Glen Gray

Are you tired of steaming out the wrinkles in your muslins? I was! The Burrell Education Center of Pennsylvania has an assortment of muslins, which on occasion, need to have their wrinkles removed. After years of steaming them out with a portable steamer, I came across this tip while talking with Sue and Lixin of Profotoconnect, Inc. (www.profotoconnect.com). Their background company produces an assortment of muslins – the ones I like the most are the abstracts. More about their muslins in a future post – for now let’s focus on the topic of removing wrinkles from muslin material.

You can do this technique in two ways: In-studio or Outside.

Believe me, you’ll want to do this outside when you see how easy it is to let nature do all the work for you.

In the Studio: If your muslin is hanging and has wrinkles, go to the backside of the muslin and spray a fine mist of water using a garden sprayer (mister) filled with water. If you do a light mist of water on the muslin it should dry in a few minutes - wrinkle free. Don’t make it too wet or you’ll have a soggy muslin on your hands – which is not a good thing. Making the muslin damp allows gravity to pull out the wrinkles as it dries.

Outdoors: The only drawback to this technique is that you need to get up early – before the dew on the grass has evaporated. So get up, have a cup of coffee or tea and get ready to get your feet wet. The trick is to lay the muslin flat with the painted side up on the dewy grass. Then you pull it on the grass (back and forth – side to side) to let it pick up the droplets of dew – thus making it damp. Then – and this is the best part – let the sun do the rest. As the sun hits the muslin it will dry out the damp cloth and remove the wrinkles. An added advantage to this technique is that the dew that is still on the grass under the muslin will evaporate as the sun heats the muslin – creating a steam effect.

I’ve used this technique for several months and it has saved me more times than I like to admit. Another advantage to this method is that the hard-to-steam-floor-area of the muslin is easily wrinkle free with this method.

Caution: Don’t throw your portable steamer away – it still has a use in getting rid of occasional wrinkles - but the days of steaming your entire muslin should be over. One last disclaimer, if you’re using really heavy muslin, like the old Off the Wall muslins, this method may not get all the wrinkles out. The last time I did this type of muslin it had 80% of the wrinkles out the first time I did it – what a time saver.

What will you do now with your extra spare time?

Glen

It's been said that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.  With the many challenges we are facing in this industry its sometimes easy to lose track of how lucky we are to be making a living doing what we love to do.  But this isn't a post about loving what you do as much as conveying that feeling to YOUR client.  In my travels, this is one of the constants in business growth - Make your studio a place that is warm, inviting and fun.  The operative word is fun - do that and your business will grow (all other things being equal).  Whether you're photographing children, families, wedding or seniors your client can tell if you're enjoying yourself and having fun.  The excitement, fun and enthusiasm that you project is contagious.  People want to be around people that have a positive outlook and are fun to be around - it's that simple.  Unfortunately, the opposite is true.  If you hate photographing high school seniors - it will show.  You might not think they can tell, but your body language, voice and energy level are all telltale signs that will give your true feelings away.  So if you're at that point where you need a boast of excitement in your photography - look to add some fun to your session.  Below are images taken during typical senior sessions at Gray's Mountain Studio that were added as part of the session to make it fun for the senior.  Will they order these images - maybe - maybe not.  But that's not the point - it's fun and I guarantee that the senior will tell everyone how much fun the session was.  In the digital world this is so easy because you can review the sequence of images and only show it to your client if it comes out.

You're probably doing this to some degree right now, maybe not the jump or hair flip, but something that makes your client laugh or feel good about themselves that will turn into positive word-of-mouth advertising.  Before you do another portrait session or wedding - THINK... How can I make this fun for my client. 

Are you doing something to add excitement to your sessions?  I'd love to hear about them.

This concept is not a magic bullet that will instantly grow your business, but without the element of fun, the climb up the hill of success becomes much steeper. 

Till next time... Glen

Welcome clients, photographers,  studio owners and friends...

This is my first blog entry, so an introduction is in order.  I'm Glen Gray, Marketing Sales Representative for Burrell Colour Imaging (BCI) in the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  I've been working for BCI since January 1993, making this my 15th year with the company.  My passion is both photography and working with studio owners to improve their lives and business.  To that end, my blog will be used to share ideas, concepts and techniques to improve both your business and personal life.

A little explanation about Greenpoint:  It is a small village about 25 minutes northeast of Hershey, Pennsylvania.  The village is so small we only have a single stop sign. Some day we may get a stop light, but not yet. Greenpoint doesn't even have its own post office, so our postal address is Jonestown.  I mention this because my office, home and the Burrell Education Center of Pennsylvania are all located here. You'll learn more about these and my travels in upcoming blogs.