VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight
Today's Guest: Bud Keegan of Bud Keegan Images in Wilmington, Delaware
Today's Host: John Bentley
December 2007

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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the VTalk Radio's Photographer 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 Wilmington, Delaware, photographer, Bud Keegan. Welcome to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight, Bud.

Bud: Thank you very much, John, I'm happy to be here.

JOHN: Now, you're photography business is called Bud Keegan Images is based out of Delaware. Tell us little bit about your business.

Bud: Well, that's great. I am Bud Keegan Images. I specialize in candid photography and that includes children at play, sporting events, school happenings, family moments, which would include the reunions, birthday parties, weddings, anything that really needs to be photographed. As I mentioned it's candid photography so wherever there is something happening, there's an image to be captured and that's what I specialize in.

JOHN: Great. I suppose this time of year, you're pretty busy with weddings?

Bud: Well not so much weddings, John, at this time of year, it's sporting events. They're really opening up with the school season beginning. There's football, cross-country, anything that's going on athletically. So I'm out there with my gear attempting to capture sporting events as they unfold. The school events are beginning and they're opening up, and what I'm out there to do is to tell the story of what's going on as life unfolds. To me, a picture, an image tells a story, and I'm constantly telling a story about a happening. For example if a cross-country runner is running, I just don't take a picture of the runner as he or she is running, I can show what the story is by the expression on the runner's face, the contortions, the pain, the excitement, and the joy. That's what my customers are looking at, and that's what they see and they say to me, can you do that for me? And I'm like, sure, this is great. I just love it, and I see the same thing in children's faces and the gleem in their eye when they're eating icecream, for example. It's a candid moment, and it's happening, and it's real life, and I'm out there capturing it. A bride looking at her groom, the touching of the hands as they put the ring on one another's hands. It's a moment, it's a story, and I capture that story as best I can. My customers they just see what I'm capturing and they say do that for me. I've been doing photography for 25 years, and it's been within the last 7 years that people have been able to discover what I see in the view finder and they approach me and say, I like what you see, please do that for me. So, therein lies my take on photography and why I am out and about capturing life as it unfolds.

JOHN: I was noticing on your website that you have a number of photos, portraits, and sports teams, and certainly there's a lot of actioin going on. There's a lot of people interacting and this is what you do. You capture those moments, isn't that true?

Bud: That's absolutely right. Each image is a story, and I just if I'm at...when I'm at an event and I capture 200 still images, they're all individual stories and 90% of the time, I would after an event, I would present a slide show for organizations and in that slide show, I play back those 200 stories, and that in itself tells a larger story about the entire event and the organization. And that is taken in so well that it just spreads my name and what I do and what I see and it gives me a greater appreciation of how I see life and how people would ask me to be part of their event to capture their joy.

JOHN: Obviously that's what makes your service unique. What is your most important goal when you're shooting an event like that?

Bud: Well, I would say if my customer would look at me and say thank you. Success. Success to me would be a satisfied customer. If I put my heart in what I do and if my customer likes what I do, then they've taken my feelings and my heart and they've accepted me. They have taken me in by way of my pictures. See life as it's happening and people get excited about how I see things and that's my vision through my pictures.

JOHN: Bud let's talk about gear. What kind of equipment are you using?

Bud: I use Quantum Strobe Lights and Canon gear. Canon equipment and I'm very satisfied with my equipment, and I've stayed with it and when it's time for me to grow equipment wise, I stay within that family.

JOHN: What about, obviously today's photographer is using a lot of digital equipment, do you ever shoot in standard film anymore?

Bud: No, I don't, John. The need for my images, I need to turn them around within 24 - 48 hours, and being digital certainly provides me the opportunity to be able to do that. I need to get pictures to media, to newspapers, school events, school publications. So obviously being in the digital world gives me that flexibility and freedom to shoot, to capture images and turn them back to my customer in a very expedient way.

JOHN: What about online ordering? Can your customers go right online to order the photographs that you've shot of them?

Bud: That's certainly true; they can, and they are very pleased with the way that I present to them the ability to find an image, chose it, pick a size, and receive their images back to them within a calendar work week. That is my goal too to turn the image, if I shoot an event on a Saturday, I would like to have those images back in my customer's hand by the following Saturday. It's sometimes hard to do, but it ties my clients to me to know that when they are with me that they can have their event while it's still fresh in their mind. And I can do that certainly with the way More Photos allows online ordering to be present and actually allow this to happen.

JOHN: Would you share your website and contact information with our listeners today, Bud.

Bud: I'd be glad to. My website is www.budkeeganimages.com> that's plural. Please visit and enjoy what I see. Thank you.

JOHN: We are speaking today with Bud Keegan. Bud Keegan Images is the name of his photography business. You're listening to the VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. We're going to step aside for these important messages. We'll be right back.

