The first major challenge in developing AutoMatch Desktop was taking our matching technology, which currently leverages the immense power of cloud-computing, to now run in a desktop environment. Our algorithm and processing technology had to be significantly optimized. We took advantage of the latest and greatest technologies available in the market today to build a cross-platform application that is designed from the ground-up to work on a PC, Mac or Linux machine.

Several high-volume businesses seeking our desktop solution had significant investment in a workflow and we knew any desktop-based automation solution we develop would need to work and play nice with other commercial and in-house software in the workflow. To solve this challenge, we built a plug-in architecture that allows our customers and third-party to easily write plug-ins for AutoMatch Desktop, without the need for recompiling the software.

We also took the opportunity to demonstrate the full capabilities and applications of our matching technology. In AutoMatch desktop, Snapizzi’s matching technology has been expanded to not only match photos to subjects, but match subjects to groups, products to orders and orders to subjects. Because of an extremely modular design, we are able to port such capabilities to our other products and vice versa.

Overall, this has been an exciting journey for us and this is only the beginning. I look forward to hearing from our customers about their unique workflow needs so we can design our future solutions accordingly. Enjoy.

Check out http://www.snapizzi.com/automatchdesktop for more information on Snapizzi’s upcoming AutoMatch Desktop software solution.

While we find the industry moving towards online proof and digital downloads, it cannot happen at the flick of a switch. Our customers are already feeling the pressure of a change in consumer needs and it is nice to have tools that help your business transition to a new way of doing things.

We, however, did not want to simply build an online digital copy of the manual prepay workflow today. Our prepay solution still allows you to gain efficiency, taking advantage of our automated photo, subject and order matching. We have seamlessly integrated prepay into your overall workflow so you can choose one or all business sales models for any given job. For example, you can offer prepay at a discounted rate, online proofing for prepaid orders, post picture day up-sell, reorder offers, and purely online proofs at a premium rate – all from a single shoot setup.

I highly encourage you to check out prepay for yourself or request a personalized demo so we can show you the possibilities. I would like to thank our customers who have helped us define the needs in a prepay workflow. And kudos to our development team for taking those requirements and building something more automated and efficient than any other system in the industry.

About the author:

Shane Holland is the VP of Operations of Snapizzi. Shane is one of the key customer voices in the company and has been the champion of prepay workflow.

Shane was the Director of Operations at an industry-leading sales and marketing firm prior to joining Snapizzi. He received his Bachelors in History and Foreign Policy from the University of California Santa Barbara.

I am someone who was drawn to the industry for its untapped potential. Almost as a student, I have been acutely studying and analyzing, for a long time, the internal forces that define this multi-billion dollar industry today and the external forces that hold the key to the future possibilities. As such, I was admittedly excited to see the light – a new way of thinking among the photographers – a sign our founders and I am all too familiar with having observed and influenced change in other industries.

The year 2010 was a tough year for all of us. The photography industry was hit badly with loss in sales as consumers cut back on their spending. Photographers dropped the price and forsake their margins, but consumers did not budge. How is it then several large photography studios increased their profitability during the same period? I spoke to their owners and what I got back was a simple lesson in economics. They did so by significantly reducing cost and adding new sales avenues. Margins came from streamlining processes, automating some of the workflow and moving around sales models; going from speculative to prepay or from paper prepay to online prepay. Some sold prepay as part of their traditional model and further offered online proofs and digital downloads at higher than prepay prices giving consumers the choice. Its this kind of creative thinking that set apart the winners last year. And for the rest, there was hunger in their eyes coming into SPAC and PSPA looking for ideas and solutions; no longer for assisting in their usual business, but for redefining the way they do business.

We have been talking about change in our industry for a long time. And we have cautiously or anxiously waited for some redefining moment. But change had a way of being silent. It came, gently shook us up, and now we find ourselves in a complete new reality for high-volume photography. We will need to rise up as an industry to be smarter, more efficient and more attuned to consumer needs. With this positive shift, it is easy to be optimistic about the future.

This event was a fund raiser and the photos were to be a souvenir that each donor was allowed to take home. The problem from our standpoint was we had over fifty people to photograph and less than 45 minutes to photograph, print, and deliver the final product, which was also inserted into a photo folder.

Could this done? Yes!!! And with just myself as the photographer and my wife as my assistant.

The set-up is easy. The shooting area is set up in the manner you are most comfortable. I prefer continuous cool lights. This is because my shooting area is always lit, and my guest celeb will not have a flash going off in her eyes all night long. I use two lights, one on either side of me, both mounted very high. THis helps reduce eyeglass glare. I know this is flat lighting, but is makes perfect sense when you do not know if you are going to have one, two, or a large group in the photo. You simply do not have the time to be moving the lights around to get shadows out of people’s faces.

Any digital camera that can be tethered to a labtop will work. The terthering can be wireless or wired. Currently I am working direct wired into the computer via USB cable. My laptop us running a utility program that allows for remote shooting. These are available through camera manufacturers or can be found online as stand alone programs. When I take a shot, the image is immediately downloaded into a folder I previously created in the laptop. This takes less than a couple of seconds. My wife immediately presses CTRL + P and the image is printed on a thermal dye printer.

In less than 30 seconds, I have taken a picture, it was downloaded to the laptop and printed. 

This is simple, does not require a lot of equipment, and can be accomplished with just two people. This is how we photographed, printed and delivered 55 prints in less than 40 minutes.

Most don’t know this but I also work with a company that handles most of the high school photography for all of Orange County and a few out in LA and the IE as well. So it’s no big deal to go and shoot 5oo head shots in a matter of 4 hours. Nice thing with that though is I don’t have to deal with any equipment. I just show up and everything is ready to go, at the most I may have to run a light meter check just to be sure, and of course a white balance is always helpful on the first day of each school. So for the most part it;s a show up and shoot then get out of there.

I think the hard part of the job is working with kids that age, it’s interesting and it will demand you stay on your toes, I’ve seen and heard it all. I’ve had them try and make stupid faces so I tell them things like on the count of three then I shoot on two. I’ve had them sit on the stool facing the background with their backs to the camera and then look up at the hair light like it was the camera. I’ve even had them stand behind the stool rather then sit on it like they were doing some kind of photo shoot or wear stupid glasses or even contact lenses that have cat eyes. One thing for certain is guys won’t smile cause they want to be tough, it’s hard enough to get them to lower their chin enough to where I’m not shooting up their nose. Girls are the opposite, the girls want to turn their head to the side like we are shooting for glamor shots. For the most part it’s fun and the time flies by when doing those shoots, there is also dances and high school sports that I do as well.

The job later this month however is much different, I will have to provide all the equipment, make the lighting calls, and locations for shooting. The pressure is on, I’m not sure what restrictions I’m going to be up against. I could walk into a horrible building with yellow lighting, I may not get to set up in the best of spots due to crowds or walkways. I think it’s the not knowing that makes it the worst, I just like to know what I’m getting into and like to make sure I have everything ready. So hopefully I’ll get a chance to at least go and take a look over the location before having to shoot, if I pull it off I could get this gig every year and that’s always the goal, build a client list…

Now if you made it through all that I’d like to also add that I may get the opportunity to set up a photo-booth for Old Town Orange’s Treats in the Streets this year. That’s all I’m going to say about that for now as I don’t want to jinx it.

Take care and Happy Friday!