Telling how JoyPhotographers is born tells how a great photography studio was born. As with all the great adventures, the path is full of difficulties, jumping in the dark, and above all so much work.
I know Stephen from a lifetime, and from a lifetime he has always been passionate about photography. He started making photos since he was young, and soon he infected me and dragged me too. He took many reportage, photographed marriages for a year in New York, collaborated with many magazines. He was a professional full of ideas and knew the “craft” both as an experience and as a working method.
When he started to take the wedding photographer for a big Turin studio I started to follow him in the wedding adventure. After a while I offered him:
“Do we open a studio by us?”
The beginning
2009, Turin, February.
The crazy idea of starting a business venture is taking shape, full of difficulties, but also great challenges. Finding Customers. Create a group. And at the same time pull ahead by making the first (few) entries enough.
The first marriages were born thanks to the passaparola of couples we had photographed in previous years. I have to say that word-of-mouth, even now, is the most effective advertising … This has taught us that all services must be handled with the utmost attention, because the satisfied couple will be our first and most important testimonial!
I remember the first weddings, rich in passion and experimentation, “promotional” prices, so much work in selection studios, post production, album design… Every work completed was a conquest, and gave us momentum for the next.
But I also remember the defeats: especially couples who did not choose us. This also needs to grow, to wonder how we present to customers, to question the proposal we make. We, young and full of enthusiasm, very good but perhaps not as good as we would later become, slowly…
From 2009, each year we would have increased the number of weddings planned. On the floor, the study decoys. It’s time to find a name!
The name: JoyPhotographers
Finding a name for a photo studio has a very simple start: the classic “brain storming”, a list of names that come to mind at the moment, and virtually no one really convinces us! But one day I have an idea.
There is a name that hurts me in the head: “JoyPhotographers”. It’s a name that puts together two words that say everything. Joy & Photographers!
If I have to be honest, at first Stefano does not really like the idea … But maybe it’s a fate that this simple, positive, “international” name, which is born as a provisional one, should soon become definitive!
To design a logo. Build a Rich, Useful, Attractive Site. Rent a studio and make it “home”. There are things to do to start this adventure, and take a long time. Making rules and priorities, trusting one another, this is not so obvious.
But what gives us more and more enthusiasm to continue is the appreciation for our work. Now yes, we’re really JoyPhotographers in all the senses!
To grow up
Creating a group is indispensable. It serves to simplify the job, of course, but also to confront each other and for a healthy competition. In addition, being a team enables us to photograph more weddings on the same date. In July and September this is crucial!
It is not easy, however, to find the right people, whether they are very good professionals, and also people with whom you can humanly agree.
We then start working with young talents, who for a few years come to assist with us. Davide Dusnasco, Alessio Zanfini, Davide Longo soon become able to take fantastic weddings, and become an integral part of our team. We are really proud to have contributed to the training of these guys, now among the most appreciated professionals on the square!
All the experience accumulated in these years we want to put it at the disposal of young guys who want to start the adventure of wedding photography. We think of a real “course” of a year, so JoySchool is born.
And the team widened again: Martina Muscarello, Paolo Properzi and Marco Campeotto all come into the team. Not to mention our fantastic video-makers: Piero Carchedi, Luca Ferrato, Stefan Mihai …
Now we are an exceptional group!
And now?
One of JoyPhotographers’ main strengths, if I have to look back at all these fantastic years, is to innovate continuously, aim to evolve and improve always, look at international trends and bring them to Italy. Because marriage photography, more than ever, is an artistic genre.
And we are first of all artists, always looking for new ways to represent what is a particular emotion, or a unique and unrepeatable moment to a wedding reception.
In short, we have always been very ambitious, today as when we were a small studio. And this ambition has taken us far, even geographically: we photographed marriages in Ibiza, San Francisco, Switzerland and France …
Now we are no longer a rampant early-start study, but we are a reference study throughout Piedmont. It was only a few years to become it, but what we have collected is the result of a constant work day by day.
Fortuna? A bit.
Bravura? A lot.
Work? So, every day.
Davide
