Studio Location
If you have decided to go into photography full time after making pictures for a few years, working to get experience in a good portrait studio for three or four years, or finishing a photography course in one of the fine photography trade schools, colleges, or universities, you will need to decide where to locate your establishment.
Most portrait studios are started in a small community or particular section of a city with potential portrait business. Many studios depend largely on getting a good part of the yearly senior portraits from the community's high schools. After doing the senior class portraits in a school, there is a tendency to add another school and then another as the years go on.
Besides adult portraits and high school senior portraits, baby portraits and wedding photography are important segments of a successful portrait studio. Some studios specialize in portraiture of children by orienting all their promotion, decoration, equipment, and presentation in this direction. In the past few years, there has been an increase in the photographing of family groups, pets, and children in the home atmosphere or outdoors in environmental settings. Large dye transfer and other color print finishes, sold in expensive, museum type frames, have been responsible for building an increasing number of portrait studio businesses into more than $100,000 endeavors.
Initially, you will have to decide whether you want to start working from your home, build a studio, or lease a building. Location of your business and studio should be of prime consideration. It should be located relatively close to a busy shopping area with ample parking nearby. Your building should be large enough to have a pleasant reception area and adequate studio space for both individual and group portraits.
Seek the best location available that will be within your estimated operating budget. Only you will know what this should be, after talking to other professional photographers and your banker. By all means, check first on your local zoning ordinance to see if the law permits you to build or rent property for a photography studio.
Although you may start by renting space, it would be advisable to keep in mind that you may someday, after building a successful photography business, want to own the location for your business. Parking, a good display window, and a place for a sign are other necessities in order to make a speedier beginning in business. As your business grows, parking space will become more and more important. Take into consideration, also, that the farther you are from a main street or downtown shopping area, the more you will have to spend on advertising and promotion to keep your name and location constantly in view of the buying public.
It will be worth your time to check on the potential growth of the area in which you expect to start, as well as the tax history of the community. Leasing with an option to buy after two or three years is something else to consider. The general appearance and layout of the building you use, along with the adjoining properties, should be appealing to customers. A visit with real estate agents to discuss what you are looking for would prove helpful in gaining valuable knowledge before making a final decision.
Your ability and willingness to learn and to work long, hard hours to get a business going are crucial no matter where you are located. An artistic nature and the ability to produce high quality photographs, which will win awards in competition with other professional photographers, will attract an increasing number of customers to your business, even though your location may not be the most convenient one available.
Business Competition
All successful people and businesses face competition. This should be met with an open mind and a favorable attitude. Competition is not limited to others in the portrait photography business. It can be the jeweler, drugstore, gift shop, or TV and appliance dealer down the street. Each family has just so much money to spend after paying for food, clothing, and housing. And every other business is after the same extra dollars that will be spent for luxuries. It then becomes necessary in order to be successful in the portrait field to make use of promoting, selling, publicizing, advertising, and presenting your photographs. Making the buying public conscious of your studio and desirous of owning what you have to sell is what will make the real difference in the amount of sales you total up at the end of the year.
Other kinds of competition you will have to be prepared for are price cutting, premium offers, contests, telephone solicitation, door to door sales, and gimmicks of all kinds to attract portrait photography customers to competitors.
Fortunately, with the higher cost of traveling, necessity of better bookkeeping, requirements for business licenses, existence of professional photography organizations, and greater number of academically trained photographers, there seem to be fewer "fly by nighters" today than in years past. Larger, automated businesses are doing most of the volume of portrait business in this country today.
In response to increased competition, a portrait studio in Alabama operates a wedding shop adjacent to the studio. Wedding dresses, bridesmaids' dresses, and renting of tuxedos are featured, along with a catering service and gowns for mothers of the bride and groom. Special discounts are given to the bride on her wedding pictures with the purchase of her dress. The addition of a wedding shop has substantially increased the studio's wedding photography business.
