VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight
Today's Guest: Brian Wolff of Wolff Photography in Yardley, Pennsylvania
Today's Host: John Bentley
September 2007

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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: Today's program is sponsored by morephotos.com the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.

JOHN: Today we are in the Studio with Brian Wolff of Wolff Photography of Yardley, PA. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photographer's Spotlight, Brian

BRIAN: Thank you for having me.

JOHN: Well you are a unique photographer, because you do a lot of really interesting work. Would you tell our listening audience what you got going on there?

BRIAN: Well, what we're doing now is because of the digital age. I've moved into doing a lot more printing for myself. Things that I used to have to send out to a lab, or I used to rent a large sea lab up in New York, and I would go in for two weeks and do my prints. We now knock those out ourselves. It's also enabled me to become a designer as well. So when sometimes people bring me jobs, it's not just doing the photography, it's also doing the design for them. Coming up with the complete concept from start to finish. Sometimes I hire another designer, and sometimes we do that in house.

JOHN: Your focus seems to be on military photography, corporate. Tell our listening audience some of the photography that you do.

BRIAN: I started off as an editorial photographer 30 some years ago. I worked for the LA Times as a freelancer and Time Magazine. I worked in a lot for the European magazines for like 20 years. I worked for Paris Match Stern, La Figero Magazine out of France and they were great magazines to work for because you got huge spreads...big budgets and you literally traveled all over the world for them. One of my specialties originally was...I worked in the movie industry out in California. Then I moved to New York to get away from that and started doing science and high technology in 1980. That's when Reagan took over and the science and technology budget completely jumped over to the military. So I kind of jumped with it. So that's why you'll see in some of the books that I do, I have foreign fighter jets. I've gone to the North Pole. I've gone to conflicts around the world to photograph them. And then there's one other thing that I've done that other people have not done, I took more of an illustrative approach to a lot of these images. I did a lot of lighting and a lot of planning and a lot of setup type photography. I still do that now. Now I have military contractors hiring me to do advertising campaigns for them or even other types of campaigns I do that have nothing to do with the military. I worked for Smithsonian. At the same time I was photographing the history of the Barbie dolls, I was given a job with the seal team in California, literally bouncing back from one job every other day to the next. So, it's all over the place, but I guess I'm an old school photographer because that's what we do. We did photography and we could bounce from one different kind of a job to the next. But military has been my specialty and that's what I'm known for.

JOHN: Yeah, I was looking at your website and you have some very interesting photographs there. You seem to get pictures that I've never seen anybody take before. You're approach to photography is very creative and what is your philosophy as a photographer when you're looking to capture an image? What are you looking for?

BRIAN: I'm a commercial photographer, and if you want to make money, and especially when I used to sell stock photography or work for other people, you have to have a unique product that was different. So even if I was doing press line work where there may have been 300 press people documenting something standing in a line, I would always leave that line and go someplace else. I would always try to go opposite of where the crowd went. That was for two reasons. That was to get something unique and different and better and was also for a monetary reason, because it would add value to your work. So, I always look for a different angle. I try to understand my subject. I do research on everything that I do. I just finished a huge job for a big political think tank in Washington, and I had to come up with illustrations where I had to sit down and read about world events and what they're doing and where they're going to come up with illustrations that were all shot in the studio that would illustrate the direction that this institution was going in. And they were looking for a few iconic pictures that people would look at and say, "Yes, that was that institution's pictures. That represents them." So that's what I try to do. I try to come up with iconic pictures of certain situations. Those military books that you see, those books represents different communities within the military, and I wanted everybody in those books who have been there and done that to come back to me afterwards and have one of them just tell me that that's exactly what it was like. So this was a book somebody in the military could take home to their family and say, "This is what it was like."

JOHN: Why don't you mention the name of those books you're referring to.

BRIAN: One was From the Sea and the other is Riders of the Storm.

JOHN: You've done quite a few other things from magazines to illustrations. Certainly your perspective on photography is different from everybody else, and like you said, that gives you a unique opportunity to sell yourself. These books...is there a location on the web that people can look at these books, maybe order these books from you?

BRIAN: Yeah, they can order them from me now. They can still get them on Amazon, they're not necessarily out of print, but I'm holding them back now. What I plan on doing is I have just a few left of Riders of the Storm, but From the Sea what I plan on doing, in the near future is we're going to have a limited edition series with a custom wrap printed on canvas that I'm going to print myself, number it, and sign it, and then on top of that, you can order two prints...any two prints from the book. So you'll have a coffee table book along with two prints that you can hang on the wall. And that's how we'll be selling those. Riders of the Storm, you can find them used. They did very well for a while and there are some still floating around used on the book market. By the way, the same thing has happened in the book market that happened with photographers. Things get recycled now because of the internet.

JOHN: Now, Brian, will you tell our listeners your website address and contact information if they want to get ahold of you?

BRIAN: Yah, they can go to www.Wolffphoto.com.

