Last week I wrote about losing a good buddy, Mike Bowen.  In his eulogy of Mike, the priest at the funeral told a story that simply made me smile.  Mike was active in the church and he talked about Mike and his love for photography.

“What’s your favorite place?” Mike once asked him.  The priest being a resident of New England told Mike about a couple of places, one of them in New Hampshire.  A few days later a framed print was delivered to the priest.  The picture of his “favorite place” hangs on his wall today.  Sharing favorite images with people became Mike’s trademark.

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One of the priest’s favorite places was the Man in the Mountain in New Hampshire.  This is one of Mike’s images.

Back in February I wrote a blog about the value of a photograph and talked about a gift from good buddy, Joe Elario.  I even included a shot of the finished print hanging over the fire place.  It was a very special gift and means that much more to me, because it was created by a friend.

I wonder how many of you realize the potential your images have to create a very special bond with family, friends and clients.  Sure, if they hired you then they’re paying for you to capture the images, but what if you were to do something extra and surprise them?

Joe Buissink, in his new book, Wedding Photography from the Heart, talks about how he prints up a few large images of the bride and groom and has them framed on the wall of his studio when they come in to pick up their proofs. 

“While most of the images for the album are printed in the lab.  I also create 20×24 prints of some of my favorite shots in the studio…Imagine this:  You’re the bride and groom and you come to the studio to pick up your proofs.  Before you’ve seen one single image, there’s a matted 20×24 print from your wedding – my favorite photo of the event on the wall.  The impact is phenomenal“….

So, from a priest in Massachusetts cherishing a memory from a member of his congregation, to Joe Elario sending me a wonderful gift to Joe Buissink creating a special surprise for his clients - the common denominators are all about emotion and memories.   I’m willing to bet that many of you forget about this very best calling card, or maybe I should refer to it as a “recalling card”, you have at your disposal every day, your photographs!

Don’t under estimate your ability to create goodwill that goes far beyond business arrangements – use your skill set to create images your friends and clients cherish and keep your role as a photographer not just in their minds but in their hearts!  Yeah, it sounds kind of hokey, but it works!

And speaking of special photographs – here’s one that has absolutely nothing to do with today’s blog, except it’s near and dear to my heart.  Years ago, probably around 1995 we did a Hasselblad sales meeting in Tucson.  Being in the “old west”, I decided it would be great to get an authentic wild west photograph with all of us looking the part!   It’s almost perfect, but like a puzzle in Highlights for Children – see if you can find what’s wrong in the shot!

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First, and you could never tell this looking at the image – the photographer used a Bronica, at that time one of our competitors!  None of us realized it until afterwards.  But the most fun is in the second mistake – we all looked the part, except my buddy Mike.  Yup, that’s Mike Bowen in the front row wearing his Nikes!  Not sure how many cowboys wore boots in the old days with the big Nike logo!  (PS That’s cowboy Tony Corbell in the first spot on the horse, next to me in the ten gallon hat!)