Good Neighbor Podcast: South of the River
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of South of the River
Good Neighbor Podcast: South of the River
EP #118 Capturing Life's Moments
Professional photographer Melissa Berger shares her journey from film photography to digital portraiture, highlighting the importance of printed images over digital files. She demonstrates passion for capturing authentic family moments and creating lasting memories through portraits that celebrate life's milestones.
• Started photography in high school with a film camera, developing in a darkroom
• Specializes in portrait photography – families, couples, seniors, and pets
• Senior photography captures that crucial milestone before adolescents transition to adulthood
• Challenges the myth that "the market is saturated" with photographers
• Strongly advocates for printed photos over digital-only files
• Guarantees replacement of printed artwork if anything happens to it
• Balances professional work with nature photography while camping with family
• Transitioned from film to digital by returning to school for certification
• Recently attended MARS (Mid-Atlantic Regional School) photographic conference
• Exploring creative techniques like "light painting" for unique portrait effects
Contact Melissa at Treasured Memories by Melissa Anne Photography at 612-817-3065 or visit tmbymelissaannephotography.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mark Bratton.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast number 118,. And today it's time to take a picture, go down memory lane with Melissa Berger and Melissa Ann. Photography. Melissa, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:Mark, I'm doing great today. It has been a beautiful day today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's always a good day when I get up and start looking outside. It doesn't matter if it's raining or snowing or sunshine, something's always going to grow.
Speaker 3:As long as the sun's shining and the trees are green, I'm happy.
Speaker 2:Well, and I'm guessing, because you can take pictures of just about anything anywhere, anytime, probably correct.
Speaker 3:That is correct, and I love spring and summer outdoor photos more than I like winter outdoor photos.
Speaker 2:You do, why is?
Speaker 3:that, because I don't like to be cold, so I don't like to be outside when it's 20 below here in Minnesota. So I really enjoy the springtime, the summertime, the fall time, and I love the changes of the seasons because you can get some really dynamic opportunities and stuff like that out in the wild.
Speaker 2:I agree, and obviously different parts of the day, week, month. You've got different architecture, you've got different colors. You've got different architecture. You got different colors. You got different animals, different people dressed up, and that's the I think, and I've never been a photography anything. My cell phone is bad even so. I appreciate people like you and in your eyes. So how do you, how do you get the vision of taking a picture? You know you look through that little lens. What are you looking for when you do that?
Speaker 3:Well, before I look into the lens, you know I look around, I look at all, you know tree lines and and shade areas and stuff like that where you can be able to, you know, see everything and still capture everything around you. But being in the shade because the sun is just so overpowering and light that you know a good shade spot is a always a nice part and you can always get, um get to see some more, uh, dynamics in your nature, um around you, that just kind of accents, um the people that are, um that are in your subject matters yeah, I uh, it's a talent.
Speaker 2:It's an unbelievable talent. I look at some of the photos that even that you've done and other people have done. I just I look and go how on earth did you catch that or that little image or something that was highlighted in the picture? And it's just amazing. So you amaze me all the time. So what made you get into the business? You start when you were in grade school or high school or college or what. What did you do to get into it?
Speaker 3:I actually started in high school. My parents gave me my first film camera, so that's how I can date myself. I actually started in high school with a film camera and I actually had a school that we had dark rooms in the classroom. So I took a couple of photography classes and did my own developing of black and white and colored film and I just fell in love with the process back then and just really loved the opportunity to connect with families and be wanting to take other people's pictures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you mentioned families. So is that a direction that your business goes? I think we talked a little bit about it, a lot about it actually. But tell us a little bit about the direction you've gone with family portraits and obviously your specialty with those high school kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am a portrait photographer, which just basically means that I love taking pictures of people, families, whether they're just couples, whether they're whether they're families with children and also with pets I love taking pet photos.
Speaker 3:It's just anything that people want to be able to capture and have good memories of stuff that is happening in their life right now that they can actually look back at.
Speaker 3:So senior photography also is a big one. Um, that it's just that last stage of a of child's growing up, going through school, and it's like that last real picture that you get of how they were when they were a child, um, or adolescent actually, because they're not exactly children and, uh, before we send them off to college. Because that is kind of when you look back at photos you can really see that is like that last area of there's growth areas in in life and children and stuff like that that you can really see. And that's that last picture before adulthood where they can really develop their last features before they become very old and stuff like that. But that's that last picture before adulthood where they can really develop their last features before they become very old and stuff like that. But that's kind of that really good sweet spot, and kids just need to be able to be honored and know that they have made it to that last milestone in their school year.
