New Ad

A look at the new ad we're running starting this week:

Pet Photos: Suze

The complete set of photos from last month's pet photography shoot with "Suze" are now available for viewing (and ordering) on our Shutterfly page.

As always, your comments and feedback are appreciated!

Social Media

The first in a series of columns on Social Media was published by the Elmira Star-Gazette in their "Twin Tiers Business" publication. A special thanks to Peter Wallin for giving me the lead that got this particular ball rolling.

Here are a few highlights from the article:

In the first wave of the Internet, companies created and promoted simple websites to drive people to their business. Today, businesses use tools to drive people to increasingly complex and informative websites. The days of creating a website and hoping people find it amidst the overwhelming number of similar sites are over.

As audiences move away from traditional media outlets, they are increasingly moving towards social media as a means of gathering new information and informing themselves.

As a result, your competition is probably already using social media in some form. Your customers definitely are. Facebook is part of the social fabric. Sites such as vimeo and YouTube allow individuals and businesses to distribute video to customers for free. If you haven’t heard of “twitter”(a site where people share brief updates about what they’re doing with lists of online friends), your kids definitely have.

Smart businesses embrace these tools as low-cost or free alternatives to paid searches, expensive and difficult-to-manage search engine optimization, and slow-moving forms of information distribution that often reach the wrong audience with a “shotgun” approach.

If you don't get the Twin Tiers Business publication, drop me a line and I'll be happy to send you a copy. You can also call the Star-Gazette at (607) 734-5151 and get added to the distribution list for this free publication.

A Race To The Bottom?

With the economy limping along over the last few months, people are looking to cut corners wherever they can. Photography services are no different. What we've noticed in the past few months is a "race to the bottom", with photographers cutting services, scaling back packages, and offering less...for less.

There's also a new phenomenon—plenty of people with inexpensive Digital SLRs are offering photography services at rock-bottom prices, often before they have the experience or the knowledge to offer quality services.

We think this is a mistake.

This weekend, LaVere Media will attend the Arnot Mall Bridal Expo in Big Flats, NY. We'll be competing with many photographers...some new, some old, and at a variety of price points. While we recognize the need to save money during difficult economic times, we also recognize that 20 years from now, when you're looking at your wedding album with your family, a substandard set of photos won't make up for the few dollars you saved in hiring the equivalent of "Uncle Bob with a camera". We don't believe you need to go overboard, but there is such thing as cutting back too far. We often talk about the temporary nature of what goes into a wedding—the cake gets eaten, the flowers wilt, the dress gets put in storage. How do you share the memories of that day? Through photographs and video.

With that in mind, we've re-worked our photography packages to reflect the realities of the current economy, while offering what we believe is the best combination of quality and price in the region.

So here's our pitch:

We offer quality photography and video services at a very reasonable price. We offer a basic "digital-only" package, but we don't just shoot the photos and dump them on a DVD. Each photo is reviewed, color-corrected and edited if necessary, and provided to you at high resolution. We offer upper-tier packages with options for albums, proofs, reprints...all at very reasonable prices with quick turnaround.

We never impose a time limit on our services. When you hire LaVere Media, we're there all day—no matter which package you purchase. We always send two experienced photographers, which lets us shoot in different locations simultaneously. We attend your rehearsal. We generally shoot between 1500 and 2000 photos per wedding. We offer a video option with every photo package, and our video-only packages are the most competitive in the area.

At LaVere Media, we don't compromise personal service or quality for price. There will always be someone with a lower price; that's just the nature of a competitive business. We think it's more important to find a photographer that you can work with, who you want to spend your entire day with, and who will offer great service at a great price. We've been photographing and videotaping weddings and special events for over 20 years, and we believe that once you give us a look, you'll like what you see.

Stop by this weekend, or give us a call. We'd love to talk with you.

Pet Photo Shoot

When you've got a subject as cute as Suze, you can't help but share the photos:





For more information about pet photography from LaVere Media, e-mail us.