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I’ve been quite humbled in the last few years by the difficulty in attracting people to give you money to take their portrait. Just because you have a photo studio doesn’t make you a professional portrait photographer. It’s been a re-learning experience to figure out what people want from me and what people are willing to pay me for it, when pursuing portrait clients. That said, being a portrait photographer has never been a focus of mine and I’ve sort of actively avoided this my entire photography career, as I didn’t have a studio and it always felt like more work than it was worth. To be honest, my insight is that people don’t have much money to put towards portraits and expectations are high for the little money they will pay (I realize my perspective is a bit warped as a commercial and editorial photographer). What might’ve been a no-brainer career pursuit a decade ago is now challenging and perhaps not advisable.
All that said, I think I finally got to a place where I have things a bit more figured out. My “Keep it 100” portrait sessions, heavily inspired by a similar setup done down in Nashville by Jeremy Cowart, have been both a ton of fun and a bit more financially justified. I have a longer post in the works that goes into further detail on the backstory and process, however, I will say that providing an amazing service (on hundred fun and unique portraits for $150) does wonders for word of mouth and in more recent months, I’ve built up some real demand for this service. This has me wondering if I should make portraits a more regular offering at the studio.
Additionally, I recently saw some work from Ivan Weiss, a London-based studio portrait photographer, that further inspired me to want to focus more of my time on offering a more well-rounded portrait studio experience. While there’s a lot of potential to make really great work, there are also real expenses involved (backdrops, cameras and lenses, lighting) that make this approach less appealing to me. Then, there’s the even more challenging reality of finding higher end clients that are both willing to spend more appropriate amounts of money ($600 and up!) on great images, while also maintaining the creative approach that inspires me to want to do this. The challenges are so great that I will likely stick with the lower end approach. Keep it quick, easy, and affordable, while also making it low stakes enough for me to experiment, get weird, and have some fun along the way.
One other idea I hope to explore is to turn my more affordable “Keep it 100” portrait model into a more of a social experience. In a previous life, I ran a website called everyoneisfamous.com, in which I would go out to parties and shows, take a bunch of candid pictures of people, and then post them to the photo blog. I like the idea of dusting off the website and making it more studio portrait approach, in which anyone who wants to participate will get their images on the public website for others to see. We could then offer the setup out in the wild at various events and perhaps even bring the whole thing on the road and do it in other cities. That all gets me excited and feels like a model that might make sense, as part of the payment then becomes exposure for myself and my portrait setup, thus allowing me to keep my rates low enough for anyone to participate.
-Clayton
A big part of why I decided to make a photo studio happen in the waning days of the covid lockdowns was that prior to covid I’d been getting a lot of food/beverage job inquiries, didn’t have a studio space, and I thought people would be itching to get back out and do shit, make shit, mingle, once the lockdowns were over. While I wasn’t too off in my assessment, where I went wrong was determining what the shit was. I suspected the photo studio would mostly be busy with photo shoots, both of my own and other photographers. While surely, we have done a number of large projects in the space over the last ~three years, it has been more heavily used as an event space and portrait studio than the food and beverage studio which I imagined. This is largely on me. All of those food/beverage job inquiries I’d been getting sort of organically stopped happening once I had the studio in place, and I didn’t put much effort into changing that. Instead, I focused on the portrait and people work and put lots of effort into hosting events, which I was really enjoying, and various side projects.
I don’t regret any of this, but I have been wondering if I should put my focus back on the food/beverage work that I’d imagined primarily utilizing the space for. Last week, we wrapped a large food project that I really enjoyed. I did a cookbook shoot earlier in the year which I also really loved and wish I could do more of. Neither of those projects actually happened in the studio I designed to accommodate them, ironically.
As is sometimes the case in life, when you expect something will happen, the world has a funny way of making sure the opposite thing happens. That said, the studio is still an amazing place to do food/beverage photography, and it would be a no brainer for me to put more effort into make that happen next year, be it my own shoots or those of others. After a challenging few years in the commercial photography industry, things are trending better right now and I hope it continues into the new year.
Additionally, there are already plans to do more high end motion spec work to help land new clients. Of course, at the end of the day, these things are time consuming, challenging, and it will be an ongoing process and big commitment to get where I think we can, if we stick with it. I’m consistently inspired and motivated by the Cleveland shop BurkleHagen, and think we could be a similar resource for brands looking for top tier, beautiful, fresh food/beverage photography and video. The challenge is that I really love pursuing lots of different creative avenues, and this idea would largely require a full-time, all-in effort. I think I have some decisions to make and I think the health of the commercial market will likely help guide me in making them, but that’s a more complicated subject for a different day.
-Clayton
Becoming a Bar Owner in 2025
Today is New Years Eve — who wouldn’t want to own a bar on New Years Eve?!$!$?
This is slight sarcasm. I’m not a huge fan of crowded gatherings, and am generally of mixed feelings on socializing generally, however, I love bars. I could spend every day in a bar (not necessarily drinking, I like the vibes and the human dynamic, mom!) and I’ve long wanted to own a bar, though had never made a serious effort to do so myself — until this year. While it’s true I did make an effort to re-open some kind of bar/restaurant concept in the former Orkenoy space inside the Kimball Arts Center (where my studio is located), the level of my effort was fairly minimal. It didn’t go far beyond talking to basically everyone I know about it. Thinking, talking, researching, talking, thinking. Enough time went by that the space got leased out to an office tenant and the dream died… sort of.
Now, there’s another bar on the market and available that checks most of my boxes and is already quite aligned on concept (at least one concept I’ve been stewing on). Still, this idea is quite a long shot at this point, but it’s one I’m seriously considering. Much like the photobook shop dream and having a family member in that business, I also have family on both sides of the bar business (ownership and alcoholism). The latter reality causes both of my parents to think this is a terrible idea, and their perspective needs to be considered.
Of course, owning a bar introduces a slew of other new challenges and life adjustments. It would be a 180-degree career pivot and I would realistically need to give up most, if not all, of my photography ambitions. This is the main reason I’ve mostly been stewing on the idea rather than acting on it. But with the commercial photo landscape being quite down from where it once was and its future also very much in question, the idea started to sound like it might actually make some sense (and, possibly, cents).
One of my biggest takeaways from the last three years of running a studio is how much I’ve enjoyed curating and hosting events. I’m going to dig more into this topic in a few days, however, there are quite a lot of parallels to what I’m already doing today with owning and operating a bar; I’m just currently doing it without a liquor license.
My two biggest takeaways from investigating the bar idea further were:
First, that I bring more to the table than I had realized! It was an ego-boost of sorts, hearing confidence from a number of people, including a partner at a big restaurant group, that I should open a bar and that I have more to offer than I gave myself credit for. My self-deprecating style had initially caused me to doubt the whole endeavor strictly because I have no experience running a bar myself.
Second, and even more reassuringly, was the amount of help, openness, and enthusiasm I received from existing bar owners and operators that I reached out to for advice. Initially, I was hesitant to even do so, thinking they would see me more as future competition. In reality, I had people sending me complicated documents filled with projections and numbers I would’ve never considered; I had people coming out to see the space and give me their honest, experienced opinions; I had people running numbers for me and giving me free consultation. It was a reassuring experience, and while I know running a bar would be wildly challenging and likely all-consuming, I love the idea that I wouldn’t be doing it alone.
On that note, back to stewing on it. Until then, if anyone wants to invest $20,000-$100,000 into an exciting new bar opportunity, you know where to find me!
-Clayton