The Dead Pixels Society podcast

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Anthony Spark of Spark a Change Coaching, Long Island, NY,  talks about business growth through mentorship and leadership development. Spark describes an entrepreneurial childhood in a dysfunctional family, working full-time at 15, and choosing direct sales at 18 after meeting successful mentors, which helped him develop skills in finance, relationships, communication, sales, organization, and ti...

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AI is moving fast, but the real advantage isn’t sounding smart, it’s getting work done faster without breaking your team. Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Elias Jo, CEO of Entourage Yearbooks, to talk about what’s actually changing inside the yearbook and volume photography workflow and what studios of every size can do right now to keep up.

Joe digs into how Entoura...

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Parents can erase a watermark for five bucks, AI keeps getting better, and “just screenshot it” has become a reflex. So what do you do if you make your living in volume sports photography? Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Bob Kenward of Fluvanna Photography and Sheryl Bashore of Sheryl Z Photography, two of the most respected voices in youth sports and cheer, dance, and gymna...

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If your business disappeared for two weeks, would it keep running, or would everything grind to a halt because the “manual” is in your head? The Dead Pixels Society sits down with David Hori, principal at Topline Operators, to get practical about small business acquisition and what actually makes a company transferable, financeable, and worth buying. Hori brings a rare mix of experience: scaling ...

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A photo lab is a lot more than chemistry, scanners, and printers. It’s a discipline. In this episode of the Dead Pixels Society podcast, we are joined by Dale Farkas of Dale Laboratories in Hollywood, Florida. He lays out the principle that quietly separates labs that last from labs that fade: the difference between quality and quality control. Great prints are not an accident, and consistency is...

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Ever wish your edits moved fast? We sat down with Jay Peterson of Evoto to unpack how AI can make portrait workflows radically quicker without removing the realism that clients recognize and trust. Peterson explains Evoto’s slider-first, standalone desktop editor and how its proprietary algorithms target the work that slows pros down—frequency separation, dodging and burning, glasses glare, and f...

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In the preview of his Photo Imaging CONNECT keynote, Stuart MacDonald — magician, filmmaker, entrepreneur — explores how LEAN principles, continuous improvement, and ruthless clarity transformed a faceplant into standing ovations, a win on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and a top-10 finish at the world championships.

MacDonald takes us through the nerve-wracking world of competitive magic, ...

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If you think great industry breakthroughs happen on a show floor, think again. We sat down with Dscoop’s Peter Van Teeseling and Chris Hyde to unpack how a trust-first, member-led community is helping HP print businesses grow faster through intentional connections, candid playbook sharing, and events designed for action, not spectacle.

We trace Dscoop’s 20-year arc from a “crazy idea” to...

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What if the best product designer is the one you barely notice? We sit down with Mediaclip CEO Marion Duchesne to explore how photo and product personalization is moving from heavy, time-consuming builders to fast, elegant flows that deliver a finished result in a single action. From early DVD slideshows to Flash and now a cloud-native, API-first platform, her team’s throughline is simple: clean ...

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What does it take for a family photo lab to thrive across three generations and multiple technology upheavals? We sit down with David Buchbinder of Alkit to trace an unvarnished journey from New York City retail counters to a lean, volume-first lab that ships in three days. Buchbinder walks us through the hard calls: expanding into Kodak-branded stores, then cutting overhead and rebuilding around...

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A 1938 basement lab that processed black-and-white alongside amateur rolls now runs a high-speed digital operation that can ship school orders in about two days. The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Richmond Professional Lab’s Ted Bullard and Josh Lewis to map the decisions that made digital not just viable, but superior, for volume photographers who demand both quality and speed.

Bull...

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If your studio juggles spreadsheets, calendars, and three different apps just to run picture day, this conversation will feel like oxygen. The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Scott Rodgers and Peter Koop from Airstudio to unpack how a platform built by school photographers solves the messy middle of volume photography—linking CRM, senior bookings, staff scheduling, payroll, equipment, workflow...

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A milestone worth pressing pause for: The Dead Pixels Society is marking our 250th episode with the most popular episodes of the year, from AI that actually helps you create less chaos to sales that feel like service instead of pressure. 

Ever found yourself frantically scrolling through thousands of photos trying to find that one perfect shot you know exists somewhere? This frustration sparked th...

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Ever wonder how a “boring” photo of a metal part could move a seven-figure sale? Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society sits down with veteran photographer Kirk Voclain to unpack four decades of pivots, from a cereal‑box Instamatic to seniors that paid the bills, then into commercial, industrial, and real estate work that sells outcomes, not megapixels. Voclain’s story is part grit, part curiosit...

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Ever wonder how a school photo lab with 600,000 students a year keeps quality high when half the photographers are new each season? We sat down with Robert Ste-Marie, CEO of 36Pix, to explore Eva. This data-driven evaluation platform scores every image so managers can catch problems fast, coach with clarity, and tie rewards to real outcomes. No fluff—just the metrics that move sales: smiles, clos...

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Taxes drain more profit than most owners realize, and that single fact changes how we build, run, and sell a creative business. The Dead Pixels Society sits down with accounting expert Tanya Lawrence to map out the moves that protect cash today and increase valuation tomorrow—without drowning in jargon or guesswork.

She starts with the foundation: Choosing the right tax treatment as your...

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What if the problem isn’t your logo, but the foundation under it? We sit down with brand strategist Jessica Adanich to explore how real positioning, consistent visuals, and honest storytelling turn a business from forgettable to first choice. Adanich’s journey from sculpture and glass blowing to leading marketing at Mace, then launching Design Pod Studio, sets the stage for clear, field-tested ad...

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A musician’s tour, a borrowed camera, and a rowboat on Central Park’s lake: that’s the unlikely path that led Ash Fox from nightlife photography to building a full-service proposal planning studio in New York. This interview digs into how a niche chose her, why proposals feel more honest than weddings, and the exact steps that turn a fantasy location into a smooth, unforgettable yes.

Fox...

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The Dead Pixels Society sits down with SPAC’s leadership, Coree Cooper and Calvin Harrell Jr., to unpack how a volunteer-driven nonprofit became the world’s largest gathering for school, sports, and volume studios—and why its focus on workflows, profitability, and community sets it apart.

Harrell describes how SPAC evolved from film-era hotel meetups into a global hub with attendees from...