JOHN: We are speaking with Brian Wolff Yardley, Pennsylvania photographer. World wide photographer for that matter of Wolff Photography of Yardley, PA. You are listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. We're going to step aside for these important messages, we'll be right back.

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ANNOUNCER: This VTalk Radio Spotlight is sponsored by morephotos.com, the online photo sales solution to professional photographers worldwide.

ANNOUNCER: We now return you to the VTalk Radio Photographer's Spotlight with your host, John Bentley. JOHN: Today We are in the studio with Yardley, Pennsylvania photographer, Brian Wolff, of Wolff Photography. Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight, Brian.

BRIAN: Thank you.

JOHN: Now, we've been talking about your art work, as I would call it. You certainly are a wonderful artist. You have a lot of great work on your website. I want to ask you. How did you get started in all this?

BRIAN: I was a kid when I got started in photography. Literally I was 14 years old. I went to a vocational school for commercial art for two years, then I went on to college for photography. I have since been, like I said, I worked in, I think I told you earlier, I worked in Hollywood as a photographer. Got tired documenting celebrities. Moved to New York and then began documenting science and technology and then the military. Not to mention I've done everything from the 30th Anniversary of Barbie dolls to the seal team. It's been kind of an interesting career because you see a lot of different things and I've been a lot of places from the Antarctic to the North Pole.

JOHN: In this day and age, are you strictly doing digital or are you still doing a little bit of film too.

BRIAN: Nope. I still own a couple of film cameras. I do 100% digital now; however, if there's an opportunity to do film from time to time, I would do it. It's not a problem, but that opportunity and that need is becoming less and less. The cameras that I use...the night time cameras that I use now, have the capability and with the new software I can make huge prints. I make prints that are the size of the wall right now so I can't imagine that I would ever need film. And the prints look better than what film can do.

JOHN: When you go to a project...when you go to shoot a client or a corporation or military, what is it you're looking for as a photographer? What are you looking at? What are you trying to capture?

BRIAN: The unique qualities of that organization or that company or that person. And the story that I need to tell. When you're a photographer, you're a story teller, and that picture needs to say something about that person; if you want it to be a great photograph. If you want it to be an iconic photograph. So whether it's a company or an individual, every picture should say something about a person. And then people close to that person or close to that company or that institution or that organization or people who have been there should come back and say, "Gee you really captured it. That's what it felt like. That's what looked like."

JOHN: And what about marketing your business? How do you market your business, your photography?

BRIAN: Right now, I make a lot of prints and posters which you have; I just sent some to you, and then I pick people...I pick companies, you know, I'll pick a certain type of a company and I'll actually do a run off poster and let's say it's a medical industry, I'll pick like ten companies around me, I'll send them a really beautiful print in a poster and I'll send that out to them and hopefully I'll get a response from them. Ninety percent of the time, I do. If you send somebody a gorgeous print that you're promoting to, and you spend money to promote, and you understand what their needs are before you promote to them, chances are they're going to hang that print. So now you've got your 16" x 20" or your 24" x 36" business card hanging on that person's wall.

JOHN: Yes, very good.

BRIAN: And they might not call you for a year, they might not call you at all, they might call you the next day, but I do get a lot of work that way. But in order to do that efficiently, you need to print for yourself. So you should at least get a small printer for yourself. Something like a 4800 Epson will do a 17" printer. And that's not that difficult, and by the way, when I used to have the ties in the black book and these source books, I took the budget away from that...from advertising in source books, and I put it into my very first printer which was expensive when I bought it when they first came out. And I said, "I don't know where this is gonna go, but I know that per unit, I can print much cheaper for myself than especially the smaller prints than I can sending it out...not to mention the time. If I'm on the phone with somebody, and I have a conversation with them, and they ask me for a package or promotion sample, they get that sample the next day. It goes out that day by UPS or by Priority Mail. Certainly within two days if they're out in California, and they get samples from me. And that has been a huge benefit to my business to be able to do that.

JOHN: Well, we are speaking with Brian Wolff of Wolff Photography. Brian could you kindly give our listening audience your web site information?

BRIAN: Ok. If people need to just see some of my work, then can go to www.Wolffphoto.com or if they need any printing or lab services that we offer, they can go to www.exclusiveartservice.com and send me a quick email. That's a custom site; we only do custom work. There's very little up there. In fact, I think 90% of it is locked, because there are corporations or individual photographers that we're producing work for.

JOHN: Well it's certainly been a pleasure speaking with you in the studio today, Brian. I want to thank you for joining us on VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight.

BRIAN: Thank you for having me.

JOHN: I want to thank everybody for listening in on our program today. Once again, we've been in the studio with Brian Wolff of Wolff Photography. You've been listening to VTalk Radio's Photography Spotlight. I am your host, John Bentley, thanks for joining us this afternoon.

ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to the VTalk Radio Spotlight; only on www.vtalkradio.com. Radio for the 21st Century.

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