Studio Profile
February 2008 Studio of the Month
“Traveling around the world, shooting Commercial Photography for Levi’s….” To many of us, this way of life sounds inspiring. Ron Jackson, however, thought otherwise. Burnt out and being the young and crazy man he was, Ron moved out west and bummed around Hollywood instead, picking up a job as a manufacturing salesman. Attractive monetary benefits, yet far from inspiring. Fast forward twenty five years and Ron is now bumming around just south of Palm Beach with a Camera in his hand once again.
All of Ron’s work is done on location, as he doesn’t have a studio to call his own. He shoots beach portraits for the high end market and is never without a beautiful backdrop to work with. “Every day I drive along the beaches and it’s a dream. We’ve got sunshine three hundred and sixty five days a year. Pick whatever day you want to shoot,” he said. His thought process behind choosing this line of work and clientele? “I enjoy portraits at this level. These individuals have disposable income and they refer you to their friends, who also have a high financial status.”
Yet, with high end clients comes high expectations. Therefore, not only does Ron work hard to deliver the value and quality this level of society is expecting from a piece of art, he only teams up with the best. “I saw an ad Simply Canvas had in Professional Photographer Magazine. It was right around the time I had my first beach session and had a beautiful shot that had to be printed on Canvas,” he said. Ron continued, “The work that Simply Canvas does makes my job so much easier. Your quality of printing is phenomenal. It’s easy for me to promote.”
Ron’s method of marketing a canvas to his clients is different than most photographers, because he doesn’t have a studio to display them in. He refers to it as the “Unveiling.” He first does a in home consultation before the shooting session. During the consultation, Ron takes the time to look around the home to locate the best possible location for a gallery-wrapped canvas print. After the session, Ron takes the best image and has it printed on canvas. He then takes this canvas, along with a DVD slideshow of images from his clients’ session to their home. Before the start of the selling session, Ron sets the canvas up on an easel, draped, in the room where he thought it would fit best. When he gets to this image in the slideshow, he takes them into the room and unveils the image on canvas.
An interesting fact to this method? Ron isn’t in the business to sell sessions, but to sell prints. Therefore, he doesn’t charge any session fees and takes a financial risk, as he calls it, by purchasing a canvas print for his clients in hopes of them purchasing it later on. According to Ron, “we are in a business of selling an emotional product and the unveiling of a finished canvas portrait at the client preview is a very good investment risk and the emotional response when I pull the drape off that canvas is always wonderful and rewarding. I spend between $150 and $200 on the canvas from Simply Canvas and those sell to my client between $2,500 and $3500. The reward potential far outweighs the risk. So far, not a single client has failed to purchase that canvas at preview.” This philosophy brings Ron close to $5,000 profit per client. And the icing on the cake? He’s been fortunate to turn a profit every quarter for the past five years.
Ron believes his time spent as a manufacturing salesman has been the key to his success. “Twenty five years in corporate selling has been a big advantage for me in running this business,” he said. However, he’s thankful he woke up and decided to give the photography industry a second go around.
For more information about Ron Jackson Artistry, visit www.ronjacksonartistry.com.