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 On3 Photography 
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Does anyone do memorial folders for funerals? Just wondering if anyone has successfully tapped into this market with their local funeral homes. I have had 5 families in the last year ask me to do these customized "folders" (or whatever you want to call them) for their loved one's funeral, and of course they cost more than the same old generic ones the funeral home offers. It's definitely a word-of-mouth or an "I saw what you did for so-and-so's funeral ..." referral system unless you have an "in" with a funeral home. I realize this isn't direct photography and probably more about PS and scanning candid family shots, but am just curious if anyone is involved in this area of making money. Thanks!
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Christopher A. Vedros
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My wife & I have done photo displays, prayer cards, Mass programs, etc. for a couple dozen funerals over the years. It's always been for family, friends, or friends-of-friends and we could never charge money for this. People have always gone out of their way to help us in our times of grief, so we don't see it as a market. I'm not naive, I know the funeral & cemetary business is a huge industry (I've paid enough funeral bills to know that!) - I just couldn't ever see myself making money off of it. Chris
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On3 Photography
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I didn't mean to make it sound like an opportunity to take advantage of anyone's grief. Three of these I've done were for people I didn't even know, whose family wanted something more special than what the funeral home had to offer, and had seen something I had done for someone else. And the funeral homes that saw them were like "Wow" but not sure what else to say to me, nor I to them, since it did cut into their "territory". That's why I presented the question, more to see if anyone has developed a relationsip with a funeral home or some other outlet to provide this service to people who would like something special.
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Debby A. Tabb
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I DO UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU BOTH ARE COMING FROM, TRUELY I DO. I want to share with you what I did for my Grandfathers Funneral. No one seems to care about the Old Family Album sitting to the side, Until..... Then for some reason everybody says I want this and that. So I could not stand it! This was a Man we should be so Proud of and share, so I went through pictures with me Grandmother and we picked the ones she liked. I copied and made 50 books: each book went to the Head of every family. So they whould have something to remember this history by. It was just a thought.
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Samuel Smith
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thank you,anymore ideas?sam
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On3 Photography
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That's neat, Debby. I've uploaded to my website the memorial folder I made for my grandmother's service last spring, if anybody would like to see it. It made a wonderful keepsake. then along the lines of what you did for your grandfather, we scanned pix and gave everyone cds.
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Debby A. Tabb
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Laura, That looks Beautiful! I only wish I could read it! lol,lol I don't know if it my dang eyesight (which fails me now and then, today is one of those thens,lol,lol) But I can't see what all it says but the lay out is real pretty! Thank you for sharing it.
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Samuel Smith
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i had a really tough time reading it too debby.the layout and tribute was very nice though.please blow 2 cents off.your spelling gets really bad when you respond to" A" remark,others too.i am not sure if it is intentional for him or her to illicit an offensive remark?kinda like being scared of the dark,or maybe,who will like me tomorrow. ahh debby?remember the playground at school?say 4th grade? rude?yeah pretty much. i know it's a different thread but? anyway I have no clue about photo programs.pictures and words I am pretty sure can still tell a story.
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Debby A. Tabb
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Hey Sam, So nice to see ya, or read ya,lol. Did you notice,My grandpa looks like Superman in the one picture? I had never seen that Handsome picture of him until then. I had seen the one of him casted up in the hospital. That was a illegal Photograph a nurse took for him, to show Granda how he was. In a French Hospital his arm casted to his leg for 6 months doing a skin graph. Ok my spelling is always bad,lol,lol but what remark did I really do a bad job with? come on tell me , I can take it,lol
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Debby A. Tabb
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Laura, Thank you for sending that for me to see! it is wonderful! I haven't time to type , but I wanted you to know how much I appreciated it. Thanks again,
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Samuel Smith
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hey debby, the cheapskate bride thread,i think you cursed at the DR.. SPUNK IS A GOOD CHARACTERISTIC. i'll bet when you were younger you thought your gnandpa was superman.i thought mine was. take care,sam
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Debby A. Tabb
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Oh man , I was hopin' that was not what you were talkin' about! I don't know what got into me-we'll call it Bad Coffee,lol,lol Yeah, I geuss I did, and still do. Have a wonderful day ,Sam I have got to go catch up on work or take a nap: I have just returned from a day at the museums with 10 13/14 year old boys! AAAHH
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Sherry S. Boles
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Laura, I just wanted to tell you that I visited your website. What a wonderful and beautiful tribute to you grandmother! I can see why people would be interested in having their loved ones memorialized in such a beautiful way.
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On3 Photography
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Thanks, Sherry, I appreciate your taking time to share those kind words ... :-)
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Scot Benton
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I have been a mortician for the last 11 years and have made thousands of personalized memorial photos. I have the family bring in several photos and I put them together along with their biographical and service information. Families love them. I recommend you make some samples, put them in a nice binder and bring it to your local funeral home. Have a price sheet made and include it in the binder. Offer the funeral home 20% of orders received. This is how we do flowers and memorial DVDs, it might work with memorial folders. It's real important that you can provide the folders in a timely manor, sometimes less than 24 hours. This is why most funeral homes do them in house. You will probably have better luck with the family owned funeral homes. The corporate ones have deals with folder companies and probably won't give you the time of day.
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On3 Photography
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Thank you, Scot! And can you tell me what you charge for the ones you do? Do the prices vary at all? Do you live and practice in a rural or urban setting? Thanks for joining the thread -- you're just who I was looking for. - Laura
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Liza M. Franco
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Different aspect of this idea. What about copyright infringement? Personally I would never mind if someone used my photos to help grieving families find some peace. I had a friend die a few years ago and within a matter of hours all of his friends contributed any photos of him that they had so that we could make a special poster to be framed for his family for display at the memorial service. I stayed up throughout the night working in Photoshop, drove 2 hours the next day to get it printed and we presented it to his family. We made multiple copies to cover everyone in his family. Before I knew it, everyone who had contributed photos and even those who didn't were all asking for copies. I just had them pay cost. I don't think your initial idea is in any way in poor taste. I think that this really helped our group of friends and meant so much to our friend's family. It was comforting as we all drew together each pointing out favorite shots that we may not have seen. His parents and grandmother were comforted by his friends whom they had never met because they lived in different states. The photos and reminscing brought us all together as we comforted one another. We mourned his passing, but definitely celebrated his life through the collage of photos. Scot brought up a very important point. There are a lot of different businesses that make a profit from someone else's loss. However, flowers, memorium cards, clothing, final resting place, catering...all are important things that family members think of at such a time. It really is just another service being offered. I would also like to say that it doesn't matter if you know the person or not, it is a great honor to help assemble a tribute to someone else's life. Photos can help soothe aching hearts. That said, I would really like to know if there is a way to do this for families without infringing on copyrights. I'm very curious to know how the larger companies work with this part of it when creating these for the larger funeral chains.
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Scot Benton
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Sorry it took so long to respond, kids, work, you know how it goes. To answer your questions, I work in a semi rual area, about 45 mins from a large city. The memorial folders I put together are part of our funeral services, we don't charge extra for them. But, if someome is doing their own service and wants us to make folders for them, we charge $80 for 100 folders and a sign in book and $25 per additional 100 folders. This is for a simple folder, two or three photos, a poem or scripture and the deseased's personal information. As for copyright issues, I have never had a photographer deny the use or ask for compensation for the use of a photo. Even corporate photographers like Olan Mills have given permission to use their photos. Most photographers give me permission over the phone (local ones I'm friends with). Corporate ones have given me written permission for one time use. (usually via e-mail)
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