are edited, enhanced, and formatted for the best results on the internet or printing.
Viewing and decision making:
Once the photo session is complete, Steve gets to work on editing. Since he does all of the editing and designing himself, you can be assured that your images will be unique to your family. For portrait photography, he will have all the images ready for viewing within two weeks (for weddings, he usually has them ready within 3 weeks). We will then schedule a time for you to come back to the studio to view the images on a large screen and make decisions as to what you’d like to purchase. We believe strongly in print (you can check out our blog for more about that – The Forgotten Generation). We specialize in heirloom quality wall art – framed prints, canvas gallery wraps, stand out mounts, metal prints, and acrylic prints. We also offer beautiful albums, books and magazines.
For those families or couples that live far away from the lake area, we can offer online viewing. We can set up a time that we can go over the images with you and help you make decisions as to what you’d like to purchase.
An amazing option that we offer our clients is what we call Room View. You make a decision as to where you want to hang your wall art. You take a picture of that space - your living room wall, the space over the mantle or bed, hallway, or wherever, and send it to us. Then we can actually put your wall portrait in that space so that you can see how it looks when you are here to view. It’s awesome!
Ordering & Receiving:
Generally, the ordering is done at the viewing session, so it is important that all of the decision makers are present. Again, we will answer any questions you have. Once all the decisions have been made, we will finalize the order with you and you’ll be able to pick it up, usually within 7-10 days. For those out of towners, we can have it shipped directly to you.
Delightment (I think I just made up that word)
Once you receive your incredible wall art, prints, albums, or whatever, we hope that you feel delight every time you look at it. And we hope that you will think of us for future needs, and recommend us to others. We are delighted that you chose us as your photographer.
