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Today's Guest: Dee Pullen of Ocoee Photos in Cleveland, Tennessee
Today's Host: John Bentley
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Dee Pullen Transcript Page
JOHN - Welcome to VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight. Today's program is sponsored by Morephotos.com. The online total photo sales solution for professional photographers worldwide. I'm your host, JOHN - Bentley
JOHN - Welcome to the program Dee
DEE - Well, thanks for having me.
JOHN - Tell us a little bit about your services.
DEE - I am located on the Ocoee River in the Cherokee National Forest in SE Tennessee and one thing that makes me unique is I don't go out and solicit customers. My customers come to me while they're rafting down the river. So I can see thousands of people a day.
JOHN - Wow how convenient.
DEE - I know.
JOHN - So that's what makes your services unique. The type of photography you do. Tell me about the service radius of your photography. Do you do it all over the world or are you just strictly in the Tennessee area?
DEE - Primarily I'm just in the Tennessee area. I have traveled and worked for brochures and things like that. The river keeps me pretty busy. We run from March – November and we do see people from all over the world, though. I've had orders that I've shipped to England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, because we have a unique situation here with our river. We always have dependable water flow. It's supplied by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) so they cut the river on and they cut the river off. So even though we're having a terrible drought right now in Tennessee, we do have good water flow.
JOHN - Excellent. So tell us why did you decide to become a photographer?
DEE - Well, in a previous life, I got my master's degree in education, and so I taught school and I had summers off. I just happened to meet someone from Australia who was a guide from the Ocoee River. He thought it was amazing that I had grew up in this area and never gone down the river, and I found it pretty amazing that he came all the way from Australia to work on our river. So long story short, he invited me to go down the river, and I just immediately fell in love with it. I've always wanted to do something creative and artistic, but while in college I found I had no real talent for drawing or painting. So..
JOHN - That's good to find out what your limitations are anyways. So, how long have you been a photographer.
DEE - I've always had a camera and when the Olympics came here in 1996, I got to work in timing and score-keeping so I had a perfect opportunity to do a lot of photos on the river of the Olympics. And, one thing just let to another I found one summer an ad in our local newspaper and they were looking for someone who worked with a photography company. At the time there was one photography company on the river and they had all the business. It was film. So I went and tried working for them, and I really enjoyed the job and everything, and so came back and that's when digital was just coming out and so I came back the second year, and I had the determination that I was going to start my own business. So I worked one more summer and I learned everything I could about the business and that's how I got started.
JOHN - Excellent. So how long have you actually been in the business. How long has your company Ocoee Photos...
DEE - Well I started in 1999, there was one company on the river, Quest Expeditions, who did not have a contract with that particular company. So I happened to know Monica and she was working there and she was one of my old paddling buddies. I got into kayaking after I did the river guiding thing. And, just long story short, they did a Mexico travel trip and it was at the millennium and they were doing one so I just approached the owner, Keith Jenkins, and asked him if he would like to have a photographer accompany him on his trip. And he did and I shot the trip from, you know, the get-go, and had little books made up for the customers when they got on the plane to leave Mexico. You know how you take photos and you're like, huh, when I get home I'm gonna put them in an album, but you never do. So that was my selling pitches. I was gonna have the album ready when the customers got on the plane. So I toted all my equipment to Mexico, I worked all night, I got it all done, and when we came back, they asked me if I could do their photos. So I was the first digital cut me on the river and just going digital was a big advantage because we could shoot at different locations and we could shoot more photos because the old company that uses film only shot 3 photos per raft and they only printed one copy of each. So it was first come first serve when the customers got back and you had to mail order. With digital I can just have external monitors and I show slide shows and we only print what we need.
JOHN - Certainly, digital photography is the way of the future and it's so much easier to use than traditional film wouldn't you say?
DEE - Oh, it's fantastic. You know, you don't have to worry about your film. I mean you can shoot as many as you want, you can always delete them later. It's not costing you any money. You can reuse your, you know, compact flash cards. So it's really helped photography come a long way. But after I had my business going for a couple of years, I already wanted to have an online service. I had been searching and searching and trying to find out how to go online, the things I was coming up with on the internet was just not what I was looking for. And it was really by chance I was waiting on a customer at one of the rafting outposts, she was buying a photo from me, and she said, "Hey, have you ever thought about going online." And I said, "yes, constantly, I just can't find what I'm looking for out there." And she had just come from Colorado and she had just come from rafting out there and so she told me she was going to email me the information and everything about that particular businesss. She did, and I contacted that rafting company and that's how I came upon More Photos.
