setting up a studio

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clyde

clyde

Winger
has anyone on here ever thought about doing this?

thinking about it as i need a change of career, but just wondering about the set up costs? and exactly what i would need? also loads more stuff running through my head like what to charge people and how to be efficient in getting prints done etc, anyone got any good starting points or know of any sites with help about this kinda thing?

cheers all.
 


I've thought about doing it before but I just don't think I'm good enough yet. Surely for a studio all you'd need is some space, lights, screens etc. then you've got a pretty basic but flexible studio setup.
 
I've thought about it as a change of career like - I know I'm not good enough yet but practice makes perfect n all that...

He's right like, a decent space with some screens and lights and you should be away.

There's a row of little shops near me and I often look at the smaller ones and think about taking the jump - haven't got round to reseraching costs etc.
 
I would think that setting up a business at the present moment would be very tough indeed

i run a sign/print/design company, and let me tell times are very very hard indeed, and i employ 9 folks, its a lot of responsibility

prospective customers are extremely hard to find at the moment, and competition is fierce

what i am finding is people are just not spending on non essential things, and unfortunatly my business has suffered in the last two years

don't get me wrong here we will survive, of that i am sure, but bloody hell its tough

some companies use this climate as an excuse to put prices up, and not give wage rises, but believe me we are not its real and hard
 
Hue Jorgan said:
I would think that setting up a business at the present moment would be very tough indeed

i run a sign/print/design company, and let me tell times are very very hard indeed, and i employ 9 folks, its a lot of responsibility

prospective customers are extremely hard to find at the moment, and competition is fierce

what i am finding is people are just not spending on non essential things, and unfortunatly my business has suffered in the last two years

don't get me wrong here we will survive, of that i am sure, but bloody hell its tough

some companies use this climate as an excuse to put prices up, and not give wage rises, but believe me we are not its real and hard
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100% correct mate - it's really having an effect on everyone.
Mine is just a pipe dream i think...it would be very hard to setup a togging business to start with, nevermind the fact there's already one within a mile or so of the units I was looking at :confused:

I wouldn't dream of leaving a well paid job where I'm secure, especially as i have a young family now...but I'm not even 30 yet so there's plenty of time :)
 
one thing I would say is if you have the bollix to start your own buisness, and you have thought it thru clearly then go for it without a doubt

you will never know unless you try

yes its hard, but whatever you put in you reap the rewards yourself.

you have to take the crunchy with the smooth, and ffs make sure you have no immediate competition

i once had a bloke in our place opening a coffee shop on high street near here, there was a big one in the leuisre centre, and one a few door down from where he was opening, I could see it was gonna be next to impossible for him to succeed, unless his stuff was very very cheap

alas he lasted 6 months, and he still owes me £300 :-(

folks never think this thru much

another customer was opening a flash sunbed/beauty salon, and she had spent 30k doing up the inside of the shop, and it looked fooking mint, she came to us for a sign and only had £100-ish to spend on it

needless to say I thought her priorities were wrong, and she had not thought about the sign till a week before opening, the sign we made did not reflect the image her business wanted to portray (it looked cheap, because it was!), and lo and behold she came back a few months later and spent £700 on a 'posher' looking sign and her business picked up almost immediatly, I shit you not.
 
Don't give up the day job.

Try part-time first, such as evening and weekends.
I've got a pal who owned a shop but did weddings on a weekend and portraits either at his home, or the clients.
He's still got a steady workflow even through he's retired
No need to going to the expense of getting premises until your reasonably established.
If you do a good job, work will come via word of mouth recomendations.
 
tom tom macute said:
Don't give up the day job.

Try part-time first, such as evening and weekends.
I've got a pal who owned a shop but did weddings on a weekend and portraits either at his home, or the clients.
He's still got a steady workflow even through he's retired
No need to going to the expense of getting premises until your reasonably established.
If you do a good job, work will come via word of mouth recomendations.
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Good advice
 
In my job I commission commercial photography quite a bit, and I'm just back from a 3 day shoot with a north east based photographer.

Conservatively speaking, his basic equipment alone would cost in the region of £200k. You'd need around £15k just for a competitive camera at the high commercial end. Forget about good DSLRs. You need a Hassie or Phase One.

That's not to say you couldn't make a living from it. But if you wanted to do the interesting stuff, there's a massive financial investment involved. You could make money from weddings, but it's a lot of work for little reward imo.
 
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not spavin said:
In my job I commission commercial photography quite a bit, and I'm just back from a 3 day shoot with a north east based photographer.

Conservatively speaking, his basic equipment alone would cost in the region of £200k. You'd need around £15k just for a competitive camera at the high commercial end. Forget about good DSLRs. You need a Hassie or Phase One.

That's not to say you couldn't make a living from it. But if you wanted to do the interesting stuff, there's a massive financial investment involved. You could make money from weddings, but it's a lot of work for little reward imo.
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And you have to be bloody good to survive. I make a few thousand (a very few) a year from photography but there's no way I'd give up the day job.

An acquaintance of mine set up a studio in Edinburgh, he's a top notch photographer but is still struggling to make a living. If you go to Talk Photography and do a search for "Edinburgh Gary" you'll see some of his stuff.
 
AB22 Easy Tiger said:
And you have to be bloody good to survive. I make a few thousand (a very few) a year from photography but there's no way I'd give up the day job.

An acquaintance of mine set up a studio in Edinburgh, he's a top notch photographer but is still struggling to make a living. If you go to Talk Photography and do a search for "Edinburgh Gary" you'll see some of his stuff.
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It's not a job you make money from til you become someone with a reputation. It's a saturated market - I wouldn't consider giving a commission to someone new unless they were a former assistant of someone I used to work with. And even in that case, they have to have both a commercial portfolio and a cost base that was a fraction of the the market demands.
 
Depends what kind of stuff you want to be doing really, I know a couple of people who set up in the NE and have done quite well out of it - making a decent living.

One's main income is these arty looking 'lifestyle' portraits of families, bairns and dogs n that - you know the type. They mostly end up printed onto Canvas which she does inhouse as well, as well as normal framed prints.

Another bloke's main income is from photographing the youngun's sports events and awards ceremonies, along with proms - that kind of thing. He takes the photos and prints and mounts them right there and then, sells them to the parents. Reckons he makes a shitload on that alone.

I think the initial startup costs is your main issue, especially if you're buying large format printers n that...although there is (or was, under the previous government) a canny bit of dosh available (both grants and loans) for business startups in the NE so that could be an avenue to look down.

For the above type of photos, a DSLR and a basic studio lighting kit (plus printer!) would be fine to start with - just depends if you want to do that kind of thing I guess. If you wanted to be working further up the spectrum as Spav and AB22 have mentioned I think it'd be a lot harder.

tom tom macute said:
Don't give up the day job.

Try part-time first, such as evening and weekends.
I've got a pal who owned a shop but did weddings on a weekend and portraits either at his home, or the clients.
He's still got a steady workflow even through he's retired
No need to going to the expense of getting premises until your reasonably established.
If you do a good job, work will come via word of mouth recomendations.
Click to expand...
This basically. ^^
 
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Just read back my posts and think I was being a bit too negative.

It depends on aspirations, and we all have to start somewhere. As andym mentions, you could set up a 'portrait' style studio and go from there. Set up costs need not be prohibitive, and you could probably make a living from it. Tough time to be doing it though - people are tightening their belts and getting portraits done is a luxury.

You could probably rent studio space on a day by day basis - that might be a way in.
 
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