By CARA LORELLO
Staff Reporter
Memories—can you put a price on them?
Photographer Lana Burnette believes they're priceless and shouldn't cost a fortune.
That's the slogan behind her home-based photography business, Priceless Photography By Lana, which she opened last spring in the basement of her Medical Lake home.
On her business's online home page, http://www.priclessphotographybylana.com, Burnette says she has 20 years experience doing photography work throughout the Spokane area. A Medical Lake High School graduate, Burnette said she caught the shutterbug at a young age, thanks in part to her father's artistic background as a painter of landscapes.
“He was good about encouraging the arts to us kids,” Burnette said. She asked for a camera for a high school graduation present, and earned an applied arts science degree from Spokane Falls Community College, a school she said has always had a great photography program.
The photography landscape has really changed from when she first started in the 1980s, she added.
The transition from film to digital has made the work a lot more flexible in terms of time, quality and technique.
“It's why I've gone 100 percent digital,” Burnette said of her business. “I love it, the freedom you have with memory cards vs. film. It especially comes in handy at shoots like weddings. With film, you were never happy until you had the pictures in your hand.”
Weddings are one area Burnette has lots of experience, small, big, indoors and out. Digital affords more shots per event too.
Burnette explains on her website that clients can purchase all of their photographs on disc. The site also includes links to information on the types of services she offers, which range from weddings, event photography, senior pictures, portraits, custom made collages, team sports, plus infant photography and “portraits,” or portraits of pets, big, small, scaled and feathered.
“I'm available to do ‘special event' photography as well, anniversaries, birthdays, sporting events and any event you can think of where you'd rather participate than be behind the camera,” Brunette said.
All category price lists are listed online, and as mentioned before, Burnette is of the philosophy that photographic memories shouldn't come at a high cost.
Individual prints, for example, start as low as $2 for 4x6 sizes, and go up to $25 for 11X14 sizes. Portrait sitting fees are $30 for up to four people, and $5 per each extra person. Customers opting to get their photos on a CD also get full printing rights. Orders with multiple copies of one image get discounts.
For on-location jobs, travel costs are only charged if a site is outside 20 miles, 50 cents charged per mile. For each hour at a wedding shoot, Burnette charges $50.
Both longtime and recent customers agree there's a personalized quality to Burnette's work that's unique to the event, and the prices are a bonus.
“Lana does a great job with photographs,” client Sherry Huchinson wrote via email on Burnette's website comment page. ”She did some of me with my sons, daughter-in-law and grandson. They were truly great pictures. I would recommend her to anyone.”
Burnette's photographed Samantha Beichler's family for years, who says she's all about creativity, combined with a relaxed atmosphere.
“If it wasn't for her, my favorite and very treasured photographs would have never been captured…her skills continue to impress me,” Beichler said.
Burnette also works full time as an X-ray technician, “taking pictures of people's insides.” The home studio work is done in her free time. It's also not the first time Burnette's started a business for her hobby, but two decades' worth of experience have given her the business savvy needed to make it a more focused and successful venture.
“I really hope the business grows from here—the timing is definitely right for me now,” Burnette said.
Priceless Photography is located at 865 N. Howard St. in Medical Lake. To book an appointment, call (509) 710-3832.
Cara Lorello can be reached at [email protected]
Reader Comments(0)