Rangefinder Magazine
Features

Profile: Tammy Loya by Lou Jacobs Jr.
The Lady From Nostalgia

In her early teens Tammy Loya begged her mother for a 35mm SLR and when she got one, she exclaims, “No one in the family was safe. I practiced on everyone, and I learned from my mistakes.” Tammy’s parents were not very education-conscious, and when the family moved from New York to Florida and back again to Ballston Spa, NY, the shuffle upset Tammy’s schooling. After the 11th grade she dropped out of school, though she received her diploma a year later, and began working full-time in an auto salvage yard her folks owned where she had previously been employed weekends and in the summer. She did all kinds of jobs until she became the company bookkeeper. “That’s where I learned how to be a good businessperson later in my studio,” she explains.

This image is special to me as my first Kodak Gallery award. It was taken for a Christmas card and the child was coloring forms I drew on paper. The stained bi-fold background doors were in the barn we bought with dust all over them. Film was Portra 400VC, 180mm lens on a Mamiya RZ..

When she was 18 her mother died of cancer and Tammy took over her office responsibilities. Her dad remarried but her “wicked step monster” preferred watching soap operas to working and Tammy’s responsibilities mushroomed. By 1990 her father was semi-retired and sold Tammy his house adjacent to the junkyard. She and her fiancé, Mark Hauser, remodeled the house into her first studio in 1992. She adds, “To get started I hooked up with a lady who sold cosmetics and photographed her makeovers on my lunch hour from the salvage yard.”

Tammy also found time to shoot Little League teams, weddings and children, plus high school seniors and dirt track racing for a trade paper. Then, to keep her in his business her canny father, “Offered me a huge promotion with a promise that someday I would own the business, and for the next five years I was the Leona Helmsley of the junkyard world,” Tammy says. But her dad never put his promise of ownership on paper and eventually reneged on his offer. Tammy and Mark offered to buy the business, but that fell through, “So in January, 1995 I quit and became a full-time professional photographer,” Tammy states, “and it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

“I had a strong urge to create beautiful portraits and prove that I could build a first class studio. I wanted to leave the salvage yard image behind. No more dealing with sometimes seedy characters that wanted something for nothing. I joined my local professional photography chapter and signed up for Jeff Lubin’s first week-long class. I was basically starting over because for five years my part-time photo business was barely on simmer. Jeff’s operation was everything I wanted mine to be, and I took the things I knew about customer relations and business practices and adapted them to Ballston Spa.” That’s the small town 10 miles from Saratoga Springs, NY where Tammy dreamed of success.

I placed the child in a Wicker by Design christening bench and added silk flowers and soft flowing fabric to complement the pastel portrait tones. The background was hand painted by Lamar Williamson, and I used four Photogenic Power Lghts, the main one in a 24-inch softbox. Kodak PRN film.

Then she “turned up the heat,” as she puts it. “We were still adjacent to the salvage yard, but I redecorated the studio so people would ignore its location. My average sale went from $300 to $1000 in the first year, and currently [in her new studio described below] we’re up to $3000.” As a high school dropout she was pleased then and more so now.
Not surprisingly, early on Tammy’s ambition was a new location, and she found a great home, “With a huge maple tree taller than the barn it stood next to,” but the asking price was out of range for her and Mark. A couple of years later a realtor friend said he had found a perfect place for a new studio. “When he gave me the address,” Tammy sighs, “I realized it was that same beautiful house. The good news was the bank owned it now, and we could afford to buy it.”
Tammy, Mark and her 13-year-old son (from an earlier marriage) moved into the house from which she worked for a year and a half. “It was a balancing act,” Tammy explains, because she had to keep living spaces separated from consultation, camera and production rooms until remodeling the barn as a studio was completed. “Mark and I did the demolition,” she explains. “We filled five huge dumpsters with debris, then hired a crew to do the remodeling work. As work progressed I’d give clients the fifty-cent tour, telling them what each room was for including the theater, because I sell by projection. I wanted a Victorian theater with velvet curtains and theater seats. It took six months to finish the project.”

Her pride is high as she describes her present workplace. “You enter the first- floor gallery. Music is piped into every room, candles are burning and portraits on display are lit by recessed brass fixtures. Upstairs is the consultation room with wide-plank hardwood floors, a 24-foot-high vaulted ceiling and an 1890s coal-burning fireplace. There’s a kids’ playroom, and parents can observe them during the photo session via a closed-circuit TV. The camera room has a 6x6-foot north light window and there are shelves for props. Mark made me a custom Quaker peg system on which to hang chairs and I use a Craftsman toolbox as my rolling photo cart, which holds film, lenses, camera bodies and toys to keep kids’ attention.”

	This is a first communion portrait. I love seeing the girls who look like miniature brides to me. The dress is hers, not from our wardrobe. Kodak Portra 400VC film.