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

VTALK RADIO: VTalk Radio.

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ANNOUNCER: We now return you to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight with your host, John Bentley. JOHN: Again, we are in the studio with Wilmington, Delaware, photographer, Bud Keegan, of Bud Keegan Images. Welcome back to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight, Bud.

Bud: Thank you John. I'm still excited to be here.

JOHN: Well we're glad to have you today. Now we were talking about customers being able to order their pictures online. Obviously you do online proofing. Do you do all the editing yourself?

Bud: That is correct, I do do all the editing myself. As in any photograper's business where something may need to be edited, lightened, brightened, and an object in an image may need to be omited or deleted, I handle all of that and I do it in a very expedient way and make it available to my customers.

JOHN: What about other photography services that you offer?

Bud: Well what helps me to be a photographer that can turn around my business back to my own customer are the connections I have with my labs, and I use West Michigan Photo Lab. They're based in Michigan, obviously, and Spotlight Photography they are also in the Midwest. With their services, they allow me to turn my images back to my customer within a calendar week.

JOHN: Now you obviously do a lot of on site photography. Do you have a studio to work out of?

Bud: No, I do not have a studio. I'm completely mobile. I go wherever my customer needs to have their event take place. It could be in a country field, it could be at the beach, it could be at the mountains, it could be anywhere. Life goes on out there, and I have to go out and find it and get it. So I'm very mobile.

JOHN: What about some of the communities and cities in the area that you cover?

Bud: I am within reach of lower Delaware, New Jersey, Atlantic City, New Jersey coastline, New York City, north of us, and west of us would be the Pocono Mountains. I have a very wide range of area to cover, and given that it keeps me very busy.

JOHN: But you are willing to travel if somebody says, hey, I'm over here in Illinois, will you come and shoot my wedding or special event?

Bud: The answer to that would be yes, I would look at that a thrill for someone to say to me I like what you do well enough that I would like for you to come to Illinois to photograph my wedding. Obviously there are a lot of photographers out there in Illinois, but for this person to say to me would you come and do mine, that's a thrill and an acknowledgement, and would I do it? Absolutely.

JOHN: What about wedding facilities or banquet halls in the area that you like to use in the Wilmington area?

Bud: There are serveral in the Wilmington area. What I like to do, I like to photograph in the gold ballroom which is the Hotel Dupont and most of what I do is outdoors, and I have natural parks in addition to the gold ballroom at the Hotel Dupont. There are various other halls of substantial size that allow me to have manueverability within the hall. They offer ample lighting that I do not have to worry about proving excessive lights and be able to achieve my goal. I'm very comfortable with the facilities that are in my area and I'm really glad that they are at my disposal.

JOHN: Why did you decide to become a photographer in the first place?

Bud: Well, golly, I've been photographing for 25 years, and as I mentioned before it's only been within this past 7 years that I'll be taking pictures and somebody will say, I like what you see, and that was a thrill for me for someone to say that, and I just sure I can do that for you, and then word of mouth just spread such that it wasn't just one person asking me to for them what I see in the view finder, but there were...it was a growing movement asking me to do the same thing. So why not do what I love? Why not get up in the morning, and I think about what am I going to do for my work today? Well, I'm going to go out and photograph this, and then you get a sense of adrenelin shooting through you, for me anyway. I wouldn't really call that work; that's fun.

JOHN: And what does the future hold for Bud Keegan Images?

Bud: Well, to get better. To photograph more. Keep on doing what I'm doing and grow in my community to just keep getting better.

JOHN: If you had a dream photo shoot, what would that be, Bud?

Bud: I suppose a dream photo shoot would be Southern Spain. The coastline of Southern Spain.

JOHN: I see that you've been to Ireland.

Bud: Yes, I have been to Ireland, and those pictures are on my website, and it's an interim passing as I purged the pictures from prior school year and make room for the upcoming school year, I put the landscape pictures up there. As I get out there and I see the beauty of a landscape such as Ireland and what it is able to express, that's a gift. You've got to catch it. You've got to see that rainbow and take that picture and then spread it for everybody to see. I could probably be a photographer for a traveling forest agent, but I just love capturing life, and Ireland provided me the opportunity to do that.

JOHN: Great. Well it's certainly been a pleasure having you here on the program today, Bud. Would you kindly give our listeners your website and contact information again.

Bud: Sure. The website is www.budkeeganimages.com, Wilmington, Delaware. Thank you very much.

JOHN: We have been in the studio with Wilmington, Delaware, photographer, Bud Keegan, on VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. Thanks again for joining us, Bud.

Bud: Thank you very much for having me, John.

JOHN: And thank you listeners for listening in to VTalk Radio's Photographer Spotlight. Have a great afternoon.

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

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