Rangefinder Magazine
February 2005

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Profile: Mike Colon by Larry Singer
Nothing Less Than the Best

Excellence always sells,” said author and motivational mogul Earl Nightingale, and few wedding photographers put a higher value on excellence than Mike Colón.

In fact, one might assume that the people who retain Colón, and pay him from $20,000 to $50,000 to shoot their weddings, might very well expect more than the average amount of bang for their buck.

Just how much bang, you might ask, do Colón’s clients expect when they plunk down the price of a new car to have Colón show up, camera in hand, at their nuptials?

Simply put, they get the highest quality possible in both photography and customer service. And because Colón knows they expect it, his customers always get absolutely nothing less than the best.

And just how good, you may now be wondering, is Mike Colón?

The stunning images on his leading-edge web sites might give you a pretty good clue. An even stronger hint, however, is the discovery that his elegant photographs have been prominently featured in the pages of the ultra chic magazine Grace Ormonde Wedding Style as well as Ceremony, Orange County’s number one wedding magazine.

With a studio in Newport Beach, California, Colón, at age 29, has been shooting professionally for 10 years, and specializing in weddings for just over half a decade. But, had he not grown dissatisfied with many of his college engineering classes, his current career path most likely would have veered off in an entirely different direction.

“I was going to Cal State Fullerton,” Colón recounts, “and although I had always been interested in photography, I didn’t get into it right away. While I was in college I went out and bought a camera, and then figured I’d better learn how to use it. I began taking photography courses at school in addition to my electrical engineering classes. Photography really attracted me and renewed my interest in college.”

Colón originally got into engineering because he believed it would be challenging. Eventually however, he discovered that engineering just wasn’t his cup of tea.

“There was something inside of me,” Colón says, “a creativity, just struggling to get out, and electrical engineering just wasn’t providing that outlet.”

The deeper Colón delved into photography, the less happy he became with engineering. When about four years into the engineering program, with about a year left to go for his degree, he decided he didn’t want to waste another year doing something he didn’t like, so he switched his major.

However, when he changed his major, he didn’t switch to photography. Instead, Colón enrolled in a business and marketing program that taught him to successfully run a business and make a living doing what he loved.

On-the-job Training
Along with his marketing classes, Colón immersed himself in photography. He studied photography books and practiced shooting every day. He also signed up to be a lab tech at school so he could get his own set of keys to the darkroom. Colón recalls, “I tried everything in that darkroom, from liquid emulsions to making giant murals. I remember staying up all night developing and printing photographs that I took of my friends snowboarding.”

Colón immediately got a part-time job working for a big event company shooting sports. He also took a weekend job shooting portraits for a local studio.

“What I’m doing now—shooting my weddings in a style similar to photojournalism—I’ve learned by experience. After every shoot, I look at my images to see how I can improve creatively and technically on my next shoot. I’m always trying to get better, and most of what I’ve learned so far has been on the job.”

Just as important as good technical skills, Colón says, “Good people skills are a necessity.” He believes the key to getting great wedding photographs is getting to know the clients before the wedding, usually while shooting the engagement pictures, and helping them feel comfortable with the photography process. “It’s that time before the wedding that helps them accept me, so I’m not someone who they’ve just met, but rather someone who is a friend,” he says.

Colón is truly a people person. Although somewhat of a cliché, he believes that to be successful you really have to love people, and he does. He’s outgoing, likes to have fun, and likes to capture people having fun. He’s straightforward with his clients, and he honestly cares about them and the product they receive.

Are We Having Fun Yet?
Colón’s environmental portraits, as well as his wedding photographs, appear perfectly lit. He credits the use of natural light and allowing his clients to have fun being photographed with his technically excellent results.

Colón primarily uses available light. He will use an on-camera speedlight in extremely low-light situations, but he’ll bounce it off a ceiling or wall to simulate available light. Sometimes he’ll use direct flash when he’s going for what he calls the “paparazzi effect,” for instance, a shot of the bride and groom getting out of their limo.

During weddings, Colón puts his subjects into a certain lighting situation and then quickly assesses if that lighting is flattering. “When I look at the lighting, I pay attention to the background light as well as the lighting on my subject. I also pay attention to the angle of the light source and where to position the subject in relation to the light source. I then set them free to be spontaneous. If they move out of the good light, I reposition them, but often, to preserve the moment, I’ll just work with what’s in front of my lens.”