Speaker 2:I love the way you put that. I really do. I remember both my kids at that time frame. You know, their beauty is starting to be out, they're starting to get concerned about the way they look, what they wear, how they talk. They're getting ready for college, which is their first time they actually get to get away from mom and dad. And then they come back and you're going oh my, you're a man, oh my, you're a young lady. So I agree with you totally, melissa, on that, and we're so happy to have somebody like you that can take that last picture and then come back and do the family photo later.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that's the other thing with taking pictures of these adolescents. Sometimes they don't have the confidence, and that's the thing that we want to do is, regardless of what they do whether they're in sports or they're in the drama, theater, music you know it's being their authentic self. We want to capture that and we want to make them comfortable in that, and that really just brings out a great self-esteem when they know that they can just be captured just how they are at that point in time.
Speaker 2:Oh, that is so awesome. Yeah, you're 100% correct. I'm just thinking back at the times we had photos of our kids and I was thinking back on mine. That's a really long time ago, but I still have some of those and I remember seeing my dad on the tractor in black and white photos. So those are times and those are memories that you're going to have for the rest of your life and it's pretty cool. So I always love this question that I like to share with people. And now in your business is really fun, because you've transitioned so many times in the last 50 years. For sure, but myths and misconceptions there has to be some in your world. Tell us.
Speaker 3:Well, there is so many, especially the biggest one is well, the biggest two is the market is saturated with. Everybody's got a phone and a camera and they're a photographer. And the second one is everybody wants digitals. Um, and those are the two most misconception parts, because, yes, everybody has a cell phone, everybody um can take beautiful pictures, but it's the end result that we do with the photos.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like, um, I always kind of look look at it as a bottle of water, because you can get a bottle of water at a local gas station and it's a couple of dollars, or you can go to the airport and it's a lot more, but it's the same bottle of water, and so you know, there is a place for all of us and every lane that for photography, that for photography, and that's just kind of how I look at that.
Speaker 3:But not everybody wants just to take a digital picture and just look at it on their phone, and other people want to have artwork that is displayed on their walls, so that way they can, you know, look at it every day. Or, you know, in years to come, when their child has gone off to college and they don't get to see their child anymore. They at least have that memory on the wall that they can pass by every day and look at. And that's what I really promote in my photography business is to be able to print your photos so that way you can see them every day do you also do digital and melissa as well, when somebody asks her?
Speaker 3:um, so I do digital. But my biggest thing is is I will tell them I will give you a digital of any artwork that you purchase. But if you're going to purchase just digital, you're going to pay a lot more for that digital piece, because I really want to promote that you actually printed. I was talking to somebody the other day and they're like yeah, we did professional photography one time and they gave us the digitals. I said that's really nice. What did you do with them? At the end they go oh, I think there's somewhere on a floppy disc and I lost it somewhere. And that's the part that I just really promote that we just want to print it. And I also guarantee that my prints of my artwork, the portraits that you display on your wall if anything happened to it, it's 100% guaranteed, I'll replace it for free.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's awesome. Their memory is forever. So I love that. I love that. So, with all that, it sounds like you know that takes up at least part of your day. What do you do with the rest of your day to balance your life out? You know, what do you like to do? What do you get away and say, okay, no more photography. Or get away and you bring your photography with and you pick some of those really cool pictures that nobody would ever see?
Speaker 3:Well, so on that one, I go camping with my family, my children, my bonus children and my grandkids, and we actually tent camp. I do not want to camp in a trailer. So these are the times when, yes, I still take my camera with me, because these are the times when I will get up before all of my children at sunrise and I'll go sit out on the by the water and I will get that perfect sunrise picture that comes up and you never know what wildlife might run across your path while you're sitting out there quietly in the woods.
Speaker 1:I bet.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And then that's when you need your flash to scare the bear away right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's. You know I've never ran into a bear, but you know I've run into a lot of deer. Um, I am still trying to work on perfecting, uh, my bird photography. I love to sit and watch eagles, you know, soar over the sky and I can do those ones very well. But I'm still working on those hummingbirds. Boy, are they awfully quick when they're getting in front of your camera, when they're getting to that feeder or to that flower. But it's just, those are my little enjoyments, that when I want to unplug from the world, it's camping, hiking and just taking nature photography pictures.
