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Recent Updates
- If Cadbury Believes in Google Plus…
- Top 11 Reasons Given NOT to get a Google Tour
- Religious Photography in Arizona
- Family Fun Business Photos and Virtual Tour
- Using Images Without Licensing
- Why You Should be on Google+, and Facebook sucks
- Marketing Architecture Photography
- Education Photography While in Texas
- Photographing Mercedes Benz at CARE Cancer Golf Outing
- When Quality is the mandate in cabinetry, bulthaup delivers.
- Tips on Images in your Marketing
- Religious Photography is Calling
- Photographing Cool Orthodontist in Arizona
- Let customers see inside – Google Business Photos
- Google Tour: Hansen Desert Hills Mortuary & Memorial Park
- Google Virtual Tour on Nexus 7
- Photography Assumptions
- How do you describe color to a blind person?
- Take a Tour at Gateway Community College
- With photography, what’s my ROI?
- Architectural Photography. UEB Builders. Take a look around.
- Podcasting and Architectural Photography?
- An American Dream by Ian Ruhter
- Photography Social Media for Clients is Important
- Photography for Fort McDowell Adventures Out West
- Automotive Photography – Mercedes-Benz
- Keeping Watch over Phoenix
- A building didn’t actually speak to me
- I’m Not a Storm Photographer, but…
- The Way I see Imagery
Updates by Category
Fav Links:: Laugh or Learn
Category Archives: Blog
Religious Photography in Arizona
Back in February I posted that I was being commissioned to provide religious photography services for one of the largest churches in the western United States, Christ Church of the Valley (CCOV) with its main campus located in Peoria, AZ, and two of their sister locations located in Scottsdale, AZ and Surprise, AZ. Their main Peoria campus is both MASSIVE and impressive, and the people that I worked with there are absolutely fantastic. Kind, caring, accommodating. It’s clients like this that make my job easier, allowing me to focus on creating images with feeling.
The only real trick to doing religious photography (at least while services are in full swing on a campus of this magnitude) is knowing the head of security has let his staff know who I am, and staff member with you at all times. Without that, it would have been very difficult to complete my job as I would have been constantly stopped and questioned. Continue reading
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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Family Fun Business Photos and Virtual Tour
I just completed creating a Google Virtual Tour and interior business photos for a truly incredible family entertainment facility in Gilbert, AZ. It’s called FlipSide, and if you have young-uns and live anywhere within a reasonable drive, you may want to load up the brood and take them there for some fun!
How impressive is it? I was home one day eating lunch and the owners came on the noon news showing what they’d done and I was so blown away I literally got in my car and drove 30 miles to go see it and introduce myself. Continue reading
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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Why You Should be on Google+, and Facebook sucks
To start, this is as much about why I’m starting to dis-like Facebook (a MAJOR time suck) as much as it is about the value of [my] time. It’s equally as much about me being at a point in my life where I’m done being politically correct. I’m going to start speaking my mind. I’ve always “guarded” what I’ve written and said because I might offend someone. Those days are over. If you don’t like what I say or what I believe in, take your ball and go home.
I’m one of the easiest going people you’ll ever meet, and ALWAYS stand for the highest ethics and respect for my friends, family, and clients. Continue reading
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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Photographing Mercedes Benz at CARE Cancer Golf Outing
I’ve had the good fortune to create images for Schumacher Mercedes-Benz before, and not only are they an incredible dealership with amazing autos, but they’re some of the nicest people I’ve worked with in years.
Recently I was hired to capture 3 of their new 2014 models on the golf courses at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, AZ. In fact, they were donating one of them for anyone who got a hole-in-one during the C.A.R.E. (Cancer Awareness Through Research & Education) Golf Tournament.
As you can imagine Continue reading
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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When Quality is the mandate in cabinetry, bulthaup delivers.
High Quality Cabinetry Images
I recently was hired to create images for one of the highest quality cabinetry manufacturers in the world known as Bulthaup. And its not just “cabinets” as the lamen would think of it. It’s extraordinary furniture for your home that transforms living quarters through simplicity and functionality.