Tammy sells her work by projection in the “Jail House Rock Theater” using two projectors and a dissolve unit. “I wanted this room to look like a Victorian theater with velvet curtains and theater seats. A workman who heard me describe it found the curtains by chance in the clearing area of a state prison 20 miles north. I called the prison, the curtains were put up for bid and I won. Beyond is the closet with a lot of beautiful clothes for our clients to borrow if they wish. And there’s a production room for Heidi, my primary assistant, who gets everything ready for appointments, and deftly sells me on the phone to prospective clients.”

As is clear by the pictures with these words, Tammy specializes in photographing children. She meets preschool children before a shoot to be familiar with their personalities, and their parents may stay during photography, or they wait in the consultation room. “I play with the children and make up stories in which they are the stars. I preplan a session including posing, and I use props to engage a child. It’s easy to tell a two-year old to look out a window where there are drawings of butterflies or smiling faces to hold their attention. I talk about cartoon characters, friends, family members or events in their lives. You need to talk with kids, not to them, and you need lots of patience. I schedule two hours for each child’s session, and they get breaks. I get them comfortable with me and that reflects in their portraits.”

Tammy had a strong feeling that a high-end studio for children would work in her area because there was none. Ballston Spa is 10 miles south of Saratoga Springs which is known for health (spas), wealth (visitors) and racing (horses). Tammy has displays in boutiques and restaurants at the Springs, and others in her dentist’s office and at a shopping mall in Albany, NY, 25 miles south. Expecting affluent clients, she furnished the studio with “fine items” such as Wicker by Design products, antique furniture and custom painted backgrounds by Lamar Williams and Lynne Sanders.

	I call it “A Rockwell Moment,” because “Norman Rockwell has been a big influence in my work. I wanted my portraits to have a real life feeling and he captured that in his images. I’ve always loved the image of the girl in the mirror—you know what she’s thinking. I collected a lot of props that would work in the image, and set it up. I had to have the correct camera angle for lighting her, so I wouldn’t show up in the mirror. I used stained bi-fold doors for the background and additional bi-folds to reflect in the mirror and hide my studio. I seated her and metered her reflection, and the rest is history. It was all done with natural light from my 6x6 north light window. Exposure was 1 second at f/8 with the mirror locked up and a cable release; 180mm on a Mamiya RZ..

The most popular print size ordered is 24x30, “So I priced it to help hit my average sale,” she explains. “Everything is priced ala carte. With a frame and a couple of desk portraits we make the goal. All work includes negative retouching and print enhancement, these are not options. We recently added image boxes from Art Leather and Cypress Albums, and leather bound albums from ZookBinders. They sell very well.” A minimum of 50% down is required with orders.

Regarding promotion, Tammy donates portrait sessions for auction only. “I want people to come to my studio because they’re attracted there, not because they won a random certificate in a raffle. I do donate certificates for children’s funds, animals, arts and higher art education. I always require a minimum bid of $100. Clients attend many fund raisers and it’s a good way to promote my name.”

Tammy’s partner for a dozen years has been Mark Hauser and as a couple they are unforgettable because he’s 6-feet-9-inches and she’s 5-feet-4-inches. Tammy says his handle bar mustache first attracted her. In spring 2000 Tammy and Mark attended their first WPPI convention where one of Tammy’s great friends, Michele Celentano was speaking. Two days before they left Ballston Spa Mark suggested they get married in Las Vegas, and Miss Efficiency (my description) finished some studio work, visited a boutique in Saratoga Springs to buy “a perfect dress,” went back to the studio, did a session, packed and took a phone call that one of her prints had scored a 94 in Las Vegas. She also won first and second place in children’s portraits. “So WPPI was special to me,” she says convincingly. In addition, Tammy Loya was one of five people to received a dual degree from PPA in 1999.

In her studio Tammy uses a Mamiya RZ system with 90mm, 150mm soft focus and 180mm lenses, plus a Canon A-2. For lighting she has four Photogenic 1500 units, a Larson soft box 4x6 feet, a 24-inch soft box, a 5-foot Balcar zebra umbrella and her 6x6 foot north window light. Her films are the new color Kodak Portra series plus 3200 T-Max, Tri-X and T-Max 400. Outdoors she uses only reflectors, and schedules sessions in late afternoon or in open shade. She uses Burrell Color for her lab and Robert Cavali and Jonathon Penney for her black-and-white work and Marlene Loria art works for competition prints.

Dedicated to being a photographer, Tammy Loya’s visions made possible her wonderful home/studio and her success with a camera. She has a few axioms that have served her well: 1) Never compromise on quality. 2) Surround yourself with people you admire. 3) Try to be unique. 4) Avoid negative people in your life (this took her a little time, she says). 5) Take or give a weeklong class every year. I’ll add another that fits: Think big.

Lou Jacobs Jr. is the author of 23 how-to photography books, the latest of which, The Big Picture, was recently published. He has taught at UCLA and Brooks Institute of Photography and enjoys shooting stock on his travels in the U.S. and abroad.