Speaker 2:Love it. I have to share with you the tent part. I still enjoy that as well, but my tenting now is the tenting in the living room. When the grandkids come over I put the tent up and we all stay in pup tents. That's pretty fun.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, about a couple of years ago I realized that the other way to tent camp is with a hammock. I actually been sleeping in a hammock the last couple of years, so I'm not down on the ground anymore sleeping in the tent. But you know, I got a screen over my hammock and it works just as well.
Speaker 2:Yep, I, I got introduced to the hammock, oh boy, a long time ago. My daughter's 39 now and I she, I can't remember where she had I guarantee she was only like 10, 11 years old we went on a school camping trip and I was one of the very few dads that went. But I did the hammock thing and one of the other teachers, a gentleman, had a mattress on top of the picnic table. So why didn't we bring tents, I go? We were thinking of the kids and my feet don't fit in that little pup tent for the kids. So I guess, well, we were odd men out. But so the challenges in your life and stuff. Is there anything that brought you to photography that you know you were challenged? Or just some excitement or somebody influenced you? You saw some on TV. What made you really want to say I really enjoy this, I want to keep going? Is there anybody or anything that jumped at you that make you go forward with photography?
Speaker 3:not so much of somebody that inspired me in that way. I mean, besides, for when you go to a museum and you just look at some of the, the photos that were taken back in the day and just how the big cameras and how it's like people had to like sit really still and they had, you know, okay, we're going to take this picture and go snap and it's like okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, grab that film out and that. So those are like or the anthel adams you know that that's a big one, that is like out there for nature photographers and landscape photographers and that but it's just really one of those things that it's just like I just love the beauty of of nature and I love the fact of just being able to capture that stuff.
Speaker 3:I remember as a child looking back at photo books and photos and stuff like that as us as children and how we've kind of grown and stuff like that. But I think the other challenge that came up is, like I said before, I grew up in the film world and the biggest challenge was changing from film to digital and doing the actual digital photography as a professional wise was. One of the fun parts is I actually went online and I found a school that I could, you know, recapture. I took some years off so I had to go back and, you know, just re-educate myself. So that was one of the biggest challenge in about 10 years ago was I just went back to school and I started doing this as a digital world of learning and then ended up going on to get my certification in photography.
Speaker 2:And then you kind of go to some conferences, some unique conferences that are named very unique, so maybe you can share that with me.
Speaker 3:Well, so I just got back two weeks ago from Mars, so, and I'll tell you, mars was brutal. This year Every other person in Mars you know class got to go to class at 8 o'clock in the morning and we had to get up at 3.30 in the morning to be in a car at 4.30 in the morning and to end up on this picture perfect island when the sun rose out in Maryland. So MAR stands for Mid-Atlanta Regional School and it is a photography school. That is a continuous education. So being certified, I have to continue doing educational classes and stuff like that and continuous learning.
Speaker 3:And this year was a nature photography class and I'll tell you it was brutal because the sun rises I'm on the East Coast and so we are getting up even earlier than what we do here in the Central and then on top of that, then they say, hey, we've got this really unique, fun thing we're going to do in the evening when the sun goes down, and that's called light painting. I've got another part that I want to try in my and you know, coming up that would be some really cool photos and stuff with some seniors is by doing some light painting in that and that's just basically a taking some lights behind somebody, but it's got to be. Everything is dark and you just swing lights behind them and you create some really good unique visions from behind them and then they're kind of like in the silhouette and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But it's really cool stuff that I've learned um this year in my classes and stuff like that at mars well, rest assured, when you first told me that I was all ready to give nasa a call, make sure they bring you back, because we need you back here on earth. So, um, that was when you told me that I I guess every time we get together, I think of Mars. I'm going wow, she went to Mars. That's pretty cool. Well, for everybody here that can't get to Mars, why don't you share how they get a hold of you and how they can set up a photo shoot with you?
Speaker 3:Well, so there's a couple different ways to get a hold of me. One is you could always go to my website, which my website is, tm by Melissa and photography dot com phone call and I usually will pick up within that first 24 hours, and that is at number 612-817-3065.
Speaker 2:Treasured memories. I love it, and that's what we're going to have today. I really appreciate this, and I hope everybody else does too, because we can all take a trip to Mars anytime. Thanks, melissa, I appreciate you very much. Have a great, great day.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast South of the River. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPSouthoftherivercom. That to GNPSouthoftherivercom. That's GNPSouthoftherivercom, or call 952-592-3737.