Working closely with the Scottsdale showroom owner, we carefully reviewed what his needs and vision were for relating this to his market to present the clean, functional, rich quality of their products, and how they impact the lives of his clients. He methodically showed me Continue reading
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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Google Tour: Hansen Desert Hills Mortuary & Memorial Park
I was hired recently to create new mortuary and cemetery images, and, a Google Virtual Tour, for Hansen Desert Hills Mortuary and Memorial Park in Scottsdale Arizona. Working with Brad Hansen, he graciously showed me around their facility while speaking to their meticulous attention to detail, and the level of care provided for each and every families funeral arrangements. Their Scottsdale facility is very modern and the grounds are not only beautiful, but extremely well cared for. Truly first class in every way.
It quickly becomes apparent why Hansen is one of the more respected names in the mortuary, cremation, funeral, and cemetery industry. Chester and Jan Hanson originally started their funeral business back in 1950 in Phoenix Arizona, and they currently have funeral facilities in not only Phoenix, but Scottsdale, and Mesa, Arizona as well.
If you’ve been in Arizona for any length of time, you’ll recognize many well-known family names when touring their grounds. It becomes very obvious why these families have chosen Hansen Desert Hills Mortuary and Memorial Park. It was important to the Hansen’s that the images I created, along with their virtual tour, for people to be able experience the variety of services, and level of quality available at this facility. With their new Google Tour you can walk around the entire interior and exterior.
I want to thank Brad, Trish, Matt and Bryan, who were fantastic to work with on their facility. I invite you to take a tour and see for yourself why the Hansen family is so highly respected, and why this facility is viewed as a leader in the Southwest United States.
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Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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Photography Assumptions
As you’ll see here, with photography, things aren’t always as they seem.
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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With photography, what’s my ROI?
I had an interesting question asked the other day (actually I get it many times) but it made me think about writing how we get paralyzed with the potential “Return on Investment” in photography. Good question.
Here’s the problem.
You hire me to create one image of the most beautiful golf hole on your resort, that you want to use to promote your golf course and resort (it could be several images, a google virtual tour of your pro shop, etc., but I’m using one golf hole as an example).
[I'll use this one at right that I created for a client at the Phoenician Resort as an example only]
Now. This is extreme, but say I created the image exactly as you wanted. You spend $5,000 printing some incredible mailers to print the image on, another $1,500 for a targeted list of potential clients that perfectly met your targeted golf demographic. The final step… you didn’t even mail one post card! How could you measure any ROI at all? Particularly the ROI on the photography? You can’t.
One of the only ways you could effectively measure your ROI is to do A/B testing to find out if image A performs better than image B (with all other things being exactly the same).
Every client uses their digital assets differently, and each campaign has different components, different budgets, different time-frames. There’s no way I could say “your ROI on photography will be XX”. I could, but I’d be full of crap.
Too many times clients think that just doing one or two steps of a marketing process is enough. It’s not. It takes consistent, multi-pronged approaches, over a period of time, to see (or measure) ANY results. As you can imagine, unless I did all the marketing for my clients (which I don’t), I can’t tell you what any ROI is, because I have clients that range from “once and done, it didn’t work marketing”, to major clients who are “consistent all year long to the proper demographics”. If you don’t market effectively, no one will see it!
WHAT I CAN TELL YOU is that any marketing assets (website, print mailers, brochures, etc.) will get a far greater response with professional images. You’ve seen the real estate listings of million dollar homes with just a crappy point and shoot camera, right? You know in the back of your mind that it just “hits” you strange to see something of such great value being represented so poorly. It makes you want to “move on” to the next…”
Hey, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but I have learned that you need to educate your audience, talk about and show how your service/product will benefit their customers, do it consistently via social media, updates on your website, in person, etc., and, don’t always be selling.
Sometimes even FREE isn’t enough incentive.
I have a very good friend who teaches people how to set up and use their Google+ local pages. Also, when I create a Google Virtual Tour for a client, they need to have a Google Plus Local page (in order for me to publish their tour on Google). I bring these facts up because I’m continuously amazed, (between hearing his clients comments, and when I talk to my new clients) how most businesses don’t even have a FREE Google+ local page, or, don’t even know about it!
If you knew that over 80% are searching Google to find a local business, just like YOU, why the hell wouldn’t you have a FREE listing! I guess some owners think they can remain invisible in today’s technology world and people will just stumble by and find them.
By the way, if you don’t have one yet, here’s a link to go set one up free at Google, it’ll only take you 5 minutes! You’re welcome.
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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Architectural Photography. UEB Builders. Take a look around.
I recently provided architectural photography services for UEB Builders located in Scottsdale, AZ. This included creating a Google 360-virtual tour of their office, and still imagery that they could incorporate into their online marketing.