JOHN - Speaking of More Photos. We're gonna take a break here to hear from our sponsors which is morephotos.com.
Announcer - This VTalk Radio Spotlight is brought to you by morephotos.com. The online photo sales solution for professional photographers worldwide.
VTALK RADIO ... we now return you to VTalk Radio Photography Spotlight with your host, John Bentley.
JOHN - Welcome back to Vtalk Radio Photographer's Spotlight. We are in the studio with Dee Pullen of Ocoee Photos, Cleveland, Tennessee. Welcome back Dee.
DEE - Thank you John.
JOHN - Tell us a little bit about your website. People can go to to view your photography and get information about your services. Tell us what that is, tell us a little bit about that.
DEE - Well, my website is www.ocoeephotos.com and we have different pages for different rafting outposts. The photos are arranged by the name of the company, the date, the time of your trip, and your guide's name. So we keep them forever, they're archived just like that for years and years. So you can call us at any time and we can just pull it back out and re-post it. What I usually do since we got so many photos, I keep my photos up for two weeks at a time and then we rotate them out. With the website, it's fantastic because you can offer all kinds of package deals. You can offer discounts, for instance with the private boaters, just to keep it fresh in their minds, I'll put their photos up and let them know for two weeks, that if they'll order something from me within 10 days, they will get 10% off. Because everybody likes to save money. At the website, it's up to you. It's your own storefront. You can arrange it any way you want. You can offer discounts, you can leave the photos up for any amount of time; I mean you are under total control.
JOHN - So More Photos has really helped you sell your product.
DEE - I mean like Tuesdays and Wednesdays, that's our day off when the river's not running. Just yesterday and today, I've filled orders from not only here in Tennessee, but Georgia, Iowa, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, New Jersey, and a lot of these folks, I wouldn't have a way of contacting them if it wasn't for the website.
JOHN - Now, when we were on break, you spoke a little bit about the river rafting photographing you do. Can you tell us a little bit about how you get these photos of your customers and how they are able to get ahold of you and get this work done.
DEE - Well, once I take the photos, I have what I call runners, and they drive and deliver the photos to the different rafting outposts, and I have sales people down there that organize them in the computer and get the slide shows ready. So as soon as the customer walks off the bus from their trip, we have the photos for them ready to see. And then at the end of each day, I believe in good service to my customers, and it doesn't matter how tired I am, those photos get posted on the website that night. So they are available when the people wake up the next morning. They can go and check out their photos.
JOHN - Great now your website, can you spell that out for the people cause I know they are curious as to exactly the spelling so when they look you up on the internet, they will be able to find it.
DEE - Yes it's - ocoeephotos.com.
JOHN - We have your website up here in the studio and you have a beautiful landscape picture on the front of it.
DEE - That is Ocoee dam number 2. That's where the middle section of the river starts. If you look to the west, there's a ramp down through there and that's where they carry the rafts down to put on the river.
JOHN - Your service is on the Ocoee River. How long is this river?
DEE - The middle section is 5 miles of continuous flat water, and that's what runs Thursday through Monday. The upper section where the Olympics were held, it's also 5 miles and it was designed especially for the Olympics. So there is some paddling up there where you know it's not continuous flat water, but when you hit it, you really know you've hit something big. It only runs on Saturdays and Sundays because we have to pay TVA to turn the river on for us. And that water is extremely, extremely expensive up on the river.
JOHN - Anything else you want to add before we let you go today.
DEE - Well, I just had a pleasure talking to you guys and if you haven't come to SE Tennessee to visit us on the Ocoee River, I would like to invite you to do so.
JOHN - Excellent. If I'm in Tennessee, I certainly will. Once again, we have been in the studio with Dee Pullen with Ocoee Photos. Her website is: ocoeephoto.com. We appreciate you coming into the studio with us today, Dee.
DEE - Well, it's been a pleasure to be here.
JOHN - Good luck with you and your business. This is John Bentley with VTalk Radio Photographer's Spotlight. Have a great day.
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