Although Colón tends to be a perfectionist, he has found he needs to concentrate more on the moment. “I don’t want to put myself in a box,” he says. “There’re so many styles of shooting, lighting and composition to explore that I don’t want to stick to preconceived rules. I try to concentrate on what I like and experiment more.”

Putting the Word Out
To get his high-end wedding clients into his studio, Colón relies both on his elegant web site and strategically placed promotional messages. He advertises in a select few high-end publications, like Grace Ormonde Wedding Style magazine, which comes out twice a year and is very exclusive. All of his advertisements are full-page or two-page spreads. “My ads are usually a full-page photograph with my logo and contact info. I try to choose images that are unique and are as dissimilar as possible from what I’ve seen other photographers use. I like using images that are lighthearted, show personality, and say ‘love.’ My goal is to connect with the bride at this time in her life.”

When asked what contributes most to his high-end image, Colón reveals his quality-driven marketing strategy.

“My marketing plan is all about quality,” Colón says, “quality products, quality service and quality presentation. My presentation includes my advertisements, web site and studio. When someone walks into my studio,” Colón continues, “that environment is designed to tell them immediately what my style is and what I’m all about.”

For Colón, this means attending to the smallest details of his business, including the images on the walls, mounted behind eight-ply museum mats in custom Roma frames; the furniture and the state-of-the-art office equipment, like dual-processor G5 computers and Herman Miller chairs. Colón’s clients sit in a cozy livingroom-like environment, watching professionally designed movie presentations of his images on a giant plasma screen. Colón’s goal is to make his clients feel that he is someone who has taken the art of wedding photography one step beyond anybody else.

There’s also a certain high level of customer service Colón offers, and he tries to provide the whole package from presentation to branding. He doesn’t sell anything less than top quality. This includes the handmade custom albums crafted from imported materials by La-vie Album.

Colón uses only top-of-the-line camera gear, including several the latest Nikon digital SLR bodies with Nikon’s latest wireless technology, and a whole fleet of super-fast AF-S-Nikkor lenses. Nikon’s Wi-Fi technology enables Colón’s assistant to download the wedding images to a laptop as Mike is shooting! The images can then be used for a slide show at the reception—literally moments after the images have been captured.

Spending Time
To Colón, there is no higher priority than the images. “It’s all about the photography and the images,” he says. “Everything I do has as its foundation in providing the best-quality images and the highest level of service. With online proofing through my lab, Pictage, Inc., my clients can view their images, crop the pictures they want to order, convert images from color to black and white, add borders to images, and order online. Since I began using Pictage, I’ve increased my average order by about $500, mainly from guests at the wedding who might never have had a chance to order prints otherwise.”

Colón makes every effort to separate himself from his competition, which is formidable in the Southern California area. His products, images and services help him stand out from the pack. His never-ending attention to detail includes trying to really understand how much effort the bride has put into every element of her wedding, and spending the time to capture those unique, sometimes subtle details. He tries to put himself into the bride’s head, prioritize what’s important to her, and tell her wedding story the way she would want it told.

“This is why communicating with the bride before the wedding is so important,” Colón says. “I need to understand her expectations so I can far exceed them when I hand her that finished album. I want it to be better than she ever dreamed it could be.”

Colón believes that without an exceptional product and extraordinary service, you don’t have anything noteworthy. It doesn’t matter how you market yourself—if you don’t have the products and services to back it up, then everything else is like a house built on sand—it eventually washes away.

Colón also has a willingness to share information and techniques with other photographers to help them grow. He has discovered that the more you share with others, the more others share with you. His new web site will be online by the time you read this and will include a special technical section for photographers where Colón will discuss workflow and other technical adventures in the digital age.

Samples of Mike Colón’s photographic artistry can be seen on his web site at www.mikecolon.com/. His education-oriented web site, featuring his calendar of speaking engagements, workshops, instructional DVDs, his images and the latest photographic products can be seen www.mikecolon.net/.

See Mike Colón “Live and Unplugged” on Monday, March 21, from 5:00–7:00 p.m. at the WPPI 2005 Convention and Tradeshow at Bally’s, Las Vegas.

Larry Singer is a writer, photographer and artist now living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He has taught photography in South Florida and Denver. He can be contacted at rangefinderwriter@yahoo.com.