When I first arrived I was immediately impressed by how damn cool their office was! I mean concrete floors, open truss ceilings, glass walls, lighting galore, come on, this is amazing stuff! At least I think it is. I just love this look and feel.
So you know, UEB Builders is known for cost-effective and hassle-free implementation of sophisticated designs in a seamlessly integrated team process. From offices in Dallas and Scottsdale, they serve a multi-state market specializing in urban and rural projects including higher education, community and critical access hospitals, hospital expansions, free standing emergency departments, clinics, surgery centers, imaging centers, lab facilities, medical office buildings, senior care and religious facilities.
Needless to say as an architectural photographer I spent as much time drooling at their impressive projects they have done, not only around Arizona but in Texas too. Matt spent time showing me around and giving me some history on the company and owners, which I really appreciated because this is what I usually ask all of my client about. I really like to know about my clients so I can deliver the look and feel that I can only determine by knowing who they are, and how they got where they are.
I was also grateful that one of the principals, Tom, took time to chat briefly. I’ve been in situations where owners have not taken even a moment to talk, and although I know it’s usually because they’re busy, it is so important to get to know them. Their demeanor in general tells me more about their business than most people pick up on. It was obvious that those I met who work there really like working there. It seemed like they enjoy what they’re doing there, not just “punching” the clock. Impressive. I can’t wait to start creating architectural photos of their projects. It’s always fun to photograph construction projects and finished buildings that you know has lots of care and attention put into them.
I hope I captured their look and feel, and that the quality of their projects came across through in my images. Want to see what I mean by a cool office? Take the Virtual Tour of their office here and leave your comments below!
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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Podcasting and Architectural Photography?
I remember years back when podcasting was just getting started how excited I was that you could actually create your own on-air broadcast, thinking one day I would exercise my pipes and spread the word… But I wasn’t sure exactly what that word was going to be. Fast forward several years and I’ve got the bug to start exploring it a bit further.
But I didn’t want to do “just another podcast”, and I often wondered what would I say that would be any different than others who are doing “similar” things with podcasting and videos. Make sure you subscribe to my newsletter updates as you may be able to hear me (and, uh hum, other local celebrities, Shanman?) not only talking about photography gear, techniques, learning, and stuff, but I realized there isn’t anyone in architectural photography, or business photographers, talking about or showing how they actually help businesses! Hmmm.
Jimmy from Philly
Recently I had the opportunity to go into the studio while a good friend of mine, Shanman, was recording with his on air partner Jimmy from Philly, their podcast to learn the basis ins and outs of how it’s done. Shanman and Jimmy are two local radio personalities I’ve followed, and I found myself laughing way more than I could believe (but I was in pain because I had to hold in because I was in the same room as Shanman). Ya, there was some “ooh, damn” that I said to myself too during the show (thanks Jimmy!), but I tend to get tired of the sterile conversations that seems to permeate the air waves so lately I gravitate toward more controversial ones, like their new show. I can hear average everywhere, now I have something that makes me say, “ya, I couldn’t believe that either”!
Their show is The 20 Minute Podcast which you can subscribe and listen through the Stitcher App, or their website. Go ahead, I dare ya to subscribe and have some laughs!
While I was at the studio, naturally I had to drag out the camera and grab some photos of Shanman & Jimmy in action. Hell, Shanman was kind enough to even write a blog post about it, and share some of the photos I took while there.
The Shanman
FYI, their podcast is NOT for the ears of any little ones, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
During my visit I was lucky enough to sit in while they did some great interviews with both Carey Pena and Fields Moseley of our Local Channel 3 News! Find out who they would nominate as their person of the year. Both great people and interesting to listen to.
I had a blast learning from the Shanman and Jimmy, and really appreciate the help on “how its done”, AND their mention of me in their world of broadcasting. Stay tuned and hopefully I’ll have more updates coming this way about how to promote photography via podcasting and video updates! Go ahead, click the signup button at the bottom so you don’t miss anything.
Mark Spomer
Mark Spomer is a Scottsdale, AZ based commercial photographer of Architecture, Restaurant, Food, Golf Courses, Construction, Education, and Certified by Google to create Google Virtual Tours for businesses. Marks images enhance your business in your advertising and promotions, and help you to engage more customers. Contact Mark at (480) 363-5161.
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All Images & Content © 2013 Mark Spomer Photography